WI Supreme Court orders Dean Phillips to appear on presidential ballot
MADISON Wis. (CBS 58) – The state Supreme Court has ordered that Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips be added to Wisconsin’s primary ballot, granting his campaign a victory in the battleground state after he argued his name should have never been excluded.
Phillips, a Minnesota congressman, is one of the few Democrats running a campaign to challenge President Joe Biden.
“I think it’s not surprising that you’ve got an incumbent president with sort of mediocre public opinion support, and somebody somewhere says maybe this candidate is not the best for our party," said Mordecai Lee, a professor emeritus at UW-Milwaukee.
Last week, Phillips asked the court to intervene to have his name be added to the April 2 primary ballot after state Democratic leaders unanimously voted earlier this month to exclude him. Instead, they opted to only place Biden on the ballot.
“Here we are in this peculiar situation this year that the democratic party became this sort of closed monopoly and they said we only want one name on the ballot. We only want President Biden on the ballot," said Lee.
The court’s decision will now put the state Elections Commission and county clerks under a tight timeline to have ballots printed and sent to overseas and military voters by Feb. 15
On Thursday, election officials urged justices to reject the case because they argued Phillips filed his challenge too late and stressed the upcoming deadlines clerks will be facing.
“While we do not condone Mr. Phillips’ delay in bring this action, without showing of prejudice laches cannot apply,” the court wrote. “We conclude that the Presidential Preference Selection Committee erroneously exercised its discretion with respect to Phillips.”
The court ordered the Presidential Preference Selection Committee to add Phillips to the primary ballot and ordered the Elections Commission to take steps to ensure his name is printed in a timely manner.
"For them to have to say to the Democratic Party, ‘have you been reading the newspapers? Have you seen any news coverage? There is somebody else who is running against the incumbent president," said Lee. “You're not a closed shop. Anybody gets to run, and anybody reasonably gets to have a chance to get their name on the ballot.”
Before the court’s decision, Gov. Tony Evers told reporters earlier this week that Philips' lawsuit "ridiculous" and suggested it's a distraction.