In Michigan, a state judge has rendered a decision in a lawsuit seeking to bar former President Donald Trump from featuring on the 2024 ballot under a provision from the U.S. Constitution dating back to the Civil War era.
“Court of Claims Judge James Redford rejected arguments that Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol meant the court had to declare him ineligible for the presidency. Redford wrote that, because Trump followed state law in qualifying for the primary ballot, he cannot remove the former president,” The Associated Press reported Tuesday following the ruling.
It was the second such decision in a week striking down lawsuits seeking to bar Trump from ballots under the insurrection provision of the 14th Amendment.
Additionally, Redford determined that the decision on whether Trump should be disqualified from holding elected office under the amendment’s provision, which prohibits individuals who have “engaged in insurrection,” should rest with Congress.
Redford said deciding whether an event constituted “a rebellion or insurrection and whether or not someone participated in it” are questions that are best left to Congress and not “one single judicial officer.”
Noting further, he wrote that a judge “cannot in any manner or form possibly embody the represented qualities of every citizen of the nation — as does the House of Representatives and the Senate.”
The AP went on to report that Free Speech For People, “a liberal group that has brought 14th Amendment cases in a number of states, said it will immediately appeal the ruling to the Michigan Court of Appeals.”
Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech For People, said after the ruling was handed down: “We are dissatisfied with the trial court’s decision and we are appealing it right away.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung replied by listing several previous unsuccessful efforts to exclude the former president from the ballot based on the same provision.
“Each and every one of these ridiculous cases have LOST because they are all un-Constitutional left-wing fantasies orchestrated by monied allies of the Biden campaign seeking to turn the election over to the courts and deny the American people the right to choose their next president,” Cheung said
