A Michigan judge ruled Tuesday that former President Donald Trump will remain on the state's primary ballot, dealing a blow to the effort to stop Trump's candidacy with a Civil War-era Constitutional clause.
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. Additionally, he said, it should be up to Congress to decide whether Trump is disqualified under a section of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment that bars from office a person who "engaged in insurrection."
"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.
Earlier this month, the Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit seeking to bar Trump from the 2024 primary ballot under the constitutional provision that forbids those who "engaged in insurrection" from holding office.
That state's high court declined to become the first in history to use Section Three of the 14th Amendment to prevent someone from running for the presidency. However, it said in its ruling the decision applied only to the state's primary and left open the possibility that plaintiffs could try again to knock Trump off the general election ballot in November.
The ruling in Minnesota was the first to come in a series of lawsuits filed by liberal groups that are seeking to use Section Three to end the candidacy of the frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary by citing his role in the violent Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol that was intended to halt certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory.
Trump has attacked the lawsuits as "frivolous" attempts by "radical Democrat dark money groups" to short-circuit democracy by interfering with his attempt to regain the White House.