Susan Collins says barring Donald Trump from Maine ballot denies voters their choice – Bangor Daily News
Bangor Daily News
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U.S. Sen. Susan Collins on Thursday criticized a decision from Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows to bar Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 primary ballot.
In a 34-page ruling, Bellows wrote that Trump’s actions before the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, sometimes referred to as the “insurrection clause.” That follows a similar decision from the Colorado Supreme Court earlier this month that barred Trump from that state’s ballot.
“I do not reach this conclusion lightly. Democracy is sacred,” Bellows wrote in her decision. “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.”
That decision has drawn criticism from Republicans, including Collins who said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that “Maine voters should decide who wins the election – not a Secretary of State chosen by the Legislature.”
“The Secretary of State’s decision would deny thousands of Mainers the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice, and it should be overturned,” Collins wrote Thursday night.
The sentiment was echoed in a statement by U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. In a Friday statement posted to social media platform X, the senator said he felt as though “the decision as to whether or not Mr. Trump should again be considered for the presidency should rest with the people as expressed in free and fair elections.”
“This is the ultimate check within our Constitutional system,” King added.
Rep. John Andrews, R-Paris, said Thursday night that he’s requesting an order to impeach Bellows, a Democrat, calling her decision “hyper-partisanship on full display.”
The Maine Constitution vests the House with the sole power to impeach, while the Senate shall have the power to try impeachments. The Democrats’ strong majorities in both the House and Senate will make any impeachment of Bellows unlikely unless Republicans can peel off enough votes from her party. The Maine Constitution requires a two-thirds majority to convict during an impeachment trial, and Democrats currently control about 63 percent of the chamber’s seats.
Senate Republican leader Trey Stewart, R-Aroostook, called Bellows’ decision “nothing more than political posturing” that “takes away the rights of Maine citizens to choose who they want for President.”
“Maine voters deserve a primary process that allows for each party to decide its own candidates. Tonight’s decision not only undermines our democracy but also underscores the importance of legislative control, which determines who serves as our Secretary of State,” Stewart said in a statement.
In an email that included a fundraising pitch, Maine Republican Party Chair Joel Stetkis pledged to fight the decision in court, including up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and alluded to a movement of “backroom elities” to “subvert democracy.”
Rep. Austin Theriault, R-Fort Kent, blasted the Thursday decision as “an outrageous end run by progressive elites around the people of Maine,” saying Trump should “absolutely be on the Maine ballot.”
“This political maneuvering to help prop up Joe Biden’s failed presidency has no place in Maine. If you believe in democracy, let the voters decide. Voters should choose their leaders – period,” said Theriault, who is also running for his party’s nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden in November to represent the 2nd District in Congress.
Theriault later said he was sending Bellows a letter asking her to resign immediately and asking Golden to sign it.
State Rep. Michael Soboleski, R-Phillips, who is facing Theriault in the GOP’s 2nd District primary, said he supports Andrews’ efforts to impeach Bellows.
Golden, who voted in January 2021 to impeach Trump for his role in the Capitol riot and had split his vote on two articles of impeachment in 2019, joined the chorus criticizing Bellows, though saying he doesn’t believe Trump should be returned to the White House.
“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,” Golden said in a Thursday night statement.
The legal theory behind the Trump challenges, which was fueled by two conservative law professors and is now being pushed by national progressives, is that the open-ended language means that the 14th Amendment can be applied to presidents.
It never has been, and judges have generally ruled to that effect. On Wednesday, the Michigan Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that Trump remains eligible for the ballot. A lower-court judge in Colorado said the disqualification does not apply to the president.
Colorado’s high court invalidated that ruling in part because the state has a specific provision in state law allowing the disqualification of constitutionally ineligible candidates. In Maine, the secretary of state is empowered to disqualify a candidate if any part of their declaration — which includes an oath saying they are eligible for office — is deemed false.
It’s unclear what happens next, but a likely next step for the Trump campaign would be to challenge Bellows’ decision in Superior Court.
BDN writers Michael Shepherd, Leela Stockley and Paul Koenig contributed to this report.