(CN) — Former President Donald Trump sued to get added back to Maine’s presidential ballot Tuesday, just days after being removed by Maine’s secretary of state Shenna Bellows.
Bellows, a Democrat, had ruled Trump was ineligible for office due to his role in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which Bellows claimed was a violation of the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause.
In his 11-page appeal, Trump claims Bellows’ decision was riddled with “bias” and a “pervasive lack of due process.”
“The secretary was a biased decisionmaker who should have recused herself and otherwise failed to provide lawful due process,” Trump says in his petition. “President Trump will be illegally excluded from the ballot as a result of the secretary’s actions.”
Trump references a “documented history of prior statements” from Bellows as evidence of that bias — seemingly related to tweets Bellows made in the past regarding Jan. 6. In a campaign email, he previously called Bellows a “biased Democrat partisan” and a “Biden supporter who is incapable of making a fair decision."
The former president claims he met all of the requirements necessary to appear on Maine’s primary ballot, per the state’s presidential primary candidate consent form, which was attached to his filing.
The form lists three “qualifications” for U.S. president: that they be a natural born citizen, that they be at least 35 years old and that they have been residing in the U.S. for at least 14 years.
Those are the only three requirements stated, Trump argues. He claims that since not one qualification “identifies, involves, or refers to Section Three of the 14th Amendment,” Bellows cannot legally remove him from the ballot.
Doing so, Trump adds, was above Bellows’ authority anyway. He claims that the 14th Amendment has “no role for state officials to play in its enforcement.”
“The secretary had no statutory authority to consider any challenge to President Trump's qualifications,” Trump says in his petition.
In a statement to Courthouse News, Bellows said she stands by her decision and that Trump’s appeal is merely “the next step” in the state’s process.
“Under Maine law, an appeal of the decision to the Maine Superior Court is the next step in the process laid out in the Maine election law,” Bellows said in the statement. “I have confidence in my decision and in the rule of law. Everyone who serves in government has a duty and obligation to uphold the Constitution first above all.”
Maine’s unique election laws allowed Bellows to make the decision in the first place. While states like Colorado, Michigan and Minnesota have issued court rulings on Trump’s ballot eligibility for 2024, Maine requires that its secretary of state weigh in first.
The now-nationwide fight to boot Trump off of state ballots was sparked by a slew of lawsuits claiming that Trump’s involvement in the Capitol riot made him ineligible to run for public office.
Most of the challenges cite Section Three of the 14th Amendment, often called the insurrection clause, which prohibits anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. from running for president.
Bellows found that’s precisely what Trump did on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Mr. Trump engaged in an insurrection against the United States,” she wrote in her decision. “I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the 14th Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”
Trump and his team appeared to have expected Bellows' stance. Days before her ruling, they wrote her a letter demanding that she recuse herself from deciding his ballot eligibility altogether.
“President Trump deserves a fair and impartial hearing,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the letter. “Both the Maine Legislature and Maine courts demand that state administrative proceedings must be conducted fairly and with integrity.”
Bellows issued the decision anyway and never mentioned the letter.
Colorado is the only other state to remove Trump from its ballot thus far. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on Colorado’s decision in the coming weeks, creating a precedent that will trickle down to the other states fielding challenges.
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