Staff Reports
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court refused to jump into the debate on if the former President Donald Trump can be blocked from the 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment, backing up a ruling that the situation must be put on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on a similar situation in Colorado.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows made the call in December that Trump didn’t meet the requirements to appear on the primary ballot in the state under a part of the 14th Amendment that puts the kibosh on those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding public office. Her decision to nix Trump came shortly after the Colorado Supreme Court gave him the boot from the state’s ballot.
The Maine Superior Court, the state’s trial court, decided on Jan. 17 that Bellows’s giving Trump the ax would need to wait until the U.S. Supreme Court makes a ruling on the Colorado case. She gave that decision the old “up-and-over” to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court just the other week.
But, the Supreme Judicial Court agreed with Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy’s choice, meaning Trump will be on Maine’s 2024 primary ballot until the U.S. Supreme Court makes a decision.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s mouthpiece, called the ruling a “devastating” blow to Bellows, talking about her as President Joe Biden’s “acolyte.”
“This disenfranchisement effort, led by Crooked Joe’s Democrat acolyte and desperate partisan Secretary of State, was soundly rejected by Maine’s Supreme Court in a dismissal of the Secretary’s appeal of a prior order, which kept President Trump on the ballot,” Cheung said in a statement. “President Trump is confident that the United States Supreme Court will ultimately be fair and eliminate these meritless, sham ‘14th Amendment’ cases once and for all. Until then, President Trump will continue to fight them off at every turn. Make America Great Again!”
The U.S. Supreme Court said it’s going to chew over arguments in the Colorado case on Feb. 8, with a ruling from the high court promised to come out quick ’cause the primary season already started with New Hampshire and Iowa.
Led by Republican Attorneys General Todd Rokita of Indiana and Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia, 27 states filed an amicus brief arguing the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision “threatens to throw the 2024 presidential election into chaos.”
Other states tried to get Trump off their ballot with very little success. Courts in Michigan and Minnesota, plus an elections board in Massachusetts, chucked or ruled against legal challenges looking to oust the former president from the ballot. New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan said the 14th Amendment didn’t apply to the election process and said he had to put anyone on the ballot who met the filing requirements.
