Statement by Free Speech For People and Lichten & Liss-Riordan on Single Justice Ruling of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

On January 29, 2024, Affiliate Justice Frank M. Gaziano of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courtroom, sitting as a single justice, denied an emergency petition by particular person Massachusetts voters difficult Donald Trump’s eligibility to look on the state’s presidential major and basic election poll. The challengers are a mixture of Republican, Impartial, and Democratic voters and embrace former Boston Mayor Kim Janey and two main regulation professors. They’re represented by Free Speech For Folks (FSFP) together with nationally acknowledged litigator Shannon Liss-Riordan of the Massachusetts-based civil rights agency Lichten & Liss-Riordan, P.C.

The enchantment adopted a choice by the Massachusetts Poll Regulation Fee that it doesn’t have the jurisdiction to contemplate the problem. The enchantment requested the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courtroom to both declare Trump ineligible or to order the Fee to conduct instantly all proceedings essential to subject a ruling on the deserves by the statutory deadline of January 29, 2024.

The statute says that “The fee shall have jurisdiction over and render a choice on any matter referred to it, pertaining to the statutory and constitutional {qualifications} of any nominee for, nationwide … workplace; [or] the certificates of nomination or nomination papers filed in any presidential … major.” One other provision refers to “Objections to certificates of nomination and nomination papers for candidates at a presidential major.

Justice Gaziano, appearing as a single justice, denied the emergency petition on the idea of Massachusetts state regulation. He dominated that, below Massachusetts regulation, Trump isn’t scheduled to look on the Republican major poll pursuant to “nomination papers” or a “certificates of nomination,” and therefore the Poll Regulation Fee lacks jurisdiction. He didn’t rule on any of the central points surrounding Trump’s disqualification.

The challengers plan to instantly enchantment the one justice’s resolution to the complete Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courtroom.

Each state that has addressed the deserves of Trump’s {qualifications} below Part 3 has discovered that he engaged in rebel after taking the oath of workplace and is subsequently disqualified from the presidency. The Colorado Supreme Courtroom and Maine’s Secretary of State have established that Trump incited and engaged within the January sixth rebel and is subsequently ineligible to carry future public workplace below Part 3 of the Fourteenth Modification, also referred to as the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause. On January 28, 2024, a Republican former state courtroom choose, sitting as a listening to officer for the Illinois State Officers Electoral Board, beneficial the board discover that Illinois state regulation doesn’t permit the board to resolve the query, however that if it does attain the deserves, that Trump actually incited and engaged within the January sixth rebel and is subsequently ineligible to carry future public workplace below Part 3 of the Fourteenth Modification.

Learn the one justice’s resolution right here.

Learn extra about our Massachusetts problem right here.

Learn extra about our nationwide efforts to ban constitutionally disqualified insurrectionists like Donald Trump from public workplace right here.