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AUGUSTA, Maine — Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is too biased to rule on former President Donald Trump’s eligibility for Maine’s 2024 ballot and must recuse herself, the Trump campaign said in a last-minute Wednesday legal filing.
It came on the same day that Bellows, a Democrat, is expected to issue a decision on whether Trump is eligible for the ballot. Challengers here and across the country argue he should be disqualified under the so-called insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment for his role in inciting the Capitol riots of Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump’s campaign issued a statement and a legal filing that cited two examples of Bellows using the term “insurrection” on social media to describe the riots. Its statement to reporters also featured a photo of the secretary of state at the White House this year with President Joe Biden, a Democrat who may run a rematch of his 2020 race with Trump in next year’s election.
Bellows “is a completely biased Democrat partisan” and a Biden supporter who must recuse herself for making a decision in the eligibility proceeding, Trump’s campaign said in its statement.
The secretary of state will not comment on the challenge while it is active, Emily Cook, a Bellows spokesperson, said. Last week, Cook said Bellows will make the decision “dispassionately at the proper time in accordance with the laws and the Constitution, which will be the sole consideration.”
The secretary of state presided in a judge-like role during a hearing earlier this month in which Trump’s campaign and those challenging his eligibility laid out their arguments. While Bellows has a reputation as a progressive, she has declined to opine for months on the legal arguments around the 14th Amendment because they were likely to come up here.
State law requires the secretary of state to rule on challenges to a candidate’s eligibility. Her decision can be appealed to state courts. Nothing prohibits her from delegating the ruling to staff, but Trump’s campaign waited until late in the process to ask her to recuse herself after it said it only learned on Christmas Eve of her past statements on the former president.
“This is a far better course of action than rendering judgment after it has become evident that [Bellows] has predetermined that President Trump participated in ‘insurrection,’” Trump’s lawyers, led by former Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, said in the filing.
Dozens of similar challenges have been filed against Trump in states. Judges in five of them have turned back these arguments. On Wednesday, Michigan’s high court upheld a ruling allowing Trump to remain on the ballot. Colorado’s high court disqualified him last week, but the case is expected to go to the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court.
