The state of Maine has barred Donald Trump from running for president, The Guardian reports.
This state became the second state to bar the former president from running for office under the constitutional provision preventing insurgents from holding office. Earlier, on 19 December, the Colorado Supreme Court removed Trump from the list of candidates in that state’s primary, citing the same clause in the constitution and foreshadowing a legal battle in the US Supreme Court.
Maine Secretary of State Shanna Bellows reviewed the case after a group of citizens challenged Trump’s eligibility and concluded that Trump should be disqualified for sedition on 6 January 2021. She said:
I do not reach this conclusion lightly. 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.
Trump represents the Republican Party in the election, and his campaign has vowed to appeal the decision. Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, in a statement, also accusing Bellows of being a “a virulent leftist”, said:
Make no mistake, these partisan election interference efforts are a hostile assault on American democracy.
Unlike other states, Bellows, who oversees elections in Maine, had to issue an initial disqualification ruling before a court would review it. Bellows has suspended her decision until the state’s highest court rules on the appeal.
If the ruling goes into effect, it would only apply to the state’s March primary, but its conclusion would also likely affect Trump’s status in the November 2024 general election. Both Maine and Colorado are states that lean Democratic, meaning Joe Biden is likely to win both. However, while Maine only has four electoral votes, it is one of only two states where they are split. Trump won one of Maine’s electoral votes in 2020.
The Maine and Colorado decision is based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits those who have “participated in sedition” from holding office. The provision, which came into existence after the Civil War, was designed to prevent the Confederates from regaining power.
