Last week, a federal judge in West Virginia similarly rejected a bid to remove Trump from the state’s ballot.
The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that Donald Trump can remain on the state’s primary ballot, rejecting an attempt to remove the former president under the US Constitution’s “insurrectionist ban.”
The decision comes just over one week after the Colorado Supreme Court made the bombshell ruling that Trump should be removed from the state’s 2024 GOP primary ballot for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.
The challengers have argued that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies Trump from holding federal office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution after taking an oath to protect it.
Last week, a federal judge in West Virginia similarly rejected a bid to remove Trump from the state’s ballot.
The question will ultimately be decided by the US Supreme Court, which constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley says “will be overturned because it is wrong on the history and the language of the 14th Amendment.”
As I have previously written, the disqualification of Trump is based on the use of a long-dormant provision in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
After the Civil War, House members were outraged to see Alexander Stephens, the Confederate vice president, seeking to take the oath with an array of other former Confederate senators and military officers.
They had all previously taken the same oath and then violated it to join a secession movement that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
That was a true rebellion.
January 6, 2021, was a riot.
Unlike with Colorado, the Michigan case challenging Trump’s eligibility was dismissed early on in the process and never reached trial, after a Court of Claims judge who first got the case ruled that state law doesn’t give election officials the ability to police the eligibility of presidential primary candidates. The Judge also ruled that the case shouldn’t be decided in the courts – a decision which was upheld by the Michigan Court of Appeals, which wrote “At the moment, the only event about to occur is the presidential primary election. But as explained, whether Trump is disqualified is irrelevant to his placement on that particular ballot.”
According to the Michigan Supreme Court, the anti-Trump challengers “have identified no analogous provision in the Michigan Election Law that requires someone seeking the office of President of the United States to attest to their legal qualification to hold the office.”
