Minnesota Supreme Court: Trump campaign can't formally participate in ballot petition

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Friday rejected a bid by former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign to intervene in a lawsuit seeking to bar him from next year's ballot because of his involvement in Jan. 6, 2021.

The underlying petition filed by the national nonprofit Free Speech for People and former Minnesota Secretary of State Joan Growe among others seeks to disqualify Trump from the ballot under the insurrection clause of the U.S. Constitution. The petition asks the court to direct Secretary of State Steve Simon to keep Trump off the 2024 ballot.

The court order signed and written by Justice G. Barry Anderson said the only person named as a respondent on the underlying petition was Simon. The court, however, did grant the Minnesota Republican Party's motion to intervene in the case because that request was formally made and unopposed.

Anderson's four-page order noted that responses to the initial petition were due Sept. 27 and that Trump himself did not respond. Instead, his campaign filed on his behalf and "included a footnote stating that it is the legal entity charged with securing Donald J. Trump's election in 2024," the court's order said.

"According to the campaign, Donald J. Trump has not responded because he is not subject to the personal jurisdiction of our court," Anderson wrote.

The court said the Trump campaign did not follow the proper procedure for seeking to participate in a case. "A party must file a separate motion, and not simply ask for relief in a footnote of another filing," Anderson wrote.

The state GOP's proper request to intervene was not opposed by those who filed the initial petition. The Growe group did oppose the formal intervention of the campaign, the justice wrote.

The petition seeking to bar Trump cited his actions in attempting to overturn the 2020 election, including his repeated false claims of widespread election fraud and his urging of former Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification of President Joe Biden.

The petition cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which has been discussed across the country in part because of a University of Pennsylvania Law Review article written by law professors Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis and William Baude of the University of Chicago.

In its response, among other arguments, the state GOP argued that barring Trump from the ballot would interfere with its First Amendment rights by limiting who it "may associate with as its presidential candidate."

A Trump campaign spokesperson responded late Friday: "We appreciate the court taking steps to ensure we can participate in this litigation, and we look forward to doing so."

Justices Margaret Chutich and Karl Procaccini did not participate in the court's decision. As is custom, no reason was provided, but Procaccini didn't join the court until Oct. 1.