On January 5, the Maine Secretary of State’s office confirmed that No Labels is a qualified party in Maine, by virtue of having more than 5,000 registered voters. No Labels is now ballot qualified in 13 states, and the organization says it is currently petitioning in 14 other states.
On January 5, an amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v Anderson, 23-719 by twenty-five states. The brief makes some arguments that haven’t been made by others who have litigated the Trump ballot access case.
The brief’s main point is that Congress, not state courts, is responsible for determining whether an individual is an insurrectionist. It says that if Trump is an insurrectionist because of his actions on the days leading up to and including January 6, 2021, then on January 6, 2021, he should have immediately ceased to be president. Section three says insurrectionists cannot “hold” the office, and says nothing about elections. So, logically, if Trump became an insurrectionist no later than January 6, 2021, at that point he could not legally continue to serve as president, and Mike Pence should have been president between January 6, 2021, and January 20, 2021. Only Congress could have made that decision. Of course, this is only a small part of the brief.
The brief contains many precedents from “birther” lawsuits filed against putting Barack Obama on various ballots. These little-known court decisions always decided that it is not up to state elections officials to decide whether Obama met the “natural-birth” requirement. The plaintiffs in these cases wanted to present evidence about birth certificate documents, but the courts weren’t interested. Some of the “birthers” are named in the brief, in their capacity as plaintiffs in “birther” lawsuits, such as Orly Taitz, Markham Robinson, Michael Voeltz, Charles Kershner, and others. Robinson was state chair of the American Independent Party of California at the time he sued.
Although the amicus is on behalf of twenty-five states, it seems to have been initiated by state officials from Indiana and West Virginia.
On January 5, U.S. District Court Judge John Tuchi, an Obama appointee. heard arguments in No Labels Party v Fontes, 2:23cv-2172. No Labels is a qualified party in Arizona, and in Arizona, all qualified parties nominate by primary. No Labels filed the lawsuit to block anyone from filing to run for Congress or state office in its primary, because No Labels only wants to be involved in the presidential race.
Here is a news story about the oral argument. Thanks to Richard Grayson for the link.
UPDATE: here is another story with somewhat more detail.
On January 5, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump v Anderson, 23-719. Oral argument will be February 8. Briefs on the side of Trump are due January 18; briefs for the people who wanted to keep him off the Colorado presidential primary ballot are due January 31; any reply briefs are due February 5.
There were actually two cases in the U.S. Supreme Court on this subject. The first one was filed by the Colorado Republican Party, but a week later, when Trump filed his own case, it got its own separate docket number, so technically it is a separate case, and that is the case that the Court accepted.
Even though the case is being expedited, it is still not fast enough to change the Colorado Republican presidential primary ballots. They will contain Trump’s name, because when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled against him, it stayed its decision pending action by the U.S. Supreme Court. So the ballots will all have been printed with his name on them by the time the U.S. Supreme Court hears the case. Trump’s name is now on all ballots except the Maine primary ballot (and in Nevada, Trump did not file for the government-administered primary because instead he is competing in the Republican caucus).
On January 4, five Illinois voters filed a challenge to former President Donald Trump’s petition to be on the Republican presidential primary ballot. They argue that he doesn’t meet the qualifications to hold the office of President.
