Maine delays decision on Donald Trump ballot appeal until Supreme Court ruling
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Maine has been ordered to put its disqualification of Donald Trump from the presidential election on hold.
A judge has said the former president would remain on the ballot until a definitive decision on his eligibility was reached by the Supreme Court.
Maine followed Colorado in ruling that Mr Trump had infringed the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution by engaging in insurrection - a clause introduced after the American Civil War to keep former Confederates out of Office.
Those backing Mr Trump’s exclusion from the race argue that his conduct after his election defeat and at the time of the January 6 storming of the Capitol amounted to insurrection.
Courts in around 30 states across the country have been considering similar challenges.
In Michigan and Minnesota, the states’ supreme courts have ruled that Mr Trump should remain on the ballot.
Other cases are still pending at state level.
Underpinning the challenges is an argument written by two legal scholars William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St Thomas.
Both men are members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group that supports a very strict interpretation of the US Constitution.
The ruling ordering Shenna Bellows, Maine’s Democratic Secretary of State, to put the case on hold was issued by state Supreme Court Justice Michaela Murphy.
In a 17-page ruling, she said the decision by the US Supreme Court to consider Mr Trump’s appeal against the Colorado ruling “changes everything.”
She added: “And while it is impossible to know what the Supreme Court will decide, hopefully, it will at least clarify what role, if any, state decision-makers, including secretaries of state and state judicial officers, play in adjudicating claims of disqualification brought under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
Mr Trump faces a blizzard of litigation in the run-up to November’s presidential election in addition to the 14th amendment cases.
In all, Mr Trump faces 91 federal and state charges in relation to allegations of election interference, illegally handling classified documents and falsifying business records.
The former president denies the charges and claims they are politically motivated.
