The Michigan supreme court sided with a lower appeals court finding that Donald Trump could remain on state ballots despite accusations the former president violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution by engaging “in insurrection or rebellion.”
“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,” the Michigan court of appeals earlier ruled dismissing the case against Trump.
Last Tuesday, the Colorado supreme court ruled Trump was ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 ballot, citing it “would be a wrongful act under the Election Code,” specifically Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War to disqualify former Confederates from office. The section outlines that:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
The move led the Trump campaign to announce it would file a legal challenge. A spokesman for the former president, Steven Cheung, said Trump and his staff “have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these unAmerican lawsuits.”
The plaintiffs, Free Speech for People, failed to identify any “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,” Michigan supreme court associate justice Elizabeth Welch wrote on Wednesday, contextualizing the ruling in comparison to Colorado’s election law.
The pressure group mounted a similarly unsuccessful challenge in Minnesota and recently filed a case in Oregon.