A legal challenge filed Friday attempts to stop former President Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot in Michigan.
The lawsuit filed in the Michigan Court of Claims says Trump should be barred under the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was adopted after the Civil War.
“The constitutional provision is very broad and disqualifies anybody who engages in insurrection or aids people in an insurrection from ever again holding public office,” said Mark Brewer, an attorney for the four plaintiffs in the case. The claimants are described as independent and Republican voters.
Brewer said Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and encourage the January 6 insurrection render him ineligible to run.
“We think it’s quite clear that he should be disqualified and we hope to get a court order as soon as we can,” Brewer said.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, has said she cannot keep Trump off the state’s primary ballot without a court order.
Trump, the leading Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election, is facing lawsuits in several states seeking to bar his name from the ballot.
An election reform group, Free Speech for People, filed the lawsuit in Michigan and a similar one in Minnesota.
The organization's legal director, Ron Fein, said the 14th Amendment was adopted after the Civil War to stave off future rebellions — such as the attempt on January 6 to thwart certification of the 2020 presidential election.
“Insurrectionists can’t be trusted to return to power because if they are, they will do it again or worse,” Fein said. “And they wrote that protection into the Constitution to protect the republic.”
Trump has said blocking him from the ballot would violate his First Amendment right to free speech.
The Michigan Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment.