Is Kennedy’s Campaign at Risk? Supreme Court Says No! 

United States: The Supreme Court yesterday sterilized its intervention powers by refusing to take Robert F. Kennedy Jr., out of the official presidential lists in Wisconsin and Michigan. 

Mr. Kennedy, an independent, paused his campaign in August and gave his support to former President Donald J. Trump. In the motions filed for emergency relief from the court, he has had to put up a constitutional argument that his right to free speech was violated when the states retain him on. 

As reported by nytimes, the decisions made by the justices were not accompanied by any explanations and bear no signature, which is usual in such matters with the justices. As with the Montana challenge, there were no noted dissents in Wisconsin challenge. However, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch provided a dissenting opinion in the Michigan case and from earlier appeals’ court dissent in that case. 

After endorsing Mr. Trump, Mr. Kennedy has had both the goal of being promptly eliminated from all state ballots and to also stay on them as long as possible. In September, the Supreme Court turned down another application by Mr. Kennedy that his name should be included in New York’s presidential ballot. 

Even though early voting has commenced in both, Wisconsin and Michigan, Mr. Kennedy continued to argue that he was not dilatory in his effort to seek his removal from the ballots. His lawyers in appealing to the Supreme Court said that keeping him on compromised his “message of support for former President Trump.” 

The fact that he still stayed out only demonstrated the difference between how major-party candidates and independent candidates were dealt with, Mr. Kennedy’s lawyers submitted, noting that Wisconsin gave major-party candidates an extra month to file if they wished to be on the presidential ballot. 

“Deriving a person onto the ballot, as well they said, is compelled speech in violation of the First Amendment,” as did Wisconsin’s rules for independent candidates infringe upon the Constitution’s equal protection clause.