Another attempt to rig the 2024 presidential election against former President Donald Trump has failed. In Michigan, a judge has ruled that Democrats cannot keep the GOP frontrunner off the ballot.
Trump’s opponents have argued in multiple states that the former president is ineligible for office under the 14th Amendment. They state that Trump’s actions surrounding the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol constituted insurrection against the U.S, writes Fox News.
Michigan Court of Claims Judge James Redford rejected that argument, however.
“The judicial action of removing a candidate from the presidential ballot and prohibiting them from running essentially strips Congress of its ability to ‘by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such a disability,'” Redford wrote.
“The question of whether he is ineligible due to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment presents a political question that is nonjusticiable at the present time,” the judge continued. “The question of whether Donald Trump is qualified or disqualified from appearing on the 2024 general election ballot in Michigan is not ripe for adjudication at this time.”
The ruling in Michigan comes as Democrats made their closing pitch to keep Trump from appearing on the ballot in Colorado.
The Associated Press reported that a judge “heard closing arguments on whether former President Donald Trump is barred from the ballot by a provision of the U.S. Constitution that forbids those who ‘engaged in insurrection’ from holding office.
The hearing came on the heels of two losses elsewhere for advocates who are trying to remove Trump from the ballot under Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which bars from office those who swore an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” against it. The measure has only been used a handful of times since the period after the Civil War, when it was intended to stop former Confederates from swamping government positions.
Last week, the Minnesota Supreme Court dodged the question of whether the provision applies to Trump, who is so far dominating the Republican presidential primary. It dismissed a lawsuit to toss him off that state’s primary ballot by saying that political parties can allow whomever they want to qualify for primaries.”
The ruling, however, did leave the possibility for Trump to be removed from the general election ballot if the former president wins the Republican nomination, something Democrats are almost certainly rooting for.
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