A high-profile labor lawyer and a liberal group filed a challenge Thursday seeking to remove Donald Trump from Massachusetts’ Republican presidential primary ballot, echoing arguments in other states that the former president is ineligible to serve in the White House under the Constitution’s insurrection clause.
In a 90-page objection filed with the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission, the group Free Speech For People and attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan argued that Trump should not appear on the state’s primary or general election ballots because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol when he “engaged in rebellion and insurrection against the Constitution of the United States.”
The challenge was filed on behalf of five others, including Boston’s former acting mayor Kim Janey, a Democrat; Boston College Law professor Mark S. Brodin, an independent voter; and Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Bartholet, a Democrat. Bruce Chafee, a Republican and bio-pharmaceuticals worker, and Augusta McKusick, a retired nurse and independent voter, also signed on.
The filing follows dozens of challenges in other states, including in Maine, where the secretary of state last week barred Trump from the state’s Republican primary. In Colorado, the state Supreme Court ruled Trump was ineligible for the White House under a rarely used clause in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Trump has since appealed both decisions, the latter to the Supreme Court.
Judges in Minnesota and Michigan have ruled against efforts filed by Free Speech For People to remove Trump. The group also filed similar challenges in Oregon and Illinois.
“Today’s legal action is not about partisan politics but about upholding our Constitution,” said Liss-Riordan, a former US Senate candidate who also ran last year for state attorney general, 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,”
A spokesperson for Secretary of State William F. Galvin, who acts as a clerk for the state Ballot Law Commission but does not serve on it, confirmed Galvin’s office had received the objection, which was forwarded to the commission.
The panel’s members are appointed by the governor and meet as needed. It’s designed to be a five-person commission, but currently has three members, according to Governor Maura Healey’s office, which include: Francis Crimmins Jr., a Republican and former district court judge who chairs the commission; Joseph Eisenstadt, a Democrat; and Joseph Boncore, a Democrat, former state senator, and onetime head of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.
Galvin did not have a comment Thursday on the objection, spokesperson Deb O’Malley said.
Galvin, a Democrat, has previously said that Trump would appear on the state’s presidential primary ballot regardless of the fate of a Colorado Supreme Court decision.
Galvin has argued that even if Trump is found guilty of inciting an insurrection and is therefore ineligible to serve as president, he can still be on the ballot in Massachusetts. State law, he said, would also not block other candidates who would be ineligible to serve, such as former presidents Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, who have served the two-term limit.
If a party nominated them, their names would appear, he said. “It just means they can’t ever be sworn in,” Galvin previously told the Globe.
On Tuesday, Galvin drew at random the order of the ballot, with Trump slated to appear fifth among seven candidates. The same day, Galvin said he believed it was likely Trump would still appear on Maine’s Republican ballot because of logistical hurdles involved in producing state ballots.
O’Malley said Thursday that Massachusetts ballots are already in production. She said the Ballot Law Commission first will have to determine whether it has jurisdiction to rule on the objection and if so, schedule a hearing. Any decision then could be appealed to a state court.
The Ballot Law Commission largely works out of the public spotlight, though it figured prominently in the 2002 gubernatorial election when it ruled Mitt Romney was eligible to run for governor, rejecting claims by Democrats that he didn’t meet the state’s residency requirement.
The challenge filed Thursday argues that Trump is constitutionally ineligible to serve as president, and that under Massachusetts law, “any nomination papers or actions required by law to give him, as a candidate, access to a state ballot lack legality, validity, completeness and/or accuracy.”
“Trump is legally barred from the ballot and election officials must follow this constitutional mandate,” said Ron Fein, legal director at Free Speech For People, in a statement.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed nationally seeking to disqualify Trump under the Section 3 clause. The post-Civil War provision sought to prevent prominent Confederates from taking power by barring from major elected office those who, “having previously taken an oath . . . to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
The Massachusetts Republican Party said Thursday it opposes the effort to remove Trump “through administrative fiat.”
“We believe that disqualification of a presidential candidate through legal maneuverings sets a dangerous precedent for democracy,” the state party said in a statement. “Democracy demands that voters be the ultimate arbiter on suitability for office.”
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.