Maine law ‘requires me to take action’ to disqualify Trump, secretary of state says

Before she decided to bar former President Donald J. Trump from the Maine primary, Shenna Bellows, the secretary of state, was not known for courting controversy.

In an interview on Friday, Ms. Bellows defended her decision, arguing that Mr. Trump’s incitement of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol made it necessary to bar him from voting next year.

“This is not a decision I have taken lightly,” Ms Bellows, 48, said. “The Constitution of the United States will not tolerate an attack on the foundations of our government, and Maine election law required me to act in response.”

Thursday’s decision was perhaps the toughest and most politically charged the longtime civil rights activist and former state lawmaker has faced — and it drew loud rebukes from Republicans in Maine and beyond.

Ms. Bellows, a Democrat, is one of several election officials across the country who have been considering legal challenges to Trump’s latest bid for the White House, based on an obscure clause of the 14th Amendment that bars government officials who have engaged in ‘revolt’. of serving in the US government.

After holding a hearing This month, considering arguments from both Trump’s lawyers and his critics, Ms. Bellows explained her decision in a Order of 34 pages released on Thursday evening.

The ban, which is being appealed in the courts, made Maine the second state to disqualify Mr. Trump from next year’s primaries. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled last week that his efforts to cling to power after the 2020 election were disqualifying. Opponents of Mr. Trump are pursuing similar challenges in several other states.

Lawyers on both sides of the dispute are calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to quickly rule on how election officials should interpret the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment, which was passed to ban Confederate officials from serving in the U.S. government after the Civil War. .

Mr. Trump’s campaign and Maine Republicans have called Ms. Bellows’ decision an overreach. The Republican Party of Maine issued a fundraising appeal, calling Ms. Bellows “a biased hack of the Democratic Party unworthy of the high office she holds.”

Maine’s two senators, Susan Collins, a Republican, and Angus King, an independent who typically votes with Democrats, also objected to the ban, along with Mr. King. say that “The decision as to whether or not Mr. Trump should run for president again should rest with the people, as reflected in free and fair elections.”

Ms Bellows said it was not unusual for Secretaries of State to exclude candidates from the ballot if they did not meet eligibility requirements, noting that she refused to allow Chris Christiethe former governor of New Jersey, to appear in the state’s Republican primary after failing to get enough signatures.

Ms Bellows, who became a powerful figure in a politically divided state, said she had managed to work with Republicans. Although Ms. Bellows’ old colleagues said in interviews that they were not surprised by her willingness to take a politically risky position.

“Secretary Bellows has a well-deserved reputation as an extremely hard worker who is willing to follow her conscience,” said Zach Heiden, the chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Maine, who reported to Ms. Bellows when she led the organization. from 2005 to 2013.

At the ACLU, Ms. Bellows defended gay marriage and the expansion of voting rights, and fought against provisions of the Patriot Act and certain government surveillance programs after the September 11 attacks. In 2014, after leaving the organization, Ms. Bellows launched an unsuccessful effort to oust Ms. Collins, who has been in the Senate since 1997.

“At first the Democratic establishment didn’t take her seriously,” said John Brautigam, a former lawmaker from Maine. “But Shenna won the nomination and ran a credible and issue-focused campaign.”

In 2016, Ms. Bellows won a seat in the state Senate, which included her hometown of Manchester. The neighborhood does politically mixed: It favored Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and Trump in 2016.

Although her politics were decidedly liberal, Ms. Bellows said she never saw herself as an extreme partisan. Shortly after becoming a senator, Ms. Bellows said she reached agreements with Republicans on several initiatives, including a bill that would make it easier to license medical professionals in the state.

That approach to politics, she said, was shaped by growing up in a politically divided family.

“The key to my success working across the aisle has always been a willingness to listen to both sides and be open to what people have to say,” she said.

In 2020, Ms. Bellows introduced herself as a candidate for Secretary of State, a role chosen by the Maine Legislature. Ms. Bellows said she sought the position because she saw it as an opportunity to protect democratic principles, including the right to vote.

“As a child, I had a copy of the Bill of Rights on the wall in my bedroom,” she said. These days, she said, she often carries a copy of the U.S. Constitution in her purse.

The aftermath of the 2020 election deeply troubled Ms. Bellows, who condemned Mr. Trump in social media posts after an effort to oust him failed.

“He should have been impeached,” she says wrote in February 2021. “But history will not treat him or those who voted against impeachment lightly.”

Republicans have said these comments cast doubt on her objectivity. But Ms. Bellows said her decision to remove Mr. Trump from the ballot was based solely on the facts and the law. She said a motto from her time at the ACLU had long guided her actions.

“We had a saying: there are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent principles,” she said. “That’s a philosophy I try to live my life by.”