Michigan Supreme Court Keeps Trump on the 2024 Ballot
The former US president has just experienced a deep belly laughter after a Supreme Court in Michigan refused to bar him from running for next year’s general election just days after the Supreme Court in Corolanda accepted a petition to bar him from the 2024 primary ballot in a major win for the former president.
The state’s top court said in a brief order that it would not hear an appeal to an earlier decision from an appeals court. The first judge who got the case in Michigan said state law doesn’t give elections officials the ability to police the eligibility of presidential primary candidates.
The state’s high court said that the appeal application was considered but denied “because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this court.”
Trump applauded the ruling in a statement posted on social media.
“We have to prevent the 2024 Election from being Rigged and Stolen like they stole 2020,” the statement said.
The decision, which contrasts with a recent ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court, tees up what is widely expected to be a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the matter.
So far, Colorado is the only state to consider the merits of the complaint, which is based on an obscure, Civil War-era provision in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that barred anyone deemed an “insurrectionist” from serving.
Known as the “insurrection clause,” the provision was originally meant to prevent Confederate soldiers from getting into office and undermining Reconstruction. It states that no one can hold office who has previously taken an oath to support the Constitution but then engaged in an insurrection or provided help to enemies of the United States.
While the 133-page ruling from a split Colorado Supreme Court dealt with questions about Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, the Michigan courts only looked at procedural ground for the case and didn’t wade into such questions. The cases in Michigan and Colorado are among more than a dozen that aim to keep Trump’s name off of state ballots using the insurrection clause.
The embattled former US president Donald Trump is still a man under siege as a judge in Washington denied a request from Trump’s legal team for an April 2026 trial and also rebuffed DOJ lawyers who sought to begin the trial as soon as January
Trump, the GOP front-runner for the 2024 presidential nomination, faces a four-count indictment that accuses him of interfering with the peaceful transfer of power in the wake of the 2020 presidential election inciting a violent insurrection at the Capitol, and trying to overturn election results thereby regressing US democracy.
