A Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice denied a petition to bar Trump from the 2024 ballot.
This decision comes one week after the Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission rejected a challenge to ban Trump from the 2024 primary ballot citing the 14th Amendment.
“We believe that Mr. Trump’s candidacy for this office and placement on the Massachusetts ballot violates the Constitution, so we are challenging the constitutionality,” said Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney for the challengers, according to CNN. “It is the job of this commission to hear objections to the legality of placement of candidates on the ballot.”
The legal theories are based on Section 3 of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment which states public officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the US may be disqualified from public office.
Trump has not been charged with engaging in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.
CBS News reported:
The highest court in Massachusetts has turned away a challenge to take former President Donald Trump off the Republican primary ballot.
Supreme Judicial Court Justice Frank Gaziano denied a petition asking the court to either declare Trump ineligible for the primary ballot, or order the State Ballot Law Commission to revisit the issue after it previously decided it lacked jurisdiction.
A civil rights group and local law firm have argued that Trump should not appear on the ballot because he violated a Constitutional clause that says anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” can’t be president.
Gaziano wrote in his decision that the legal challenges have “come too soon.”
President Trump is currently battling similar challenges in other states. Legal challenges have notably escalated in Maine and Colorado.
The Maine Superior Court recently ordered Trump back on the ballot pending a decision from the US Supreme Court.
President Trump appealed Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ 2024 ballot ban to the state superior court last Tuesday.
Last month Maine’s psychotic Democrat Secretary of State Shenna Bellows unilaterally barred Trump from the 2024 ballot because she decided the former president is an insurrectionist.
