Former US President and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, on December 19, 2023.
KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI
Trump is ineligible from appearing on Maine’s primary ballot, the state’s secretary of state ruled.The Colorado Supreme Court issued a similar ruling barring Trump from the election last week.Maine’s secretary of state, who is a Democrat, issued a 34-page ruling on her decision Thursday.
Maine’s secretary of state issued a Thursday decision ruling former President Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot because of his ties to the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
Maine is the second state to try and ban Trump from the coming 2024 primary election following a landmark Colorado Supreme Court decision that did the same last week.
Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state and a Democrat, issued a 34-page decision explaining her reasoning for barring Trump from the ballot after hearing three different complaints challenging his credibility earlier this month.
In her decision, Bellows cited Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the same section used in the 4-3 Colorado court decision, which states that anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US Constitution cannot hold office.
A spokesperson for Trump released a statement soon after the decision was published, accusing Bellows of being a “virulent leftists” and “hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat.”
“We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter. Democrats in blue states are recklessly and un-Constitutionally suspending the civil rights of the American voters by attempting to summarily remove President Trump’s name from the ballot,” the statement said.
Bellows’s ruling came less than two weeks after the Colorado Supreme Court moved to disqualify Trump from the state’s primary ballots.
Neither rulings will immediately go into effect. The Colorado Supreme Court stayed its decision until January, allowing the Trump campaign time for an appeal. And Bellows said in her ruling that the decision could not be enforced until after the Supreme Court’s final say.
Trump has said he plans to appeal the Colorado decision to the US Supreme Court.
“While I am cognizant of the fact that my decision could soon be rendered a nullity by a decision of the United States Supreme Court,” Bellows wrote, “that possibility does not relieve me of my responsibility to act.”
The decision to remove a candidate who remains the top runner of the Republican Party represents an extraordinary move by states that even some Democrats, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, have expressed concerns about.
No presidential candidate in history has been barred from running under the 14th amendment.
On Wednesday, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Trump is eligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot. However, the court left room for a challenge that could remove Trump from the ballot during the general election.