Independent Maine Sen. Angus King voiced his disagreements on Friday with the state’s head election official’s decision to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot.
Trump was removed from the Maine 2024 ballot on Thursday at the sole behest of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who decided that he is disqualified from running under the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban,” even though the former president has not been convicted of that offense.
.Though King voted in the Senate to convict Trump for inciting an insurrection in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots, he disagreed with Bellows’ ruling, stating that the decision “should rest with the people.”
“Under the established Constitutional process, the Senate was called upon to determine this precise question in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in January, 2021,” King said in a statement. “While I voted with a bipartisan majority to convict, the required two-thirds of the Senate did not do so.”
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“Although I respect the Secretary of State’s careful process… absent a final judicial determination of a violation of the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause, I believe the decision as to whether or not Mr. Trump should be again considered for the presidency should rest with the people as expressed in free and fair elections,” King said. “This is the ultimate check within our Constitutional system.”
King, an independent senator who has served in Congress for roughly a decade, openly spoke out against Trump during and after his presidency; he refused to believe the final results of the Robert Mueller investigation that found that Trump was not guilty of colluding with Russia in the 2016 presidential election, and blamed the former president for inciting the Jan. 6 riots.
The Maine Independent’s comments underscore a fear among other lawmakers and officials that Bellows’ decision is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous standard.
Democratic Maine Rep. Jared Golden, who blamed Trump for the Jan. 6 riots and called for his impeachment, also agreed with King that the former president should be left on the ballot, citing the fact he has not formally been convicted of starting an insurrection.
Bellows defended her decision on Friday as “unprecedented” and “mindful” because no president in the history of the country had ever incited an insurrection before, even though Trump still hasn’t been convicted of that crime. Bellows noted that Maine heard three separate challenges to Trump’s nomination, two of which argued he was ineligible because of his supposed violation of the 14th Amendment.
Bellows is a longtime leftist operative and politician, having served two terms in Maine’s senate and supported President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign against Trump. Bellows also led Maine’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 2005-2013 and advocated for same-sex marriage and same-day voting.
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