The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday ruled that Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips\u2019s name will appear on the state\u2019s April 2 primary ballot, after he claimed he was unlawfully excluded.<\/p>\n
Acting on the recommendation of the state Democratic Party leaders, the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the Wisconsin Presidential Preference Selection Committee had previously listed President Biden as the only Democratic candidate for the state\u2019s primary.<\/p>\n
Phillips, a Democratic congressman representing Minnesota, had accused the state party of forcing him to spend about $300,000 to collect signatures through a separate process to acquire ballot access.<\/p>\n
In his complaint last week asking the state Supreme Court to overrule his exclusion, he cited a provision of state election law that allows ballot access for candidates who are found to have been recognized as serious contenders by the news media. He argued in his brief that the state elections board failed to make any determination of whether Phillips met this test, despite significant news coverage of his candidacy.<\/p>\n
The panel of judges wrote in Friday\u2019s court\u2019s opinion that the Wisconsin selection committee \u201cheld no discussion about Phillips or any other Democratic presidential primary candidate\u201d during the entirety of its candidate selection meeting last month, which they said lasted \u201cjust over five minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judges wrote that the committee \u201cerroneously exercised its discretion\u201d and directed \u201cthat the name of Dean Phillips be placed on the 2024 Democratic presidential preference primary ballot as a candidate for the office of president of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liberals hold a 4-3 majority on the court, and the justices often clash publicly with one another in cases that touch on politics. That didn\u2019t happen in this case, as no dissents were noted.<\/p>\n
Phillips praised the decision in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fighting to give voters a choice this election cycle \u2014 something that Democratic leadership across the country should be embracing if they truly value having a democratic election,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n
Before Friday\u2019s court decision, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) had called Phillips\u2019s challenge \u201ca distraction.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the party can figure it out. I can\u2019t believe that this is going forward. That seems ridiculous to me,\u201d Evers told reporters late last month, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. \u201cTo me, it looks like (the committee) followed the process. I don\u2019t know what his position will be in court but it\u2019s just another distraction, frankly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phillips, the only elected Democrat challenging Biden for the nomination, finished with about 20 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Biden, whose name did not appear on the New Hampshire ballot, received 64 percent of the vote through a write-in campaign.<\/p>\n
Three other states \u2014 Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee \u2014 have only Biden as a candidate on their state primary ballots for Democrats.<\/p>\n
Jeff Weaver, a senior strategist with Phillips\u2019s campaign, said in a statement that the court \u201cstruck a blow against the anti-democratic attempts by Biden allies to unlawfully keep\u201d Phillips off the ballot.<\/p>\n
Weaver added that the campaign expects the DNC \u201cwill take notice\u201d of Friday\u2019s ruling as the committee reviews \u201cthe improper barring of Dean Phillips from the ballots in North Carolina and Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phillips has vowed to continue his primary campaign in South Carolina, which holds its Democratic primary on Saturday, and Michigan, which votes on Feb. 27. Phillips will not appear on the Feb. 6 Nevada primary ballot because he missed the qualification deadline.<\/p>\n
Wisconsin Democrats said after the ruling that they were looking ahead to the general election.<\/p>\n
\u201cWisconsin Democrats remain focused and united in our work to ensure that President Biden defeats Donald Trump this November,\u201d said Joseph Oslund, spokesperson for the Wisconsin Democratic Party. \u201cWe look forward to Dean Phillips joining us once his campaign reaches its inevitable conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patrick Marley contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday ruled that Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips\u2019s name will appear on the state\u2019s April 2 primary ballot, after he claimed he was unlawfully excluded. Acting on the recommendation of the state Democratic Party leaders, the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the Wisconsin Presidential Preference Selection Committee had previously listed President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}