Michigan judge says Trump stays on primary ballot, rejecting post-insurrection challenge

DETROIT —  A Michigan judge ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump will remain on the state’s primary ballot, dealing a blow to the effort to stop the former president’s candidacy with a Civil War-era constitutional clause.

It marks the second time in a week that a state court declined to remove Trump from a primary ballot under the insurrection provision of the 14th Amendment.

In Michigan, 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 he cannot remove the former president because Trump followed state law in qualifying for the primary ballot.

Additionally, the judge said it should be up to Congress to decide whether Trump is disqualified under the section of the U.S. Constitution that bars from office a person who “engaged in insurrection.”

Redford said deciding whether an event constituted “a rebellion or insurrection and whether or not someone participated in it” are questions best left to Congress and not “one single judicial officer.” A judge, he wrote, “cannot in any manner or form possibly embody the represented qualities of every citizen of the nation — as does the House of Representatives and the Senate.”

Free Speech For People, a liberal group that has brought 14th Amendment cases in a number of states, said it will immediately appeal the ruling to the Michigan Court of Appeals, but also asked the state Supreme Court to step in and take the case on an expedited basis.

“We are disappointed by the trial court’s decision, and we’re appealing it immediately,” said Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech For People.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung rattled off other losses in the long-shot effort to bar Trump from the ballot.

“Each and every one of these ridiculous cases have LOST because they are all un-Constitutional left-wing fantasies orchestrated by monied allies of the Biden campaign seeking to turn the election over to the courts and deny the American people the right to choose their next president,” Cheung said.

Left-leaning groups have filed similar lawsuits in other states seeking to bar Trump from the ballot, portraying him as inciting the Jan. 6 attack, which was intended to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win.

The two-sentence clause in the 14th Amendment has been used only a handful of times in the years after the Civil War. It’s likely that one of the active cases eventually will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never ruled on the insurrection clause.

Last week, the Minnesota Supreme Court sidestepped the issue by ruling that Trump could stay on that state’s primary ballot because the election is a party-run contest during which constitutional eligibility isn’t an issue. It left the door open to another lawsuit to keep Trump off the state’s general election ballot.

A Colorado judge is expected to rule on a similar lawsuit in the state by Friday. Closing arguments in that case are scheduled for Wednesday.