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AUGUSTA, Maine — Secretary of State Shenna Bellows posed for a picture with President Joe Biden at the White House in March. She is now set to rule on whether his chief opponent in next year’s election can be on the Republican primary ballot.
Those challenging former President Donald Trump, led by progressives across the country, argue he is ineligible for the ballot under the insurrection clause of the U.S. Constitution after provoking supporters to riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The Colorado Supreme Court accepted that argument last week after judges in other states turned similar cases back.
The Colorado decision gave momentum to the nascent anti-Trump legal theory, but it may be short-lived. The U.S. Supreme Court, with a conservative majority cemented by Trump, is expected to rule on the case, which could supersede any similar decision on the state level.
Yet it is still a big moment for Bellows, a 48-year-old Democrat who has burnished a progressive reputation over the last decade and is seen as a future candidate for high office. Ruling against Trump could make her a star on the left but lead others to question her motives. She could alienate future primary voters if she rules against Trump.
The law — not politics — will drive any decision, Bellows told MSNBC in September. She has played the issue down the middle for months, declining to opine on challenges while citing the judge-like role she had to assume at a hearing on the Trump challenges earlier this month.
“For that reason, I have not engaged in conversations with people about the merits of the 14th Amendment challenges,” Bellows said in a November radio interview.
Few states task election officials with these kinds of rulings in response to challenges to a candidate’s eligibility. The 14th Amendment was ratified after the Civil War to keep former Confederates out of the government, so precedent in this area is largely being written now.
In Maine, three former elected officials are making the most common anti-Trump argument: That he fomented the riot and is therefore ineligible. Trump’s attorneys argue that Bellows lacks the power to remove him from the ballot. Judges in five states dismissed similar cases against Trump until the landmark Colorado ruling.
Bellows, who lives in Manchester, rose in state politics as the head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s chapter here, then ran a longshot race against U.S. Sen. Susan Collins that she lost badly in 2014. She was later elected three times as a Democrat to a Maine Senate seat in the Augusta suburbs, forgoing her third term because she was named secretary of state.
During her time with the ACLU, Bellows took up issues that often crossed over traditional party lines, including opposition to the Patriot Act, the surveillance law passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That work aligned the typically liberal ACLU with the conservative Koch brothers. She also helped lead Maine’s successful 2012 same-sex marriage referendum.
Her campaign against Collins was different. Bellows got little support from national Democrats in large part due to the senator’s sky-high approval, leaving it to progressives with less cachet to bolster the longshot run. One such group deemed Bellows “the [Massachusetts Sen.] Elizabeth Warren of civil liberties.” The candidate assailed the Kochs at an environmental conference.
“We live in a society that values winning, and there’s no more important effort to win than climate change,” she said in 2014. “But sometimes we’re going to lose.”
Some critics see a long shift during Bellows’ career from civil libertarianism to more conventional Democratic viewpoints, including Lance Dutson, a Republican strategist who works for Collins’ political operation. He said ruling against Trump is “a golden opportunity for a ladder-climbing partisan” and that her Senate run makes her likelier to court controversy.
“She’s been all over the country. She’s been through that level of scrutiny,” he said. “So I don’t think she would be afraid to be at the center of a storm. I think she would relish that.”
As secretary of state, Bellows has been outspoken on voting rights and associated issues, showing up often at progressive-leaning conventions on that topic. Her political background is drawing cynicism from some on the right. Steve Robinson, who edits the news arm of the conservative Maine Policy Institute, has already predicted she will rule against Trump.
Some on the right are giving her a chance. State Rep. Mike Soboleski, R-Phillips, who is running for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District in 2024 and attended the hearing to speak in favor of Trump, said he had faith in the secretary of state to weigh the evidence.
“I’m hoping she rules on the side of the voters and allows them to vote for who they want to,” he said.
It’s an unprecedented situation for a Maine official. Bellows’ predecessor, Matt Dunlap, who is now the Democratic state auditor, served the same role in lower-stakes proceedings.
Bellows is a careful and thoughtful person who will make the “right decision for maintaining a vibrant democracy,” said Sharon Treat, a former Democratic lawmaker from Hallowell who aided Bellows on her legislative runs and nodded to the difficulty of the situation.
“I don’t think I’d want to be in her shoes,” Treat said.
BDN writer Billy Kobin contributed to this report.
