GOP bid to impeach Maine official turned back
AUGUSTA, Maine — Democrats who control the Maine Legislature on Tuesday rejected a Republican effort to impeach the state’s top election official for her decision to remove former President Donald Trump from the state ballot over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The Maine House voted 80-60 against the resolution targeting Shenna Bellows, the first secretary of state in history to block someone from running for president by invoking the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause.
Bellows, who watched the entire proceeding from the gallery, vowed to abide by any legal ruling on her decision to keep Trump off Maine’s March 5 primary ballot, which is under appeal in Maine Superior Court.
Republicans are angry at Bellows’ conclusion that the GOP frontrunner shouldn’t be on the ballot. They argued that her decision disenfranchised the more than 300,000 voters in Maine who chose Trump in the last election.
GOP Rep. Michael Soboleski, of Phillips, called the secretary’s action “election interference of the highest order” and a fellow Republican, Rep. James Thorne of Carmel, said it “does nothing but further divide the political banner between the parties, and indeed the people of the state of Maine.”
“There has been no conviction in a court of law. She is not a judge. She is not a jury. And I believe that the people feel absolutely disenfranchised,” added Rep. Katrina Smith, a Republican from Palermo.
But they had faced long odds in seeking retribution against the Democrat.
The proposal called for a panel to investigate Bellows’ actions and report back to the 151-member House. If the proposal had moved forward — and there had been an impeachment vote — then there would have been a trial in the 35-member Senate, where Democrats also have a majority.
Democratic Rep. Kevin O’Connell, of Brewer, said Bellows “faithfully discharged her oath of office.” He called her “an honorable person” who should not be removed from office for “simply doing her job.”
“You might disagree with her decision, and some folks do. But every government official has an obligation to follow the law and fulfill their oath to the Constitution,” he said.
Afterward, Bellows said she stood by her assessment that the impeachment effort was “political theater” and that she acted as required by state law after Trump’s candidacy was challenged.
“If people disagree with the decision, the proper venue for resolving that disagreement is with the courts. And indeed Mr. Trump has appealed to Superior Court. If people disagree with the authority delegated to the secretary under Maine election law, the proper venue is for the legislature to amend the law,” Bellows said after the vote.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office. Some legal scholars say the post-Civil War clause applies to Trump for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and encouraging his backers to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
So far, Colorado is the only other state to bar Trump from the ballot. That decision by the Colorado Supreme Court is currently under appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Monday, Trump’s lawyers asked a judge to pause his appeal of Bellow’s decision to allow time for a U.S. Supreme Court decision that could render it moot. But the attorney general’s office, which is representing Bellows, objected to the effort to delay the legal process in Maine.