(The Center Square) – The Michigan Supreme Court has refused to hear a case that would have attempted to ban Donald Trump from being on the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot.
In November, Michigan Court of Appeals Justice James Redford ruled Trump would remain on the primary ballot. The state’s highest court declined to hear an appeal.
There has been a nationwide movement to have Trump removed from state ballots across the country, alleging he incited an insurrection against the government on Jan. 6, 2021, during a speech he gave at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump has been barred from Colorado’s state ballot by that state’s Supreme Court under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
“The radical left in Michigan attempted to ban President Trump from the states’ 2024 ballot just like Colorado,” Arizona Republican U.S. Congressman Andy Biggs wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Fortunately, the Michigan Supreme Court told them no. States must continue to push back on these lunatics!”
Free Speech For People, a legal advocacy group, is trying to get Trump removed from the ballot in Oregon.
Free Speech For People said Wednesday the Michigan Supreme Court ruling won’t impact its case in Oregon.
“The Michigan Supreme Court did not address any questions arising under the U.S. Constitution,” the legal group said in a statement posted on its website. “It did not rule on Trump’s claim that section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment requires federal implementing legislation; it did not rule on Trump’s claim that only Congress can decide presidential candidates’ qualifications; it did not rule on Trump’s claim that the president of the United States is not an ‘officer of the United States’; and it did not rule on any of various obscure legal theories raised by Trump’s supporters. It simply declined to overrule a lower court ruling that the Michigan state challenge process does not allow challenges to presidential candidates at the primary stage.”
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington brought the case before the Colorado high court.
The legal advocacy group stated in a media release the Colorado Supreme Court ruling affirmed “that Trump engaged in insurrection and that his actions on and leading up to January 6, 2021 are not protected by the First Amendment.”
State of California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis on Dec. 20 called for California’s Secretary of State Shirley Weber to remove Trump from that state’s presidential primary ballot.
Maine’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is reviewing a case to have Trump removed from their presidential primary ballot.
Maine and New Hampshire also had judges rule against attempts to have Trump barred from the presidential ballot in those states, according to The Providence Journal.
Trump responded on his social media platform Truth to the Michigan case.
Trump posted, “The Michigan Supreme Court has strongly and rightfully denied the Desperate Democrat attempt to take the leading Candidate in the 2024 Presidential Election, me, off the ballot in the Great State of Michigan. This pathetic gambit to rig the Election has failed all across the Country, including in States that have historically leaned heavily toward the Democrats. Colorado is the only State to have fallen prey to the scheme. That 4-3 Colorado Supreme Court decision, which they themselves stayed, thus keeping me on the ballot as we go up to the U.S. Supreme Court, is being ridiculed and mocked all over the World. We have to prevent the 2024 Election from being Rigged and Stolen like they stole 2020 – just look at the complete mess we have as a result with Crooked Joe Biden violently destroying everything in his sight, from our once-great Economy to our once-fair Justice System. We have to save our Country from decline and the Radical Left. Make America Great Again!”
Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Secretary of State, wrote a Sept. 13, 2023, op-ed in the Washington Post in which she said it was up to the courts to decide if Trump could run for office again.
“Whether Trump is eligible to run for president again is a decision not for secretaries of state but for the courts,” Benson wrote.
As The Center Square reported, Trump is facing a federal trial for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021. The Washington D.C. trial is set to start March 4. Federal prosecutors charged Trump with four counts related to contesting the 2020 election and the storming of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. The charges include conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction, and conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted, according to the indictment. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
