The year 2024 has not yet begun and the election campaign in the United States is already in full swing. Last week it was the fate of Donald Trump's “candidacy” that roiled the waves of a hateful race, albeit swampy in its arguments and proposals.
Two opposing and controversial decisions
Now the Supreme Court is the Michigan who rejected an attempt to remove Trump from the primaries in the crucial swing state. Here an attempt was actually made to take the same legal route as Colorado: Determine whether Trump's efforts to reverse his 2020 defeat and his attack continue Capitol Hill could exclude him from the passive electorate. However, the Supreme Court said in a brief decision that ahead of the presidential primaries, it was “not convinced that the questions presented should be considered by this court.” 27th of February in Michigan. Even if these types of attempts are multiplying, it should not be forgotten that in a system like the American one, everyone still contributes to legal education and it is not certain that what was successful in Colorado cannot be achieved elsewhere. Just as the attribution conflict raised by Michigan revives the old conflict between national and state law, making it very difficult to determine who ultimately has the right to decide whether to exclude a White House candidate from the campaign.
The Fight of Michigan Voters
Free Speech for the People, the group that filed the appeal, is not giving up and underscoring how the Supreme Court has raised a mere allegation Attribution conflict, by making its decision on procedural grounds without going into the legal merits of the matter. The legal, nonpartisan organization began its fight several months ago through attorney Mark Brewer, who had become a spokesman for a growing group of Michigan voters. The organization then filed a real lawsuit in state court to prevent Trump's name from appearing on the ballot in late September last year.
Ron Fein, legal director of the association, had equated Trump's responsibilities during the events of January 6, 2021 with those contained therein Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment: Trump would be deemed unworthy of office because he “violated his prior oath, incited a violent insurrection that threatened to assassinate the Vice President and congressional leaders, and disrupted the peaceful transfer of power.” The lawsuit was in response to the announcement of Secretary Benson said Trump would remain on the ballot unless a “court orders otherwise.”
An important legal precedent
On September 12 last year, Free Speech for the People made an identical application on behalf of the voters of the Minnesota. In 2022, he also filed similar complaints against Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and former Congresswoman Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina for their roles in the attack on Capitol Hill. Although these challenges did not result in their disqualification (in the first case there was a lack of factual evidence against the candidate; in the second case the candidate lost the primary while the challenge was ongoing), they set important legal precedents. This includes the fact that states own property legal authority to adjudicate disputes pursuant to Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment; that state processes for adjudicating challenges do not violate a candidate's constitutional rights; that a previous criminal conviction is not required to raise a challenge under section 3. Most importantly, “mere” words that go beyond facts, such as orders to march or obstruct a court proceeding, can in themselves constitute an insurrection. Most importantly, the 1872 congressional amnesty for former Confederates cannot be applied mutatis mutandis to the Capitol Hill case.