Never two without three ? Maine excluded Donald Trump from the Republican primary this Thursday, December 28, following the example of Colorado. A decision taken in connection with the assault on the Capitol in January 2021. “He is not fit for the office of president” under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which excludes from any public responsibility people who have engaged in acts of “insurrection”, declared in an official document the Democratic Secretary of the State of Maine, Shenna Bellows, responsible for organizing the elections.
“I do not reach this conclusion lightly,” she confided in this document, estimating that the assault on the Capitol, seat of the American Congress, was committed “on orders, with full knowledge and with the support of the outgoing president. The decision will be “suspended” in the event of a legal challenge, she said. Which should be the case: the spokesperson for former President Donald Trump immediately announced the businessman’s desire to challenge the decision in court.
The latter could be the subject of a final appeal before the Supreme Court of the United States. Donald Trump quickly condemned a decision taken, according to him, by “a radical leftist”, “ardent supporter” of Joe Biden, the current president and next Democratic candidate, barring surprise, in the 2024 election. “We are witnessing in directly to an attempt to steal an election and to the deprivation of the American voter’s right to vote”, Donald Trump further denounced via his campaign team.
The Republican billionaire won one of the major voters (responsible for electing the American president and vice-president) in Maine in 2020, and Shenna Bellows’ decision, if it is actually applied, would therefore have serious consequences in case of close presidential election.
Republicans behind Trump
On January 6, 2021, hundreds of Donald Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol, the sanctuary of American democracy, to try to prevent the certification of the victory of his Democratic opponent Joe Biden. Donald Trump and his most fervent supporters still dispute, without proof, the results of the 2020 election.
The ex-president was indicted on August 1 at the federal level and then on August 14 by the state of Georgia, accused of having tried to reverse the results of the 2020 election. Several procedures have been launched in various states of the country to block the path of the big favorite of the Republican primaries. If Michigan and Minnesota rejected them, the Colorado Supreme Court was the first, last week, to declare Donald Trump ineligible because of his actions during the assault on the Capitol. Maine’s decision, like that of Colorado, at this stage only concerns the Republican primaries held in the two states, scheduled for March 5 among around fifteen states, during “Super Tuesday”.
“Maine voters should be able to decide who wins the election, not the Secretary of State,” slammed Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), calling for “cancel” this decision. Like her, many Republican elected officials have condemned this new decision of ineligibility. “Democrats love ‘democracy’ so much that they are ready to do anything to prevent voters from voting against their opponent,” accused Texas senator Ted Cruz.
“This opens Pandora’s box. Could a Republican Secretary of State disqualify Biden from the election? Because he let 8 million people enter illegally,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and rival of Trump for the Republican primary, citing the migration crisis at the border between the United States and Mexico.
“Unknown land”
On the Democratic side, Jared Golden, elected from Maine to the House of Representatives, also criticized this decision: “we are a nation of rights, and therefore, as long as he is not found guilty, he should be allowed in the ballot “, he said on X, indicating that he had voted in favor of indicting the former president for his role in the assault on the Capitol.
In their decision ordering electoral authorities to remove Donald Trump’s name from the ballots for the Republican primaries in 2024, the Colorado judges said they were “aware of moving into unknown territory”. Joe Biden reacted to this decision by judging that Donald Trump had “certainly supported an insurrection”. “There is no doubt about it, none,” he said.
The Colorado Republican Party on Wednesday asked the United States Supreme Court to review this decision, which could make it possible to decide the subject in all the states where similar procedures have been initiated. Until the Supreme Court rules, ballots will still have to include the name of former President Trump, in both Colorado and Maine.