UPDATE (Oct. 25, 2024, 3:45 p.m. ET): On Friday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed an emergency Supreme Court application to get off the Michigan ballot, after filing a similar application regarding Wisconsin earlier this week.
The Supreme Court declined last month to put Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the New York ballot. Now, he wants the justices to get him off the Wisconsin ballot, and he said he’s going to appeal to them to get off the Michigan ballot, too.
Both swing state courts have rejected Kennedy’s appeals, with judges taking stock of the inconsistent approach from the former independent presidential candidate, who suspended his campaign in August and announced his support for Donald Trump’s bid.
In the Wisconsin state court’s unanimous ruling that Kennedy is appealing, the court noted that he “had simultaneously claimed harm in some states from not being removed from the ballot and harm in other states from not being placed on the ballot.”
Nonetheless, Kennedy argues in an emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court this week that his constitutional rights are being violated by keeping him on. While observing that Wisconsin law gives major party candidates more leeway in getting on and off ballots, his lawyers argue to the justices that forcing Kennedy to stay on compels his speech in violation of the First Amendment and that the state’s different treatment of independent candidates violates equal protection.
“It’s Robert F. Kennedy’s absolute right to endorse Donald Trump for President,” his lawyers wrote in the application, arguing that keeping him on the ballot violates his rights.
Voting is already underway in Wisconsin. Kennedy wants a sticker placed over his name, citing state law that allows such action if a candidate dies.
In his high court application, Kennedy’s lawyers also say he’ll be appealing his Michigan rejection to them, too. In the Michigan case, the federal appeals court covering that state divided in declining to take up his claim.
Agreeing with the denial, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Eric Clay wrote that removing Kennedy at this stage “would disrupt the orderly conduct of the presidential election in Michigan.” The Bill Clinton-appointed judge called out Kennedy’s claim as “completely fraudulent,” noting that “at the same time that Plaintiff [Kennedy] claims he wants to be off the presidential ballot in Michigan because he is no longer a candidate for President, he is suing to have his name placed on the ballot as a presidential candidate in the state of New York based on his contention that he continues to wish to campaign for the Office of President.”
But in his Wisconsin application to the Supreme Court that teased a forthcoming Michigan appeal to the justices, Kennedy cited a dissent from Trump-appointed 6th Circuit Judge Amul Thapar, which called Kennedy’s claim one of “exceptional importance: Does forcing a person onto the ballot compel his speech in violation of the First Amendment?” Thapar called the repercussions of that question “enormous.” He wondered: “If a candidate can’t stop his name from appearing on the ballot, could battleground states put President Joe Biden back on their ballots? Could states put anyone they wanted on their ballots (in violation of their own election laws)?”
We should learn soon enough whether the Supreme Court is interested in dealing with these questions or others that could inject chaos into the battleground states that could effectively decide this election.
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