AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine House of Representatives is set to vote Tuesday on a Republican lawmaker’s resolution to impeach Secretary of State Shenna Bellows over her decision to rule former President Donald Trump ineligible for the 2024 primary ballot.
Rep. John Andrews, R-Paris, introduced the impeachment resolution last week and asked a special House investigative committee to review allegations of “misconduct” by Bellows, a Democrat, including “the failure to recuse herself for bias” for overseeing three challenges to Trump’s eligibility after serving as an elector for President Joe Biden during the 2020 election.
The impeachment resolution is almost certain to fail in the Democratic-controlled House, but if it would succeed and advance to the Senate, which Democrats also control, it would require a two-thirds majority to remove Bellows from office.
Bellows became the country’s first secretary of state to rule Trump ineligible for the March 5 presidential primary after finding he violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits a person who engaged in insurrection from holding office. Bellows said in her Dec. 28 ruling that Trump incited the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol, a conclusion the Colorado Supreme Court also reached a week before the Maine decision.
Trump has appealed the Maine ruling to the Superior Court and the Colorado decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
How to watch Tuesday vote to impeach Maine’s secretary of state
The House began its business shortly after 10 a.m. Tuesday and took up the impeachment resolution around 10:40 a.m. A live stream of the House proceedings is available here.