ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments for Nov. 2 in a case brought by voters attempting to keep former President Donald Trump off the 2024 primary and general ballots in this state.
Former Secretary of State Joan Growe, former Supreme Court Justice Paul Anderson, and others have filed a petition with the High Court, asking that Trump be disqualified from running for office because of his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
It's part of a larger ongoing effort nationwide by organizations asking election officials to disqualify Trump based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. But Minnesota is the first state where court action has been initiated because of a state law that allows voters to directly petition the Minnesota Supreme Court to disqualify a candidate.
The case has some urgency because early voting begins in mid-January for the state's March 5 presidential preference primary. Trump remains the frontrunner in the GOP primary race while facing a growing number of indictments for actions, including charges that he conspired with others to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Typically, the political parties decide which presidential candidates' names will appear on the presidential primary and general election ballots. This petition, if successful, would deprive Minnesota Republicans of nominating the former president.
"The rule is that the political parties submit a person, and in the case of the primaries, a list of folks they want to appear on their ballot," Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon told KARE.
"And in the case of the General Election they submit an individual for president, and an individual for vice president who they certify as their nominee."
The national election reform group known as Free Speech for the People is leading the campaign to keep Trump off the ballot and is working with the plaintiffs in the Minnesota case.
"It's very clear that Section 3 says anyone who swore an oath to support the constitution but then engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the United States is disqualified from public office unless and until two-thirds of both houses of Congress brings that person amnesty," Ron Fein, legal director for Free Speech for the People, told reporters in a press conference last week.
He said the Constitution doesn't require the person be charged or convicted with any specific crimes in order to be disqualified from holding office. Congress passed the 14th Amendment following the Civil War to guard against Confederate leaders from returning to power in the reunited nation.
"The vast majority of ex-Confederates who were covered by Section 3 were never charged with any crimes, let alone convicted of them," Fein added.
The court has already granted the Minnesota Republican Party to intervene in the case, and other groups are expected to jump into the fray. Party chair David Hann blasted the petition in a statement to the media.
"The Republican Party of Minnesota believes that voters in Minnesota should ultimately decide through voting which candidates are qualified to represent them in public office. The Minnesota Supreme Court should reject this fringe legal theory which is purposefully designed to prevent voters from having a voice in our elections."
Secretary Simon is listed as the defendant in the case because the law is designed to prevent the secretary of state from placing a disqualified person on a ballot. But Simon says he expects to remain on the sidelines of this battle.
"We don't take any position on the merits. I want to be very clear. This is up to court to decide," Simon said.
"We will be in most respects a bystander in this litigation, as presumably the plaintiffs who brought this lawsuit and President Trump and his lawyers spar over what the facts are and what the law is. We take no position on the facts. We take no position on the ultimate legal conclusion over whether former president Trump is or isn't entitled to be on the ballot."
The Minnesota - MSA 204B.44 - has been used in the past mainly for voters to mount residency challenges. That's what happened to Representative Bob Barrett in 2016. In response to a voter petition, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled he was disqualified to run for re-election because he was no longer a resident of his district.
What the Constitution's 14th Amendment, Section 3 says:
"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."
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