Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is considering whether or not to keep former United States President Donald Trump's name on the state's primary ballot after Colorado decides to disqualify the candidate.
During last week's hearing, Bellows weighed three complaints that challenged Trump's eligibility to appear on Maine's Republican primary ballot. Two of the complaints are based on the same section of the Constitution that the Colorado Supreme Court cited in its 4 to 3 decision on Tuesday.
Trump on Maine's Republican Primary Ballot
That particular ruling disqualified Trump, noting that he cannot hold office again because his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot amounted to engaging in an insurrection. In more than 30 states, some form of challenge to the former president's eligibility has been lodged.
While many of these are still unfolding in court, the one in Maine will be decided by the secretary of state first, with voters filing petitions, not lawsuits. Bellows' decision can then be appealed to the state's Superior Court, as per the New York Times.
Colorado's ruling was the first in history to disqualify a presidential candidate from a ballot under the 14th Amendment. A section of the amendment bars individuals who have taken an oath to "support" the Constitution from holding office if they "engaged in insurrection," "rebellion against the same," or had "given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
The former president's campaign has argued that it plans to appeal the decision to the United States Supreme Court. If the high court decides to take up the case, the other challenges nationwide will likely be put on hold until a ruling.
Following the ruling in Colorado, Bellows invited lawyers on both sides in Maine to file supplemental briefs. She said her decision on the matter would likely come next week. The Republican primaries in Colorado and Maine are both scheduled for Mar. 5.
Involvement in an Insurrection
The situation comes as former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissman said that Americans sacrificed their lives in the Civil War to keep candidates "who engaged in insurrection" from running for office in the United States, according to Fox News.
On Thursday, he said that the Constitution is seen as relatively new because there has not been a situation where someone running for office is found to have engaged in insurrection or rebellion.
He added that it was "remarkable" to him that the ruling from the Democrat-appointed court justices "isn't really the unanimous finding in the Colorado case because you had no one dissenting on the issue of did he do it."
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin also said that he believes the U.S. The Constitution could not be clearer that Trump is ineligible to hold office under the 14th Amendment. He noted that this is a chance for the Supreme Court's justices to show that they mean it when discussing textualism and originalism.
The Democrat's remarks come as the former president expressed his plans to appeal the Colorado ruling that disqualified him from the state's Republican primary ballot for the 2024 race, said The Hill.
