Despite suspending campaign, RFK Jr. asks Supreme Court to put him on NY's ballot

WASHINGTON ? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has asked the Supreme Court to put him on the presidential ballot in New York, even as he has tried to get off the ballot in other states.

Kennedy's request comes a month after he suspended his independent campaign and endorsed Donald Trump. In swing states where the election is close, he has tried to take his name off the ballot to avoid drawing votes away from the Republican nominee.

In an emergency petition filed Monday, Kennedy argues judges in New York were wrong to disqualify him over a dispute about his residency.

Judge Christina Ryba ruled in August that Kennedy falsely claimed on his nominating petition that his "place of residence" is an address in Katonah, N.Y., outside of New York City, where he rents a spare bedroom rather than his home in California, which he purchased in 2021 after marrying actress Cheryl Hines in 2014.

In a 34-page decision following a short trial, Ryba wrote that "based on clear and convincing credible evidence," the New York address listed on the petition "was not Kennedy's bona fide and legitimate residence, but merely a 'sham' address that he assumed for the purpose of maintaining his voter registration and furthering his own political aspirations in this State.”

Kennedy’s lawyers told the Supreme Court that Ryba “did not find that anyone was misled by the address, nor identify any state interests compromised by its use.”

And the fact that he's suspended his campaign should not matter, his lawyers argued, because "a suspended campaign is not a terminated campaign."

"Whether suspending a campaign or only appearing on ballots for some states is a prudent political strategy is irrelevant to the legal issues in this case," they wrote. "The prudence of such a strategy will be debated by an array of political pundits, a flock of history and political science professors, and a chattering of voices on social media."

Kennedy’s appeal has already been rejected by New York’s highest court and by the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

The Supreme Court asked the New York State Board of Elections and New York Attorney General Letitia James to respond by Wednesday afternoon.

When Kennedy suspended his campaign, he said his name would remain on the ballot and he encouraged his supporters to vote for him in most states.

But he said he would try to remove his name from the ballot in battleground states “where my presence would be a spoiler.”

Kennedy said he does not want to risk handing the election to Democrats, “with whom I disagree on the most existential issues: censorship, war and chronic disease.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: RFK Jr. asks Supreme Court to put him on NY's presidential ballot