Wisconsin Supreme Court Considering Dean Phillips’s Petition for Ballot Access

Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court last week to order that he be listed on the state’s presidential primary ballot following his exclusion by election officials.

But those officials are now urging the court to decline the case, holding that the congressman’s “eleventh hour” request comes too late and that he failed to follow the statutory process for challenging their decision.

“While his campaign knew on January 2 that the Committee had not included him as a candidate, he neither commenced a signature and petition effort nor sought judicial recourse until three days before the Commission should provide the certified list of all qualified candidates to the county clerks—deadlines that enable municipal clerks to meet mandatory deadlines for distributing ballots to military and overseas voters,” wrote attorneys for the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) and the state’s Presidential Preference Selection Committee in a Jan. 31 filing.

In his Jan. 26 petition, Mr. Phillips accused officials of flouting state law, which requires that the names of all presidential candidates “whose candidacy is generally advocated or recognized in the national news media” be placed on the ballot.

As for whether a candidate falls into that category, the law grants the selection committee the “sole discretion” of making that determination—a fact the officials’ attorneys noted in their response.

But Mr. Phillips argued that, in his case, no such determination was made during the committee’s presidential candidate selection meeting on Jan. 2.

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Instead, according to the official meeting minutes, the committee approved the lists of candidates submitted by the Wisconsin Republican and Democratic parties without any discussion of other potential candidates. For the Republican Party, the list included six candidates, including the party’s front-runner, former President Donald Trump. The Democratic Party provided just one name: President Joe Biden.

“At no point during the five-minute meeting did the Committee endeavor to consider or determine whether the proposed lists included ‘the names of all candidates whose candidacy is generally advocated or recognized in the national news media throughout the United States,’” the petition notes.

According to the candidate’s attorneys, his campaign made “numerous requests” prior to the committee’s meeting that the Democratic Party include him on its list of candidates, but no confirmation was ever received that he would be listed.

Still, the election officials’ attorneys noted that the law does lay out a process for excluded candidates to get on the ballot by collecting 1,000 signatures from each of the state’s eight congressional districts and submitting them to the committee.

“Phillips could have spent the month of January collecting the 8,000 signatures that would have guaranteed him a place on the ballot … but instead he opted to sit on his rights. And, for no apparent reason at all, he waited over three weeks to file this petition, filing just three business days before county clerks expect to receive the Commission’s certified list of candidates,” they wrote.

The congressman, however, holds that he shouldn’t have to collect those signatures as the committee should have included him on the ballot as a candidate with “obvious recognition in the national news media” who received nearly 20 percent of the Democratic primary vote in New Hampshire.

Mr. Phillips asked the court to declare that the selection committee abused its discretion in excluding him from the ballot and direct the WEC to add his name to the certified list of candidates for the ballot. His requested deadline for such a ruling was Feb. 9.

Respondents, meanwhile, have asked the court to deny the petition by Feb. 2.

The Wisconsin presidential primary election is set for April 2.