CAMDEN, Maine — With two states voting to disqualify Donald Trump from serving as president again, an unprecedented constitutional issue appears destined for the U.S. Supreme Court, no matter how much the justices want to get stuck in this legal and political quagmire. Would also like to avoid.
The former president’s campaign plans to immediately appeal Thursday’s decision by Maine’s top elections official, as they did last week to the Colorado Supreme Court. Both ruled Trump ineligible for the presidency under the 14th Amendment due to his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Trump remains on the ballot in both states for next year’s GOP presidential primary after both blocked implementation of his decision to give high courts time to intervene.
In Maine, Secretary of State Shenae Bellows, a Democrat, said in an interview with NBC News that she would have preferred to wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to issue guidance on the new legal question — whether any presidential candidate would be eligible for Section 14 Has never been disqualified under. The amendment — but she said Maine law requires her action now.
Bellows said, “The country would be well served if the United States Supreme Court issued clear guidance for everyone to follow on this unprecedented constitutional question.”
Maine election law, on a national level, allows any registered voter to challenge the qualifications of any candidate. It requires the Secretary of State to hold a public hearing on the challenge and then issue a decision by a certain deadline.
Three electors challenged Trump’s eligibility, two on 14th Amendment grounds. Bellows held a hearing last week and the legal deadline for his decision was this weekend.
“I did not choose to hold this hearing or issue a decision. I was duty bound under Maine election laws and the Constitution,” Bellows said.
Still, she’s well aware that her decision has set off a national legal and political storm — and set up a court battle in Maine that would have to move quickly, even under state law.
“I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever denied a presidential candidate a ballot measure based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. However, I also take care that no presidential candidate has ever been involved in an insurgency before,” she said.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars from holding public office any former official who took the oath of office to the Constitution and then “joins in rebellion or insurrection against the same.” This clause was written to prevent unrepentant former Confederates from holding office in the newly united states after the Civil War.
Trump’s campaign says it plans to immediately appeal Bellows’ decision to the Maine Superior Court, the state’s top trial court. The court is ordered by law to move quickly, with Bellows expected to confirm or overturn the decision by Jan. 17.
That decision can then be appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court or the US Supreme Court.
Bellows will be represented in court by Maine’s Attorney General, Aaron Frey, also a Democrat. Trump will be represented by his lawyers.
Meanwhile, courts in other states have sided with Trump, with recent rulings in Michigan, Arizona and Minnesota affirming his right to the ballot.
Given that inconsistency, officials are hoping for broader guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court that would directly address the 14th Amendment question, rather than a narrow ruling on Colorado alone, which is likely to reach the justices first.
“All of this puts a lot of pressure on the Supreme Court to make a national decision on this case as soon as possible,” said Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. “Otherwise, you will have a patchwork of results in different states leading to election chaos.”
The case presents a number of tricky legal questions, many of which have little precedent, as well as the more factual question of whether Trump was involved in the insurrection around January 6. He is currently facing federal criminal charges related to his role in this effort. Overturned the 2020 election, but was not charged with insurrection by special counsel Jack Smith.
Still, Waldman said, the court can move quickly when needed, such as during Watergate and the 2000 election. “In major cases where the presidency is at stake, he has delivered swift verdicts,” he said.
Bellows’ decision was condemned by Republicans and praised by some, though not all, Democrats.
“Maine voters should decide who wins the election – not the secretary of state chosen by the legislature,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement.
It is unusual to allow the state legislature, not the voters or the governor, to select the Secretary of State and Attorney General. Both houses of the Legislature are currently controlled by Democrats.
At least one Maine Republican lawmaker is attempting to impeach Bellows over the decision, though that is unlikely to succeed in the Democratic Legislature.
Representative Jared Golden, a moderate Democrat who represents Maine’s rural 2nd Congressional District, which Trump won twice, said he voted to impeach Trump and that he does not want the former president re-elected. Yes – but he still disagrees with Bellows’ decision.
“Unless he is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed to vote,” Golden said in a statement.
Representative Dean Phillips, the Minnesota Democrat who ran a longtime primary campaign against President Joe Biden, went even further. Phillips said, “Efforts to suppress candidates through the legal system, secretaries of state, and political parties themselves are un-democratic and un-American.” wrote On social media platform X.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a left-wing group that has been heavily involved in efforts to disqualify Trump in Colorado and other states, applauded Bellows’ decision in Maine.
But it also acknowledged that the case would eventually go to the U.S. Supreme Court, where conservatives have a 6-3 majority.
In a new filing, Crews formally asked the top court to take up the Colorado case as soon as possible. The group asked for a decision to be made by February, so it could take effect before mail-in voting begins in most Republican presidential primaries.
“This motion seeks to expedite the Court’s consideration … so that the critical question of Trump’s eligibility can be resolved by this Court before a majority of primary voters cast their ballots,” Crews’ lawyers wrote in the filing. “(F) The approaching deadline requires prompt resolution of all petitions for certiorari and, if allowed, of the merits so that primary voters can know whether Trump is disqualified.”
