Politics
WATCH: Maine Secretary Of State Says She Is ‘Duty-Bound’ To Remove Trump From State Ballot
After making an unprecedented decision to bar former President Donald Trump from Maine’s primary ballot, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, told MSNBC that she was “duty-bound” to make the decision.
“This decision is based on Maine law and the facts that were presented to me in the Section 336 challenge. It was really important to me to look at the evidence presented in the public hearing and the law and the facts presented in the context of Maine law, Sections 336, 337, and 443. It’s a very detailed decision,” Bellows said. “We lay out why under Maine law the Secretary of State has the authority, indeed the obligation, I’m duty bound to make this determination. We also, I rather laid out that the record demonstrates that in fact, the events of January 6th, 2021, which were unprecedented and tragic, were an insurrection in the meaning of section three of the 14th amendment.”
“And finally, in reviewing the facts presented, the evidence, the law, the history,” Bellows told CNN. “We determined under section three of the 14th amendment that Mr. Trump engaged in insurrection and therefore was disqualified.”
With the shocking move, Maine became the second state to bar Trump from their primary ballot after Colorado did so earlier this month. Colorado’s decision was decided by the state’s Democrat-controlled Supreme Court in a 4-3 ruling, though the ruling has been put on hold pending Trump’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Just hours after Colorado Secretary of State announced the decision, Bellows argued that Trump was disqualified from the state ballot under the 14th Amendment, which bars former officers of the United States who have engaged in “insurrection” from running for office. Trump has not been charged with, much less convicted of, inciting an “insurrection” on January 6, 2021.
In the aftermath of the decision, social media users posted photos of Bellows beaming ear-to-ear with President Biden, as well as former President Obama. Others, including Libs Of TikTok, brought up past tweets in which Bellows claimed that the right to vote is the “premise of our Democracy.”
“The fundamental right of any American citizen to vote freely, fairly and to have their vote counted is the premise of our democracy,” Bellows wrote in an X post a little under a year ago. “The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not values to be compromised away.”