The Maine Superior Court ordered Donald Trump to return to the ballot amid a pending decision from the U.S. Supreme Court.
According to CBS News, Justice Michaela Murphy wrote in the order, “Put simply, the United States Supreme Court’s acceptance of the Colorado case changes everything about the order in which these issues should be decided, and by which court.”
“And while it is impossible to know what the Supreme Court will decide, hopefully it will at least clarify what role, if any, state decision-makers, including secretaries of state and state judicial officers, play in adjudicating claims of disqualification brought under Section Three of the 14th Amendment.”
“Unless the Supreme Court before that date finds President Trump disqualified to hold the office of president, eligible Maine voters who wish to cast their vote for him in the primary will be able to do so, with the winner being determined by ranked-choice voting,” Murphy added.
After Maine’s Secretary of State Shella Bellows decided that Trump should be banned from the state’s ballot, Trump’s lawyers wrote that the move was a “product of a process infected by bias and pervasive lack of due process.”
Maine State Rep. John Andrews (R) filed a request for a Joint Order to impeach Secretary of State Shenna Bellows after she banned Trump from the state’s primary ballot.
“I wasn’t planning to impeach the Secretary of State tonight, but here we are,” Andrews wrote on Facebook.
“I wish to file a Joint Order, or whichever is the proper parliamentary mechanism under Mason’s Rules, to impeach Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. I wish to impeach Secretary Bellows on the grounds that she is barring an American citizen and 45th President of the United States, who is convicted of no crime or impeachment, their right to appear on a Maine Republican Primary ballot,” he said. “Donald J. Trump has met all qualifications for the March 2024 Republican Presidential Primary. He should be allowed on the ballot. This is raw partisanship and has no place in the offices of our state’s Constitutional Officers.”
