Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) plans to try to block Democratic nominee and New York socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier from taking her seat in Congress if she wins the Nov. 3 election — over her saying she used the American flag as a napkin.
Burchett told The Post he intends to make the unusual parliamentary move when the new Congress convenes in January — using a simple majority to prevent newly elected lawmakers from being seated before they take the oath of office.
“You take an oath to uphold the Constitution, and and you’re pretty much disavowing it right there. I just think we’ve lost our compass,” he said in an interview.
He cited the Chevalier’s incendiary flag comment, which he called an affront to his own family’s military service. His father was a World War II Marine, while his dad’s brother served on a Navy destroyer.
But it is the memory of his maternal uncle — and a family heirloom — that most deeply connects Burchett to the flag.
“I’m looking at a 48-star flag that hung on my uncle’s casket and [he] died fighting the Nazis, and then see somebody going to get elected to Congress in New York who said they use that flag for a napkin,” he said.
“I thought, man, that same dadgum flag hung on my uncle’s casket. It’s the same flag that that men and women fought and died for to free the slaves, and that’s what they’re using as a napkin.
“If we vote to seat them, is one Democrat going to say no? I’m not going to vote to seat those people. Are they gonna say anything? Democrats died for this country as well as Republicans did.”
The threat by Burchett, who flew with President Trump on Air Force One last week to Tennessee, is an early sign of the intense partisan clashes set to flare at the start of a new Congress, where Democrats are poised to make gains and a cadre of left-wing lawmakers including Chevalier are set to yank the party to the left after winning safe-seat primaries.
Burchett said he would make the motion whether Republicans retain control of the House or become the minority party. “I think the Democrat Party needs to . . . get some guts, and get their rudder back for the working people,” he fumed.
Burchett’s uncle on his mother’s side, Roy Hicks, was wounded shortly after D-Day battling German forces in the bloody earthen embankments near Normandy known as the hedgerows. Burchett still has his uncle’s Purple Heart and keeps the flag that covered Hicks’ coffin in his Knoxville congressional office.
But Burchett’s gambit could trigger a contentious fight over who gets to serve in Congress, potentially delaying the House’s work.
Contested elections “can muck up the legislative process and take time away from real governing,” said Dr. Jeffery Jenkins, a political scientist at the University of Southern California Price School of Public Policy.
There have been more than 600 contested elections in the nation’s history, but they haven’t been “truly meaningful” since the turn of the 20th century,” he said.
“That said, the last decade or so has made me wonder if we’re in a ‘new normal’ for what’s possible. And that might include turning back the clock to strategies the parties used a century ago.”
Chevalier — who will face Republican Jomo M. Williams in the general election — made the controversial comment in a 2019 Twitter post that has since been deleted: “I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me.”
Chevalier, who upended Rep. Adriano Espaillat in the primary for the 13th Congressional District, which covers northern Manhattan and the western Bronx, later said she regretted the comment.
It was just one flashpoint in the Mamdani-backed socialist’s history of controversy.
She took part in the 2024 campus takeover at Columbia University and was a key player in an anti-Israel group that once said it was “fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.”
She attended an anti-Israel rally the day after the horrific Hamas Oct. 7 attack in Israel. In an online post during the 2020 election, she called the US a “f—ing disgrace” and called President Joe Biden a “war criminal.” Chevalier’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.
On Jan. 3, 2027, she will become a new member of Congress – but not if Burchett can help it.
The Constitution states that “Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own Members,” and there have been contentious floor fights over seating lawmakers.
Rep. Adam Clayton Powell (D-NY) was excluded from representing his Harlem-based district in 1967 — and the Supreme Court ultimately ruled in 1969 that the House had exceeded its authority by excluding him after he had been duly elected and met the constitutional qualifications for office.
Without any election irregularities or constitutional qualifications issues to point to, Burchett’s effort is an uphill battle.
“If we refused to seat folks in Congress who said things that we strongly disagreed with, nobody in the House would be seated,” said GOP operative John Feehery, a former senior House leadership aide.
Despite his fury at Chevalier, Burchett has much warmer feelings for the original “Squad” member, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). He called AOC “my buddy” and has endearingly referred to her as a “friendly neighborhood Marxist.”
