UPDATE: Suit filed to keep Trump off Michigan ballot

[TC Talks]

Boy, the lawyer meter is running over time for Trump these days.

A lawsuit filed in the Michigan Court of Claims Friday challenges former President Donald Trump’s eligibility to be on the 2024 ballot, citing a Civil War-era clause in the Constitution that disqualifi es public officials who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.

The suit, filed by the national group Free Speech For People and attorney Mark Brewer, claims that Trump’s actions ahead of and during the Jan. 6, 2021, riots in the U.S. Capitol violated Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which states that any officeholder who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or “given aid or comfort” to such efforts after swearing an oath to uphold the Constitution is barred from running.

Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 election following his loss to President Joe Biden, his pressuring of former Vice President Mike Pence to reject the electoral certification of results and his lack of intervention when supporters descended on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 amount to insurrection under the clause, the filing argues.

“Our predecessors understood that lawsuit aims to disqualify Trump from Michigan ballot oath-breaking insurrectionists will do it again, and worse, if allowed back into power, so they enacted the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause to protect the republic from people like Trump,” Ron Fein, legal director at Free Speech For People, said in a Friday statement announcing the suit.

The legal theory that Trump’s actions could block him from holding future office has already spurred lawsuits in several states, and is separate from the pending criminal cases Trump is facing at the federal level and in two states.

Free Speech For People recently brought a similar suit to the Michigan filing in Minnesota, and a separate group’s challenge is pending in Colorado. A Fourteenth Amendment challenge to Trump’s candidacy was dismissed by a federal judge in Florida for lack of standing.

Trump has argued that efforts to prevent him from appearing on the ballot are “election interference.”

In response to the Colorado filing, attorneys for Trump argued the case should be dismissed due to freedom of speech protections in the First Amendment, and also argued that the clause doesn’t apply to him because it “applies to one who ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion,’ not one who only ‘instigated’ any action.”

Michigan is considered a key swing state in presidential races, and both Trump and Biden made appearances in Southeast Michigan this week.

Activists have called on election officials in several states to take the step of disqualifying Trump without court action, although most have been reluctant to do so.

In a Washington Post opinion column published earlier this month, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson wrote that Trump would be on the ballot unless a state or federal court determined otherwise, arguing the decision isn’t and shouldn’t be up to her or other secretaries of state.

The Michigan filing challenging Trump’s candidacy was assigned to Court of Claims Judge Brock Swartzle Friday and remains pending before the court.

[Taco]

Good riddance to rubbish. That aside, it's crazy how many people are wearing Trump hats no matter where I go. The cult numbers I bet are staggering.

[TC Talks]

This is horrible process, but look what we are dealing with.

[MasterB]

Long shot at best Trump will be on the ballot in Michigan. I'm not voting for neither Trump or Biden voting 3RD party once again dreading the rematch in 2024.

[Matt]

Mark Brewer is a D-list lefty Trump.

[MasterB]

Mark Brewer is a D-list lefty Trump.

Mark Brewer tried to get Nader off the ballot in 2004 in Michigan.

[kager]

Ironically, the left-leaning, so-called, "Free Speech For People" org, is trying to work its "Keep Trump Off The Grass" campaign in other states as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -amendment

As an independent, I find it both comical (and disturbing) that an org founded on the principles of Free Speech is working so hard to help others to suppress it via the ballot box.

[Rate This]

Ironically, the left-leaning, so-called, "Free Speech For People" org, is trying to work its "Keep Trump Off The Grass" campaign in other states as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -amendment

As an independent, I find it both comical (and disturbing) that an org founded on the principles of Free Speech is working so hard to help others to suppress it via the ballot box.

And we should all be able to yell fire in a crowded theater too. That’ll show ‘em!

[TC Talks]

Trumps lawyers took his fight to stay on the ballot to the wrong court

A judge has rejected former President Donald Trump’s request to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to force him off the 2024 ballot in Michigan.

Court of Claims Judge James Robert Redford denied the request and turned down Trump’s motion to be party to the lawsuit, citing the court’s limited jurisdiction.

In the order, Redford wrote that Trump “does not fall within the definition of ‘the state or any of its departments of officers.’” The judge, however, repeated his invitation to allow Trump to respond to the lawsuit in an amicus brief.

Trump’s lawyers argue that it is “manifestly inappropriate” to remove him from the ballot and that neither state officials nor the court should have the authority to take such an action.

He must not be able to afford good representation.

Davis said it “is pretty bizarre” that Trump is essentially arguing he is not beholden to the U.S. Constitution.

“The arguments that the former president’s legal counsel has advanced are outright frivolous,” Davis says. “His attorneys have attempted to argue that the president is not a federal officer under the United States Constitution and even argued that the oath of office that the president subscribed to is different from the oath of office of different elected officials.”

[Deleted User 9015]

Is it a size 64 suit?

[Bryce]

Ironically, the left-leaning, so-called, "Free Speech For People" org, is trying to work its "Keep Trump Off The Grass" campaign in other states as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -amendment

As an independent, I find it both comical (and disturbing) that an org founded on the principles of Free Speech is working so hard to help others to suppress it via the ballot box.

And we should all be able to yell fire in a crowded theater too. That’ll show ‘em!

The phrase, though an oft-repeated axiom in debates about the First Amendment, is simply not the law of the land now, nor has it ever been—something made all the more apparent when Schenk v. United States was largely overturned in 1969 by Brandenburg v. Ohio.

"Anyone who says 'you can't shout fire! in a crowded theatre' is showing that they don't know much about the principles of free speech, or free speech law—or history," Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression President Greg Lukianoff wrote in 2021. "This old canard, a favorite reference of censorship apologists, needs to be retired. It's repeatedly and inappropriately used to justify speech limitations."

[Bryce]

Ironically, the left-leaning, so-called, "Free Speech For People" org, is trying to work its "Keep Trump Off The Grass" campaign in other states as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -amendment

As an independent, I find it both comical (and disturbing) that an org founded on the principles of Free Speech is working so hard to help others to suppress it via the ballot box.

Further proof that the radical left are the real practitioners of fascism at work in this country.

[Rate This]

Ironically, the left-leaning, so-called, "Free Speech For People" org, is trying to work its "Keep Trump Off The Grass" campaign in other states as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -amendment

As an independent, I find it both comical (and disturbing) that an org founded on the principles of Free Speech is working so hard to help others to suppress it via the ballot box.

Further proof that the radical left are the real practitioners of fascism at work in this country.

Cristo-Fascist Mike Johnson would like a word…

[teetoppz28]

Ironically, the left-leaning, so-called, "Free Speech For People" org, is trying to work its "Keep Trump Off The Grass" campaign in other states as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -amendment

As an independent, I find it both comical (and disturbing) that an org founded on the principles of Free Speech is working so hard to help others to suppress it via the ballot box.

Further proof that the radical left are the real practitioners of fascism at work in this country.

Hilarious coming from someone who worships an orange-faced wannabe dictator who tried to institute a "loyalty test" for federal employees...

https://www.govexec.com/management/2020 ... ds/169492/

[zzand]

The Supreme Court will end up with this, along with the actions filed in other states, thrown at them to decide. I predict all of them will fail and he will be on all ballots.