Published December 29, 2023
Democratic Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, the woman responsible for kicking former President Trump off the state’s 2024 election ballot, is a longtime left-wing activist and Democratic politician.
Bellows unilaterally removed Trump from the ballot Thursday night under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, barring individuals from running for office if they engaged in an insurrection. The former president has not been charged with, or convicted of, engaging in an insurrection.
Bellows became Maine’s Secretary of State in January of 2021 after she was elected by the legislature following two terms in the Maine senate from 2016-20, her official bio states. Her second term began in January of 2023 and goes for two years.
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SOURCE: www.dailycaller.com
RELATED: She removed Trump from the ballot. Now, she’s defending her decision.
“I do not have the discretion to choose, or decline to do, my duty,” Shenna Bellows said.
Published December 27, 2023
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Friday defended her decision to bar former President Donald Trump from the ballot, telling POLITICO that he simply did not meet the constitutional requirements for holding high office.
Bellows’s decision this week to eject Trump — on the grounds that he engaged in insurrection, violating the 14th Amendment — intensified an already roaring legal debate over his eligibility to run for the presidency and added pressure on the Supreme Court to adjudicate the matter.
Speaking with POLITICO, Bellows, a Democrat, cast her ruling as a matter of fulfilling her basic responsibilities as the state’s chief election official: “I do not have the discretion to choose, or decline to do, my duty,” she said.
Bellows said state law requires her to make the call on candidates’ eligibility to run for office all the time — and this decision, while much more high profile, fell within that parameter.
“The legislature did not write into the law an exception for complexity or difficult natures of interpretation,” Bellows said. “They didn’t say enforce all of the constitutional qualifications except for the ones that are difficult or complex.”
Bellows likened blocking Trump from the ballot to rejecting candidates who do not meet other prerequisites, like the constitutional requirement that the president be at least 35 years old.
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SOURCE: www.politico.com
RELATED: Maine secretary of state rules Trump ineligible for state’s 2024 primary ballot
The decision can be appealed in state court.
Maine’s secretary of state decided that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot.
Published December 27, 2023
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has ruled that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot.
Bellows, a Democrat, issued her decision on three challenges brought by Maine voters, including three politicians, over the nomination petition of Trump for the GOP primary.
Bellows upheld the two challenges that sought to bar Trump from the ballot based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. She rejected one that hinged on the 22nd Amendment
“I conclude that Mr. Trump’s primary petition is invalid,” Bellows wrote in her decision. “Specifically, I find that the declaration on his candidate consent form is false because he is not qualified to hold the office of the President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Bellows went on to say in her decision that “the record establishes that Mr. Trump, over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power. I likewise conclude that Mr. Trump was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it.”
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SOURCE: www.abcnews.go.com
