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Scott Detrow: So how did you define “engaging in insurrection” here?
Shenna Bellows: Well, let’s back up first and make sure that everyone understands that Maine law is, to my knowledge, different from every other state.
Under Maine law, when I qualified Mr. Trump for the ballot, any registered voter had the right to challenge that qualification. Five voters did so, including two former Republican state senators. And then I was required under the statute, under the law, to hold a hearing and issue a decision, and do so within a very compressed timeline. So this wasn’t something I initiated, but it’s something that’s required under Maine election law.
Detrow: So the question came to you, but it puts you in the position of weighing a really serious question with big consequences that’s in front of a lot of state courts right now. And that is this question of whether the attempt to overturn the election and what happened on January 6 was insurrection. How did you think about that key question?
Bellows: So I reviewed very carefully the hearing proceedings and the weight of the evidence presented to me at the hearing. And that evidence made clear, first, that those events of January 6, 2021 — and we all witnessed them — they were unprecedented. They were tragic. But they were an attack not only upon the capital and government officials, but also an attack on the rule of law, on the peaceful transfer of power. And the evidence presented at the hearing demonstrated that they occurred at the behest of, and with the knowledge and support of, the outgoing president. And the United States Constitution does not tolerate an assault on the foundations of our government. And under Maine election law, I was required to act in response.
Ugh. This is only going to backfire and feed the tHe DeEp StAtE Is OuT tO gEt Me narrative.
If he’s convicted of something that automatically disqualifies him from running in every state, yes, deny him. Otherwise this is playing into his tiny orange hands.
Let’s never do the right thing because Republicans might whine about it.
No matter what happens Trump will trumpet “the deep state is rigging things against me”.
To me, it’s a nothing that he does this. His followers already believe this regardless of what happens. Everyone else knows what happened J6.
So what is there to fear following the law? His supporters won’t get less violent or treasonous.
Nowhere is conviction required here. In the past when this rule has been used a conviction was not required.
Stop pretending it says a conviction is required or even mentioned.
Ugh. Doing the right and lawful thing is hard. We should just not do it.
No one who has been formally disqualified under Section 3 was charged under the criminal “rebellion or insurrection” statute (18 U.S.C. § 2383) or its predecessors so why would Trump need to be?
The Constitution doesn’t say you have to be convicted of insurrection for the 14th amendment to apply. I don’t like the idea that you can’t do the right thing just because the psychos will freak out about it.
Sounds to me like the Maine Secretary of State followed and upheld the law and when faced with what we all know is overwhelming evidence against Trump she made the only possible call. Those arguing that this was poor strategy, would also be counter-arguing for following the rule of law.
We need more people like the Maine and Georgia Secretaries of State. They are doing their job in a bipartisan and by-the-book process and they are not being intimidated by the threats of violence against them and their staff. These are the real protectors of Democracy that you want even outside of these insane conditions we have been forced to face.
its definitely gonna feed tHe DeEp StAtE Is OuT tO gEt Me narrative… but if it rains on the day of the American elections, its going to do the same thing…
I’ve considered this too. My suspicion is that they’ll appeal at the 11th hour, giving little time to amend the ballots.
They had less than a week to send it to the Maine state courts I believe. We’ll see how fast it goes from there.
That sounds typical of an administrative appeal. The Main Sec. state held an evidentiary hearing on this question and ruled against Trump based on the evidence, as is her prerogative. Administrative decisions are not likely to be reversed on appeal because the standard is one of abuse of discretion. The Secretary’s decision would have to be clearly erroneous for it to be tossed.
quit pretending there’s anything we can do to get republicans to act in good faith. they’ll use whatever levers of power they can regardless of what we do. it’s time to start using whatever power we can to defend democracy from its openly declared enemies, and to stop running our defense plans past the enemy for their approval first.