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Another State Removes Donald Trump From Its Primary Ballot

Hands sorting piles of election ballots on a table.
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Right on the heels of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to bar Donald Trump’s name from appearing on the 2024 Republican Presidential primary ballot, Maine’s Secretary of State has followed suit, declaring Trump’s actions on and leading up to January 6, 2021 disqualify him from re-election.

In her 34-page decision, Shenna Bellows writes, “I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”

Just like in the Colorado decision, Bellows issued a stay on her action, suspending the implementation of the decision until it inevitably makes its way through higher courts.

Still, the decision is a momentous one. Over and over, from impeachment to criminal and civil lawsuits, we’ve seen people hesitant to make Trump face consequences because it’s all so “unprecedented.” No one knows how to enforce a 150-year-old amendment about elected officials engaging in insurrection because they haven’t had to know.

I don’t hold out much hope for the largely Trump-appointed U.S. Supreme Court treating this issue seriously if and when it reaches them, but we are at least seeing necessary precedents being set across the country.

(featured image: Andy Manis/Getty Images)

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Author
Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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