Michigan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a bid to have Donald Trump removed from next year’s presidential primary ballot over his attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 election.
The state’s high court upheld an appeals court decision ruling that the GOP frontrunner could stay on the ballot despite concerns around his eligibility to hold office in connection with his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. A group of voters had attempted to have Trump disqualified under a constitutional provision banning people from obtaining office who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution if they’ve previously sworn an oath to protect it.
The Michigan ruling contrasts with a decision from the Colorado Supreme Court last week which booted Trump off its primary ballot under the same constitutional rules. Colorado’s decision is currently paused pending an appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court is widely expected to settle the question of Trump’s eligibility.
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The case in Michigan never went to trial, unlike in Colorado, and had been rejected at multiple stages before Wednesday’s decision. The Michigan Court of Claims ruled in November that election officials did not have the authority to disqualify presidential primary candidates under state law, and that the question of eligibility was a political matter. That decision was upheld by the Michigan Court of Appeals before the Supreme Court’s order Wednesday.
The challengers’ case was based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a provision ratified after the Civil War which was used to stop former Confederates from holding office. Legal scholars have debated whether the provision can be applied to the office of the president.
Though Michigan’s Supreme Court justices did not explain their reasoning for their decision, they wrote in the order that they were “not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this court.”
Justice Elizabeth Welch nevertheless wrote that “Colorado’s election laws differ from Michigan’s laws in a material way” relevant to the case brought by those seeking Trump’s disqualification, adding that the 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.”
The lawsuit was filed in September by advocacy group Free Speech For People, which stressed that the decision Wednesday was made on procedural grounds.
“We are disappointed by the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision,” Ron Fein, the organization’s legal director, said in a statement. “However, the Michigan Supreme Court did not rule out that the question of Donald Trump’s disqualification for engaging in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution may be resolved at a later stage,” Fein added. “The decision isn’t binding on any court outside Michigan and we continue our current and planned legal actions in other states to enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment against Donald Trump.”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who in a Dec. 22 op-ed for The Daily Beast called Trump a “threat to democracy,” took to X, formerly Twitter, with her perspective on things as the state’s top elections official.
“As I said in the @washingtonpost in September, as secretary of state in a key battleground state—and a former election law professor and law school dean—I am keenly aware of the responsibility that secretaries who serve as their states’ chief election officers bear in reassuring voters that our democracy is secure, fair and accessible, and that election results are an accurate reflection of their will,” Benson wrote. “This responsibility includes ensuring that the decisions we make are nonpartisan, follow the law, uphold the Constitution and protect democracy.”
Benson went on to call the argument that Trump’s attempts to subvert the election disqualify him from again holding office as “compelling.” But, she said, “significant counterarguments and legal and factual ambiguities make this theory far from a slam dunk.”
“Ultimately, as our Constitution establishes, the U.S. Supreme Court must provide the clarity and finality to this matter,” Benson concluded, with a link to her WaPo piece. “I continue to hope they do this sooner rather than later to ensure that we can move forward into 2024’s election season focused on ensuring all voters are fully informed and universally engaged in deciding the issues at stake.”
