Minocqua brewery owner and political gadfly Kirk Bangstad says he will go to court to force the Wisconsin Elections Commission to keep Donald Trump off of the state’s presidential ballots in 2024 under the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Bangstad filed a complaint with the elections commission Thursday demanding Trump’s exclusion. The election commission’s dismissal came almost immediately afterward, in a letter saying that the complaint “is being disposed of without consideration by the Commission.”
Bangstad had anticipated the commission’s rejection, telling reporters immediately after he filed the document that he expected it would be dismissed and that he would sue the commission in circuit court to press the complaint’s demand. After receiving the dismissal notice Bangstad said he would follow up with a lawsuit next week.
Bangstad said that he views Article 3 of the 14th amendment as a clear-cut justification for keeping Trump from running for president again.
His elections commission complaint says, “Donald Trump disqualified himself and forfeited his right to serve as President of the United States of America by choosing power over the oath he took as an officer of the United States to uphold the Constitution of the United States and engaging in an insurrection against the Country he swore to protect.”
It calls on the six commissioners to find Trump “disqualified from serving as President of the United States of America” and to “refuse Donald J. Trump access to the 2024 Republican presidential preference primary ballot.”
The complaint cites a Wisconsin statute that allows a voter who believes that an election official’s action or failure to act “is contrary to law” or an abuse of discretion to file a complaint with the commission “requesting that the official be required to conform his or her conduct to the law.”