The 2024 campaign of Donald Trump suffered a new setback on Thursday as Maine’s top election official ruled he cannot run for president next year in the state.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, citing a constitutional insurrection clause, said the former President was not eligible because of his actions leading up to the US Capitol riot in 2021. Maine now joins Colorado as the two states to ban Trump from the ballot.
Bellows, a Democrat, issued the decision Thursday after presiding over an administrative hearing earlier this month about Trump’s eligibility for office. A bipartisan group of former state lawmakers filed the challenge against Trump.
“I do not reach this conclusion lightly,” Bellows wrote. “Democracy is sacred…I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”
Ratified after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment says American officials who “engage in” insurrection cannot hold future office. However, the provision is vague and doesn’t say how the ban should be enforced.
Bellows said that Trump “over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol.”
She added that his “occasional requests that rioters be peaceful and support law enforcement do not immunize his actions.”
Bellows said her decision on Thursday will be put on hold until Maine’s Superior Court, a trial-level court, makes a ruling. It is not the highest court in the state, but it is the next level where Trump or others can appeal.
Maine’s laws mandate that the Superior Court must decide within twenty days from Thursday, or January 17th.
Supreme Court to settle Trump’s 2024 presidential bid
In a statement on Thursday, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung accused Bellows of being a “virulent leftist,” who has now “decided to interfere in the presidential election.”
“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,” Cheung said.
Trump’s 2024 presidential candidacy has been challenged in multiple states because the 14th Amendment bans him from holding office. Colorado’s ban was the first instance of the Constitution being used to disqualify a presidential candidate.
However, legal experts say the Colorado ruling will have a tough time standing up when it reaches the conservative-leaning US Supreme Court. Furthermore, state courts in Michigan and Minnesota have also recently dismissed efforts to block Trump from the ballot.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
