Around New England
Maine Republicans Call For Secretary of State To Be Impeached After Barring Trump (For Now) From Maine’s Presidential Ballot
January 1, 2024
Maine Republicans are calling for the impeachment of Maine’s secretary of state, who recently ruled that Donald Trump should not appear on the state’s presidential election ballot.
Shenna Bellows, the Maine secretary of state, is “a biased Democrat Party hack, unworthy of the high office she holds,” the Maine GOP said in a written statement on the party’s Facebook page.
On Thursday, December 28, 2023, Bellows found that the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 amounted to an “insurrection” and that Trump was responsible for it, and is therefore ineligible to appear on Maine’s ballot.
“The events of January 6, 2021 were unprecedented and tragic. They were an attack not only upon the Capitol and government officials, but also an attack on the rule of law. The evidence here demonstrates that they occurred at the behest of, and with the knowledge and support of, the outgoing President,” Bellows wrote in her decision.
Section 3 of the post-Civil War Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars from federal office anyone “who having previously taken an oath” as a federal or state official to support the federal constitution “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States.
On December 19, the Colorado Supreme Court on a 4-3 vote issued a similar ruling, barring Trump from that state’s ballot.
Critics of the Colorado ruling have argued that the January 6, 2021 was not an insurrection and that Trump did not incite the riot, and that the voters should be able to decide whether to give Trump another term as president.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in the Colorado case that will likely hold for the entire country.
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