What’s the general consensus on individual states keeping Donald Trump off their ballots? It’s hilarious to me that the same people screaming “states’ rights” are the same ones arguing that states don’t actually have the right to keep a fascist insurrectionist off the ballot. Of course, we already had a precursor to the states’ rights advocates’ cognitive dissonance, as they argued for a federal abortion ban. Anyway, another state has barred Trump from appearing on their ballot. This time, Maine is getting into it.
Maine on Thursday became the second state to bar Donald J. Trump from its primary election ballot after its top election official ruled that the former president’s efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election rendered him ineligible to hold office again.
Hours later, her counterpart in California announced that Mr. Trump would remain on the ballot in the nation’s most populous state, where election officials have limited power to remove candidates.
The official in Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, wrote in her decision that Mr. Trump did not qualify for the ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A handful of citizens had challenged his eligibility by claiming that he had incited an insurrection and was thus barred from seeking the presidency again under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
“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,” Ms. Bellows, a Democrat, wrote.
Ms. Bellows’s decision follows a Colorado Supreme Court ruling last week to keep Mr. Trump off the state’s Republican primary ballot.
The decisions in Maine and Colorado underscore national tensions over democracy, ballot access and the rule of law. They also add urgency to calls for the United States Supreme Court to insert itself into the politically explosive dispute over Mr. Trump’s eligibility.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said Thursday night that both the Maine and Colorado rulings were “partisan election interference efforts” that were “a hostile assault on American democracy.”
Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a fight worth having and Democrats at the state level should continue to push this issue and remind voters of what Trump did and what Trump is. But I also think that at the end of the day, Trump is going to appear on every state’s ballot. We should still have the fight though, and we should also force this Christofascist-majority Supreme Court to make some big decisions. Also: even if Trump is barred from a few states’ ballots, there’s literally nothing keeping people from writing in his name. It sucks but that’s democracy.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid, Fulton County mugshot.
- New York, NY – Former President Donald Trump speaks again briefly to the media before exiting the courtroom on his fraud charges related to his NY State properties at 60 Centre Street in Manhattan. Pictured: Donald Trump BACKGRID USA 2 OCTOBER 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
- New York, NY – Former President Donald Trump stepping out of the courtroom from his testimony in his civil fraud case at the State Supreme Court of New York. He has no statement for the press at this time. Pictured: Donald Trump BACKGRID USA 6 NOVEMBER 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
- New York, NY – Former President Donald Trump stepping out of the courtroom from his testimony in his civil fraud case at the State Supreme Court of New York. He has no statement for the press at this time. Pictured: Donald Trump BACKGRID USA 6 NOVEMBER 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
- Donald Trump Addresses the Media During Financial Fraud Trial Featuring: Donald Trump Where: New York, New York, United States When: 04 Oct 2023 Credit: Janet Mayer/startraksphoto.com
- Donald Trump Addresses the Media During Financial Fraud Trial Featuring: Donald Trump Where: New York, New York, United States When: 04 Oct 2023 Credit: Janet Mayer/startraksphoto.com
Let’s hope for more states to do the same. Although Colorado put him back on.
They did? Oh, crap, I missed that. Dang it. Well, yay Maine! I understand more states have these issues coming up, so I’m hopeful for that.
And yes, Kaiser, oh the irony for these states’ rights repubs.
My understanding is that the State Supreme Court decision came with a stay, not that he’s “back on”.
Hypocritical Republicans are all for states’ rights. Until they’re not!
This is so true. The funny thing about elections….states decid how to run their elections without interference from the government. Some states have early voting, some state place restrictions on mail in voting & some states you can ONLY vote by mail in ballot. All the gnashing of teeth & wringing of hands is ridiculous. These are the election laws put in place by each state. I always laugh when a politician screams states rights until the state goes against their personal preference
They’re also all for individual rights and the government doesn’t get to tell me what to do with my body – until you start talking about what women can do with theirs, and suddenly they’re not!
Unbelievable that this man is not wearing a jumpsuit that matches his complexion.
I wish he just died already. He’s never gonna see jail but he’s the only reason I wish hell existed
Yes, if only the diet cokes and hamberders would do their job already…
I wish people would stop saying that. Because we all know that if Trump dies. Biden will consider that to be the end of it. No Trump has to stand trial and be convicted. Then we have to go after all the other politicians and people who helped him try to overthrow the government. This has to be stopped once and for all. Or we will see Jan. 6th again in a few years. This isn’t all on Trump. Do you really think he is smart enough to have planned this? There are still politicians now who came up with these ideas. And are still working on destroying the country. All for their own thirst for power.
Well, there wasn’t really anything smart about it, so yeah, Trump could have planned it.
It was evil and incredibly stupid how it played out, so yeah he played a big part in it
But absolutely the other clowns need to be out of government/in jail too
It was a joint stupid effort by the stupidest of the GOP
Speaking of his death, I understand he has already designed his burial site. All the tacky gold leaf you would expect and surrounded by a water filled moat. I guess that’s so the worms will have a place to vomit.
and poor Ivana can’t even get the grass mowed by her forgotten gravesite on a golf club.
Good job writing about politics here on Celebitchy.
It’s important to emphasize how important it is to vote and help others that might be obstructed from voting in whatever way.
“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.”
MIC DROP. I have no further comment.
Yeah, that said it all. Forget Taylor Swift. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is my Person of the Year. Either section III or the 14th amendment has meaning or its just words.
New Hampshire debated this issue over the summer since we have the first primary of the nation. Unfortunately, our dogsh!t Secretary of State decided to keep him on the ballot. Of course he’s part of the gqp.
While I do think it’s valid to remove him based on that statute, I am not a corrupt Supreme Court justice who perjured myself in my confirmation hearings (or one of THREE I should say), so I don’t think this will ultimately hold up in appeals. I do feel like something in the air is changing lately though, changing in a good way (maybe it is just the new year’s optimism).
New Mexico is working on this as well.
New Mexico’s GOP chairman is quoted as saying, “Even if (Trump) gets convicted of something in all of these cases, that doesn’t prohibit him from running and serving,” Ummmm, I think it would; that he hasn’t been convicted – yet – is one of the issues in the debate from the Colorado ruling. If he were convicted it would be an easy interpretation of the 14th.
Plus, the New Mexico case should uphold removing Trump from the ballot as there is a previous case where a judge barred an Otero County commissioner from holding office because of involvement in the Jan 6 insurrection.
While I’m cheering loudly for T to go to jail convicted on all counts, I’m interested to see what scotus says about this argument. Do states have the right to remove someone from the ballot due to the 14th amendment, which is in the federal (not states’) constitution? Or remove someone who hasn’t (yet) been convicted of insurrection? Keeping him off the ballot will result in more lawsuits. I just want him to lose in every state election and go to prison already.
But if laws are not enforced, they don’t exist. A huge part of the problems we have now is the belief that laws don’t apply to Republicans, while even the suspicion of wrongdoing should be fatal for a Democrat. Unfortunately, the press has bought into this.
Ford’s pardon of Nixon brought us the beginning of the rise of Republican illegality. The Supreme Court shutting down the Florida recount and handing the election to Bush has led to a system where Republicans feel free to ignore election results they don’t approve of.
Saying elections are what matter when we are seeing Republicans throw Democrat voters off the election rolls, shut down polling places, not printing enough ballots in Democratic districts is incredibly short sighted.
What we need is to reform the court system. It was originally set up to have one Supreme Court justice for each circuit court. We now have 12 circuit courts and 9 justices. We could easily use 3 more courts. The federal court system is overwhelmed.
Sorry to ramble, but we do need to take the crimes of Trump seriously as crimes.
🎯
PROUD OF MAINE!!! I live here for a reason..
Yes! I hope others are brave enough to follow suit.
Donald Trump is the enemy of democracy. He’s got no business being on the ballot. If a democrat had pulled an eighth of what he’s done, there’d be calls for execution.
Trump is already trying to doxx her.
Banned from the PRIMARY and not the general election. She had the power vested in her state position, made the decision, and slapped his little baby hands with a firm “NO”. He will still be on the national ballot.
2024 is the year we could lose our democracy. No joke. We all have a responsibility to do what ever we can to get out the vote, and to be vocal with with our elected officials. I know the Supreme Court’s recently adopted Code of Conduct is ridiculous, as many of them have already violated it in many ways, and there is no way to make them adhere to it. But we should all be writing to our elected officials to tell them we expect Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from any cases related to Trump, the Jan. 6 coup attempt, and any and all election ‘irregularity’ cases that come their way this year. If enough of us complain, we can bring pressure to bear. Remember, Thomas’s wife was actively engaged in the Trump Insurrection planning, as her texts to Mark Meadows proved.
Strongly agree.
I love this. I only wish that more states had enough respect for our country to do the same
Fat pig. Trying to ruin democracy and take over our country.