Free Speech For People, along with nationally recognized litigator Shannon Liss-Riordan of the Massachusetts-based civil rights firm Lichten & Liss-Riordan, P.C., filed a motion today with the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission, arguing that the Commission should rely on the central factual and legal findings at the heart of the voters-challengers’ case to bar Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot that have already been decided elsewhere.

Both Maine’s Secretary of State and the Colorado Supreme Court have established that Trump incited and engaged in the January 6th insurrection and is therefore ineligible to hold future public office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, also known as the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause.

On January 4. 2024, Free Speech for People and Lichten & Liss-Riordan, P.C. filed with the Commission a petition on behalf of a diverse group of voters challenging Donald Trump’s eligibility to appear on the state’s presidential primary and general election ballot.  Today’s motion asks the Commission to adjudicate this case using the wealth of findings produced in other states, where Trump fully and fairly litigated candidacy challenges against him, and lost.  

“This case may have weighty political implications, but it is legally simple. The facts are essentially undisputed, and (like the central legal issues) have already been decided in open court in parallel litigation,” the motion reads. “This Commission need only apply well-established state law to these settled facts and legal determinations.”

 

With the Massachusetts primary set to take place on March 5th, it is vital that the legal issues in question are addressed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Read the full motion here.

Read more about the case here.