U.S. Sen. Susan Collins on Thursday criticized a decision from Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows to bar Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot.
In a 34-page ruling, Bellows wrote that Trump’s actions before the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, sometimes referred to as the “insurrection clause.” That follows a similar decision from the Colorado Supreme Court earlier this month that barred Trump from that state’s ballot.
“I do not reach this conclusion lightly. Democracy is sacred,” Bellows wrote in her decision. “I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”
That decision has drawn criticism from Republicans, including Collins who said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that “Maine voters should decide who wins the election – not a Secretary of State chosen by the Legislature.”
“The Secretary of State’s decision would deny thousands of Mainers the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice, and it should be overturned,” Collins wrote Thursday night.
The legal theory behind the Trump challenges, which was fueled by two conservative law professors and is now being pushed by national progressives, is that the open-ended language means that the 14th Amendment can be applied to presidents.
It never has been, and judges have generally ruled to that effect. On Wednesday, the Michigan Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that Trump remains eligible for the ballot. A lower-court judge in Colorado said the disqualification does not apply to the president.
Colorado’s high court invalidated that ruling in part because the state has a specific provision in state law allowing the disqualification of constitutionally ineligible candidates. In Maine, the secretary of state is empowered to disqualify a candidate if any part of their declaration — which includes an oath saying they are eligible for office — is deemed false.
It’s unclear what happens next, but a likely next step for the Trump campaign would be to challenge Bellows’ decision in Superior Court.
BDN writer Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.
