(Source: MIRS.news, Published 12/14/2023) Former President Donald Trump cleared another legal hurdle in the case attempting to keep him off next February’s presidential primary ballot.
The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Thursday regardless of whether or not Trump violated the Fourteen Amendment by arguably encouraging protestors to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to prevent the certification of the Electoral College, the Bureau of Elections can’t take him off the ballot.
Michigan’s Secretary of State has “virtually no discretion” in determining which major-party presidential candidate can appear on the primary ballot, the court ruled. The Secretary of State is required to put on any candidate requested by the Republican or Democratic parties on the presidential primary ballot.
But even if the Secretary of State had the legal ability to kick someone off the ballot, the appellate court argued that the presidential primary would not be the place to do so. A person doesn’t win the presidency by winning a party primary election.
To believe Trump will be the Republicans’ nominee in 2024 is a hypothetical that the court is not in a position to address, read the opinion authored by appellate Judges Anica Letica, Michael Riordan and Thomas Cameron.
The question was brought to the court through a consolidated case from serial litigant Robert Davis in Wayne County Circuit Court and former legislative Republican operative Robert LaBrant, former Republican legislative spokesperson Bill Nowling and two other litigants in the Michigan Court of Claims.
They claimed they planned to vote in the 2024 Republican primary and that they don’t believe Trump should be on the ballot for encouraging an “insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021.
“With the Michigan Court of Appeals’ affirmation of the Trump campaign’s victories in the lower court, the Soros-funded Democrats have once again failed in their desperate attempt to interfere in the election via a bad-faith interpretation of the 14th Amendment,” said Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung. "President Trump remains undefeated against these frivolous legal claims and has never been in a stronger position to win next year’s election.
