UPDATE (Dec. 29, 2023, 5:02 a.m. ET): Hours after Maine’s secretary of state said on Thursday that Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot, California’s secretary of state declined to remove him from that state’s ballot.
Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the Maine presidential primary ballot in 2024, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said on Thursday.
It’s the latest decision on Trump’s ability to take office again under the 14th Amendment‘s insurrectionist ban as similar challenges mount in states across the country.
The Colorado Supreme Court likewise ruled last week that Trump is disqualified, prompting an appeal from the state GOP to the U.S. Supreme Court, which can settle the issue nationwide if it takes up the Colorado case. That state court’s ruling against Trump is on hold pending the outcome of the appeal, so he’ll likely still be on the Colorado primary ballot despite the decision against him.
Bellows wrote on Thursday that the possibility of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Colorado case nullifying her ruling “does not relieve me of my responsibility to act.”
The Democrat also wrote that she was mindful that no secretary of state had made such a decision before, but she observed that “no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”
“I do not reach this conclusion lightly,” Bellows wrote. “Democracy is sacred.” She went on to describe the events of Jan. 6, 2021, as “unprecedented and tragic.”
“The evidence here demonstrates that they occurred at the behest of, and with the knowledge and support of, the outgoing President,” she continued. “The U.S. Constitution does not tolerate an assault on the foundations of our government[.]” Bellows wrote in her ruling, among other things, that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies to presidents and that states can enforce that constitutional provision without further congressional action, both of which are contested issues that could feature in the U.S. Supreme Court appeal in that Colorado case. Unlike in Colorado, for example, Maine’s secretary of state, rather than a judge, made the eligibility call. But like other states, that decision can be appealed through the state’s courts, so this isn’t necessarily the final word in Maine. On that note, Bellows put her ruling on hold from taking effect pending any appeal. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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