Complaint challenges Trump's ballot access in Massachusetts

Massachusetts has become the latest state where residents are attempting to bar former President Donald Trump from the Republican presidential primary and general election ballot.

Free Speech For People and Massachusetts-based civil rights firm Lichten & Liss-Riordan, P.C late Thursday filed an objection with the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission to having Trump's name on the ballot.

The challenge cites section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the election of anyone who previously under an oath of office "engaged in insurrection or rebellion," according to a press release.

"Donald Trump violated his oath of office and incited a violent insurrection that attacked the U.S. Capitol, threatened the assassination of the Vice President and congressional leaders, and disrupted the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in our nation’s history," Ron Fein, legal director at Free Speech For People, said in a statement. "Our predecessors understood that oath-breaking insurrectionists will do it again, and worse, if allowed back into power, so they enacted the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause to protect the republic from people like Trump. Trump is legally barred from the ballot and election officials must follow this constitutional mandate."

Voters have sought to remove Trump from the ballot due to his actions on Jan. 6, 2021 in several states, including Illinois, Colorado and Maine. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the former president was ineligible under the Fourteenth Amendment, and Maine's secretary of state recently barred him as well. Trump is appealing both of these rulings.

A spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin did not have a comment when asked about the objection on Thursday.

Galvin did weigh in on the topic earlier this week.

"I think there's been a lot of confusion between the ballot access issue and the issue of eligibility. The real issue presented by the Fourteenth Amendment is eligibility to be president," Galvin told reporters on Monday, adding that he hoped to see a "decisive decision" from the U.S. Supreme Court on Trump's eligibility.

The secretary said his office has heard from "a number of Democratic activists" recently on the topic, and he recalled telling some of them that Trump could still win the state Republican primary as a write-in candidate even if his name were not printed on ballots.

"I said, what do you suggest I should do if people write him in? Well, they said, don't count him. I said, are you serious? ... Elections and primaries are about voters. They're not about candidates, they're not about offices, they're about voters. It's the opportunity to make a decision the voters have. We're not going to deprive voters of the right to cast a ballot. A lot of people have said this is about defending democracy. And as a citizen, I might agree with that. But I think the best way to defend democracy is to participate in democracy. And that opportunity's here for everyone in Massachusetts," Galvin said.

Trump is among seven Republican candidates set to appear on the March 5 presidential primary ballot in Massachusetts. The order that the candidate names will appear on the ballot was determined during a drawing overseen by Galvin on Tuesday.

Massachusetts Republican Party Chair Amy Carnevale did not immediately answer a request, but the party did issue a response.

On X, the party wrote that it "opposes this latest effort to remove Donald Trump from the ballot in Massachusetts through administrative fiat. We believe that disqualification of a presidential candidate through legal maneuverings sets a dangerous precedent for democracy. Democracy demands that voters be the ultimate arbiter on suitability for office."

Free Speech for People says the challengers in Massachusetts are "a mix of Republican, Independent, and Democratic voters and include former Boston Mayor Kim Janey and two leading law professors."

Filer Shannon Liss-Riordan of Lichten & Liss-Riordan ran for attorney general as a Democrat in 2022, and lost to Andrea Campbell.

"Today’s legal action is not about partisan politics but about upholding our Constitution, and that is why Massachusetts voters across the political spectrum have joined together to challenge Donald Trump’s wrongful placement on the Massachusetts ballot," Shannon Liss-Riordan said in a statement. "As two other states have already recognized, Donald Trump’s instigation of and participation in the insurrection three years ago provide overwhelming cause for his disqualification from holding office in the United States."

The ballot law commission is made up of five people appointed by the governor, and no more than three members of the commission may be members of the same political party.