Maine secretary of state disqualifies Trump from 2024 primary ballot

Maine blocked former President Donald Trump from being included on the presidential election ballot in the state in 2024 on Thursday, issuing the ruling on three voter challenges. This news follows the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision on Dec. 19 to remove Trump from the state’s ballot.

Both decisions fall under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment over Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows issued her decision Thursday, challenging Trump’s eligibility to hold office.

“I do not reach this conclusion lightly. Democracy is sacred,” Bellows said in a 34-page decision. She noted that a secretary of state has never “deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access” based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment but added that “no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”

The Trump campaign plans to file an appeal. The state secretary said her decision won’t be executed until the state’s court makes a ruling on the case. As The Associated Press reported, the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, will likely make the final decision on whether Trump will appear on the ballot in Maine, Colorado and other states.

The Trump campaign was quick to issue a response, categorizing the state secretary as an “ACLU attorney, a virulent leftist and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat.”

“We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter,” said Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesperson.

He added that the courts in other states like Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Arizona, Florida, Rhode Island and West Virginia, have rejected the “bogus 14th Amendment ballot challenges.”

The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, and its Section 3, or disqualification clause, bars someone from holding civil or military office if they took an oath to the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion ... or (gave) aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican, wrote in a post on X that Bellows ignores the fact that the amendment holds accountable “an officer of the United States,” which Trump is not.

“Thus, even if Trump had engaged in insurrection (to be sure, he has not), he still couldn’t be excluded,” Lee said.

In another post, the Utah senator said the 14th Amendment “refers to senators, representatives, and presidential electors, but not presidents,” adding, “There’s a reason it doesn’t. She didn’t bother to ask why.”

Earlier in August, Lee told the Deseret News in a statement that using the 14th Amendment against Trump is a legal theory that “rests on a tortured reading of the Constitution.”

“To embrace it would dangerously undermine the First Amendment and — if true — disqualify a veritable flotilla of Democratic politicians from ever holding office again,” the GOP senator said.

Hans von Spakovsky, a legal expert at the Heritage Foundation who previously served as a commissioner for the Federal Election Commission and a lawyer at the Justice Department, posted on X Thursday that the decision to boot Trump off the ballot in Maine is biased and partisan.

It also “violates the Constitution” because Bellows has “no legal authority to question the qualifications of a presidential candidate based on the 14th Amendment,” especially since criminal charges were never brought forward against Trump regarding Jan. 6 and the Senate voted to acquit him, Spakovsky said.

When the House moved to indict Trump for the insurrection, Maine Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat, voted in favor. “I do not believe he should be re-elected as President of the United States,” he said in a post on X. “However, we are a nation of laws, therefore until he is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed on the ballot.”

Bellows received three challenges to Trump’s nomination as the Republican candidate, including a group of former state lawmakers, including GOP state Sen. Kimberly Rosen, independent state Sen. Thomas Saviello, and Democratic state Sen. Ethan Strimling.

“Secretary Bellows showed great courage in her ruling, and we look forward to helping her defend her judicious and correct decision in court,” the three former legislators said in a statement on Thursday, per The New York Times. “No elected official is above the law or our constitution, and today’s ruling reaffirms this most important of American principles.”

Bellows in her decision argued that the already-established record establishes Trump made efforts to create a false narrative related to the 2020 election and inflamed his supporters, whom he encouraged to go to the Capitol and prevent a peaceful transfer of power.

“Trump was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it,” she concluded.