Maine disqualified former U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday from appearing on the state's 2024 Republican primary ballot, becoming the second such state to do so under a part of the U.S. Constitution that bars insurrectionists from holding public office.
The decision by Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows came in response to three challenges to Trump's nomination, including two that were filed under the 14th Amendment's "insurrectionist clause."
The amendment was ratified in the wake of the U.S. Civil War. Section 3 bans individuals who "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" from holding public office unless two-thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate lend their approval.
Bellows said she was disqualifying Trump because she determined that his primary ballot petition was invalid under the clause.
"The record establishes that Mr. 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 to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power," she wrote in her decision.
"I do not reach this conclusion lightly. 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," she added.
Colorado's Supreme Court similarly ruled last week that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of the president due to the "insurrectionist clause," prompting an appeal from his attorneys to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump's campaign said they would file an objection in state court, and Bellows said that she is withholding the effect of her decision until the Superior Court rules on an appeal. Any decision is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court by either party.
The campaign decried Bellows' decision as a "partisan election interference" effort.
"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 campaign said in a statement.
