Maine on Thursday became the second state to exclude Donald J. Trump from its primary election ballot after its top election official ruled that the former president’s efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election made him ineligible again.
Hours later, his California counterpart announced that Mr. Trump would remain on the ballot in the country’s most populous state, where election officials have limited power to eliminate candidates.
Maine’s official, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, wrote in her ruling that Mr. Trump was not qualified for the ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A handful of citizens had challenged his eligibility, saying he had incited an insurrection and was therefore barred from running for president again under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
“I am aware that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. However, I am also aware that no presidential candidate has ever engaged in an insurrection,” wrote Ms. Bellows, a Democrat.
Ms. Bellows’ decision follows a ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court last week to exclude Mr. Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot.
The decisions in Maine and Colorado underscore national tensions over democracy, voting access and the rule of law. They also add urgency to calls for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the politically explosive dispute over Mr. Trump’s electability.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said Thursday evening that the decisions in Maine and Colorado were «efforts at partisan election interference» that constituted «a hostile attack on American democracy.»
Just weeks before the first votes for the 2024 elections, lawyers on both sides are asking the nation’s highest court to provide guidance on an obscure clause in a constitutional amendment passed after the Civil War that is at the heart of the debate . effort to prevent Mr. Trump from running for the White House for a third time.
Courts in two other states, Minnesota and Michigan, ruled that election officials could not block the Republican Party from including Mr. Trump on their primary ballots.
The Michigan Supreme Court concluded Wednesday that an appeals court correctly ruled that political parties should be able to determine which candidates are eligible to run for president.
Another court decision is expected in Oregon, where the same group that filed the suit in Michigan is also seeking to have the courts remove Mr. Trump from the ballot, although Oregon’s secretary of state has refused to revoke it in response to an earlier challenge.
In California, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, had until Thursday to certify the list of official candidates so local election officials could begin preparing ballots for the upcoming election.
She had indicated in recent days that she was inclined to keep Mr. Trump on the ballot based on his interpretation of California law, despite a late request from the lieutenant governor to explore ways to impeach him.
The court cases are based on a Reconstruction-era constitutional amendment that sought to bar Confederate officials from serving in the U.S. government. The provision, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, disqualifies people who «have engaged in insurrection or rebellion» from holding office.
Over the years, the courts and Congress have done little to clarify how this test should apply. As legal challenges mount, election officials and judges across the country find themselves in largely uncharted waters as they wait for guidance from the Supreme Court.
The case would be the most politically significant case to come before the Supreme Court since it decided the disputed 2000 election in favor of President George W. Bush. Since then, the court has become much more conservative, thanks in large part to the three justices Mr. Trump appointed president.
Mr. Trump and his lawyers have called efforts to prevent him from voting an underhanded tactic by Democrats who fear facing him at the polls.
The groups leading the disqualification efforts argue that the former president’s attempts to subvert the will of voters in 2020 warrant extraordinary measures to protect American democracy.
Ms. Bellows, the Maine official reviewing the petition in that state, is the state’s first female secretary of state and a former state senator. She is also the former executive director of the nonprofit Maine Holocaust and Human Rights Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine.
In her 34-page ruling, Ms. Bellows wrote that Mr. Trump’s application to appear on Maine’s ballot was invalid because he falsely stated on his candidate consent form that he was qualified to serve. the position of president. She found no, she wrote, because «the record establishes that Mr. Trump, over several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame and direct his supporters.» to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
She also concluded that Mr. Trump “was aware of the likelihood of violence and had at least initially supported its appeal, given that he had encouraged it through inflammatory rhetoric and had taken no action timely to put an end to it.”
Legal experts say the scope of a Supreme Court ruling on the issue would determine whether these challenges are dealt with quickly or continue for months.
A ruling that Mr. Trump’s conduct cannot be construed as a violation of the 14th Amendment would end ongoing challenges in several states. A more restrictive ruling on the Colorado case could allow Mr. Trump to remain on the state’s primary ballot, while giving lawyers challenging his eligibility a chance to argue that he should be kept off of the general election ballot.
The Maine petitioners included Ethan Strimling, a former Portland mayor and Democratic state lawmaker who filed a challenge with two other former Maine lawmakers.
“Secretary Bellows demonstrated great courage in her decision, and we look forward to helping her defend her sound and correct decision in court,” they said in a statement Thursday. “No elected official is above the law or our Constitution, and today’s decision reaffirms this most important American principle.”
Mr. Trump can appeal Ms. Bellows’ decision to the Maine Superior Court within five days. His order will not take effect until the court rules on an appeal, which the Trump campaign says it intends to file soon. The Republican primaries in Maine and Colorado are both scheduled for March 5, known as Super Tuesday because many states hold primaries on that day.
Challenges to Mr. Trump’s ballot access have been filed in more than 30 states in recent weeks, largely in court. But due to a quirk of the Maine Constitution, registered voters must first file a petition with the Secretary of State.
Ms Bellows heard arguments on three of these petitions on December 15.
After the Colorado ruling, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued in new filings in Maine that the Colorado ruling should be irrelevant there because the two states had different laws and standards, and because Mr. Trump did not have a fair opportunity to argue the facts in Colorado. . They also argued that the secretary of state did not have the authority to exclude him from the ballot.
“The Constitution reserves exclusively to the Electoral College and Congress the power to determine whether a person can serve as president,” they argued in their filing late last week.
Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and an election law expert, said the Maine ruling illustrated the power of the Colorado court’s decision to make similar decisions easier.
“It takes a lot of courage to disqualify a major candidate, but once the Colorado court did it and brought the issue into the public light, it became easier for others,” he said. declared.
Given the “incredible complexity” of the legal issues involved, Mr. Hasen said, the U.S. Supreme Court is best equipped to resolve these issues. If the court chooses not to disqualify Mr. Trump, its decision would not be binding on Congress, but it would make it “politically very difficult for Congress to say something different,” he said.
In California, Democrats have overwhelming control of the government, so the state could have emerged as a ripe venue for an election challenge similar to the one that took place in Colorado.
But legal experts said California, unlike many other states, does not explicitly give its secretary of state the power to disqualify presidential candidates.
Nonetheless, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat, last week asked Ms. Weber to “explore all legal options” to remove Mr. Trump from the ballot using the same constitutional justification cited by the Colorado Supreme Court.
In response, Ms. Weber suggested last week that she planned to leave the issue to the state and federal courts, which have already dismissed at least two state lawsuits challenging Mr. Trump’s qualifications. Ms. Weber wrote that she was obligated to address ballot eligibility issues “within legal parameters” and “in a manner that transcends political divisions.”
Governor Gavin Newsom of California indicated last week that he did not think officials in his state should remove Mr. Trump from the ballot. “There is no doubt that Donald Trump poses a threat to our freedoms and even our democracy, but in California we are defeating candidates we don’t like at the ballot box,” he said in a statement. “Everything else is just a political distraction.”
Nicolas Bogel-Burroughs reports contributed.