On Wednesday, the Maine Superior Court issued an order for Trump to be reinstated on the ballot, pending a decision from the US Supreme Court.
President Trump lodged an appeal with the state superior court on Tuesday challenging Maine’s Democrat Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ ban on his 2024 ballot candidacy.
ABC News reported that “Former President Donald Trump’s legal team on Tuesday appealed Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ ruling that deemed him ineligible from appearing on the state’s GOP primary ballot to Maine’s Superior Court, the state’s top trial court.”
Maine’s lunatic leftist Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, unilaterally removed President Trump from the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot.
Like Colorado, Bellows cited the 14th Amendment’s Insurrection clause as the basis for Trump’s ineligibility for the state’s primary ballot.
Trump has not been charged with engaging in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.
In her 34-page decision, she wrote that President Trump, “was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it.”
Continuing, she emphasized, “A brief call to obey the law does not erase conduct over the course of months, culminating in his speech on the Ellipse.”
Maine blocks former President Trump from the ballot. The secretary of state’s decision is suspended pending appeal. pic.twitter.com/dGNDQde9j4
— Jared Halpern (@JaredHalpern) December 29, 2023
On Wednesday, the Maine Superior Court said Trump can appear on the 2024 primary ballot pending a ruling from the US Supreme Court.
“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,” Justice Michaela Murphy wrote in a 17-page order, according to CBS News. “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.”
CBS News reported:
The Maine Superior Court on Wednesday cleared the way for former President Donald Trump to appear on the state’s Republican presidential primary ballot for now, sending a dispute over his eligibility for a second term back to the secretary of state for further proceedings once the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling in a similar case from Colorado.
In a 17-page order, Justice Michaela Murphy, who sits on the superior court in Augusta, said that a December decision from Secretary of State Shella Bellows, a Democrat, should remain on hold until the Supreme Court renders its decision in the Colorado dispute.
Noting that Maine’s primary is scheduled for March 5, Murphy wrote that “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.”
She said that Maine law grants her the authority to send the matter back to Bellows and order her to issue a new ruling once the Supreme Court decides the Colorado case.
