The Michigan Supreme Court ruled Wednesday against removing former President Trump from the state’s primary ballot in a case focused on the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment insurrection clause. The decision by the state’s highest court gives Trump a legal victory as he fights off various attempts across the country to remove him from state ballots in accordance with the constitutional provision.
The decision was handed down by a three-judge panel of the Michigan Supreme Court, which is controlled by Democrats 4-3, following an appeal of a lower court decision. That lower court had found the Michigan secretary of state does not possess the legal authority to remove Trump from the ballot, regardless of whether the 14th Amendment disqualifies Trump from holding office. - Minnesota‘s supreme court tossed a 14th Amendment challenge last month.
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Last week, Colorado became the first state to rule against Trump via the 14th Amendment, ruling that the former president “engaged in insurrection by inflaming his supporters with false claims of election fraud and directing them to the Capitol,” The Hill’s Zach Schonfeld and Ella Lee wrote, and that he therefore be removed from the state’s ballot. But that ruling is temporarily on hold.
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Maine‘s secretary of state Shenna Bellows (D), following three petitions to remove Trump from the state ballot, has said she’ll issue a decision on the matter in the coming days. Unlike Minnesota, Maine’s secretary of state has the legal authority to weigh in first, and challengers can appeal in state court.
According to the 14th Amendment, a person is prohibited from holding “any office … under the United States” if they have engaged in an insurrection after they have taken an oath as “an officer of the United States” to “support” the Constitution.
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Welcome to Evening Report! I’m Emily Martin, catching you up from the afternoon and what’s coming tomorrow. Not on the list? Subscribe here. |
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Less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses launch GOP primary voting, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has stopped spending on TV ads, according to several media reports. A federal appeals court Wednesday temporarily blocked an International Trade Commission order that would bar Apple from selling some of its Apple Watch models in the United States.
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An Israeli military leader says the war in Gaza will likely go on for “many more months.”
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The New York Times sues Microsoft, OpenAI for copyright infringement
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The New York Times on Wednesday sued Microsoft and OpenAI, alleging the tech companies committed copyright infringement in their AI-powered chatbots. -
According to the complaint, the Times asserts the companies used millions of copyrighted articles without the newspaper’s permission to train OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing Chat — now known as Copilot.
- The Times wants Microsoft and OpenAI to remove any training data for its artificial intelligence (AI) bots that may contain the Times’s copyrighted materials.
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Additionally, the lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, does not outline a specific amount of damages but provides an estimate of “billions of dollars.”
“[The companies] seek to free-ride on The Times’s massive investment in its journalism by using it to build substitutive products without permission or payment,” the complaint reads. The lawsuit, which comes after talks between the newspaper and the tech companies fizzled out, could be a harbinger of what’s to come in the mostly unexplored frontier of legal claims brought against AI technologies. In the complaint, the Times claims to have contacted Microsoft and OpenAI in April to raise concerns over intellectual property and possibly come to an agreement, but that “these efforts have not produced a resolution.”
Read more. |
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| Dem group spending $5.2M in ads to flip Santos’s seat |
House Majority PAC, a super PAC aligned with House Democrats, announced Wednesday it will plan to spend $5.2 million in TV and digital ads to flip former Rep. George Santos’s (R-N.Y.) seat in the upcoming special election. The super PAC said money will be spent on initial television and digital reservations that will run in the weeks leading up to the Feb. 13 special election. “With these initial television and digital reservations and mail program, House Majority PAC is making it clear that we will do whatever it takes to take back the House in 2024 – and NY-03 represents the opportunity to make that happen,” House Majority PAC President Mike Smith said in a Wednesday statement. Santos was ousted from Congress earlier this month following a scathing ethics report that found “substantial evidence” that the then-congressman had committed significant federal crimes.
Read more. |
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Blinken, Mayorkas visit Mexico as pressure mounts on Biden to act on border |
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled to Mexico City on Wednesday to discuss the increasing levels of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. The visit comes as Republicans ramp up pressure on the Biden administration to act on border security.
Blinken and Mayorkas, joined by White House homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall, were set to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who spoke with President Biden via phone last week to discuss the urgent need for additional enforcement action. Each day, about 10,000 people cross illegally into the U.S., and at least three ports of entry in Texas, Arizona and California are closed to foot and vehicle traffic. The increasing number of migrants at the border has become a sticking point for Republicans, who demand more border reform before they’ll agree to any additional aid for Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia. Read more. |
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Americans’ holiday shopping habits
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Following a year of escalating inflation and interest rates, Americans inevitably spent more this holiday season. The Hill’s Tara Suter breaks down how and where Americans spent most of their money this year. |
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FDA inching closer to food allergy treatment for kids
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A new treatment for kids with food allergies is one step closer to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, which could come as soon as March. Read more here. |
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“At the heart of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, anthropology matters as much as history”
— Alma Gottlieb, cultural anthropologist, author and professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Ron Duncan Hart, author, director of the Institute for Tolerance Studies, a cultural anthropologist, and former dean of academic affairs. Read here.
“States keep proving that climate action works”
— Alli Gold Roberts is the senior director of state policy at the sustainability nonprofit Ceres. Read here. |
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4 days left in 2023 19 days until the Iowa GOP caucuses 27 days until the New Hampshire GOP primary |
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