Maine Secretary of State Rules Donald Trump Ineligible to Appear on Primary Ballot

Maine joins Colorado in disqualifying the former President from the 2024 Republican primary.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, has today ruled Donald Trump ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot in the 2024 presidential contest. She released her 34-page decision this evening. However, she has also stayed its implementation given the likelihood of it being challenged in court. Any appeal must commence within the next five days.

Maine now becomes the second state to declare Trump ineligible under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Earlier this month, the Colorado Supreme Court made a similar ruling - agreeing with a lower court that Trump committed insurrection against the United States on January 6, 2021 while holding public office. The 14th Amendment states that any candidate for federal office is disqualified if they have ever taken action against the country.

This provision of the U.S. Constitution has never been tested before. Trump was the first U.S. President to engage in insurrection. As such, a patchwork of legal cases have occurred throughout numerous states to contest this issue. Earlier this week, the Michigan Supreme Court affirmed an appellate court decision that the state’s courts had no role to determine how the state political parties determine who is eligible to appear on their primary ballots. These issues are expected to be challenged once more during the general election if Trump becomes the Republican nominee.

Bellows previously stated that her decision would be coming by the end of the week. As a result, Trump called on her to recuse herself from this decision because of prior social media posts in which she referred to the events of January 6 as an insurrection. Bellows covered why she rejected that argument in her decision as well.

There has yet to be a state or federal court anywhere in the country stating that Trump fails to meet the burden of disqualification under the 14th Amendment. So far, it has remained an issue of either declaring him ineligible or choosing not to weigh in over jurisdictional issues. The Colorado Republican Party has appealed the state Supreme Court ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The highest court in the country has not yet decided if they will take up the case. 

Maine’s presidential primary will occur on March 5, 2024. Bellows is the first Secretary of State to make this determination. Other Secretaries throughout the country have deferred to the courts for guidance given the novel legal theory behind the issue.