CAMDEN, Maine — Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ruled Thursday that former President Donald Trump is constitutionally ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot in 2024, citing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
In her decision, Bellows, a Democrat, cited the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
“I conclude that Mr. Trump’s primary petition is invalid,” Bellows wrote in her decision. “Specifically, I find that the declaration on his candidate consent form is false because he is not qualified to hold the office of the President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was written after the Civil War to prevent former Confederate officers from holding office in the newly reunited states. The clause bars from public office any former official who swore an oath to the Constitution and “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.”
The news comes just over a week after Colorado’s Supreme Court barred Trump from appearing on the state ballot next year. Trump and his team are expected to file an appeal.
The Colorado Republican Party appealed the decision on Wednesday night. Trump has repeatedly called attempts to remove him from the ballot politically motivated attempts to disenfranchise him and his supporters.
“The secretary’s expression of support for the view that January 6, 2021, constituted an insurrection, and that President Trump was an ‘insurrectionist,’ is probative evidence of prejudgment and bias,” Trump’s legal team wrote Wednesday in a legal filing.
The Colorado court made the decision based on Trump’s actions following the January 6, 2020 attack on the U.S. Capitol, calling Trump an insurrectionist for instigating violence in the lead-up to Jan. 6.
