On Thursday, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows blocked former President Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot in the state’s presidential primary.
Bellows, a Democrat, became the first executive to unilaterally bar Trump from the ballot… and now she’s facing impeachment.
State Rep. John Andrews, a Republican, filed to impeach Bellows on the very day of her ruling. “I wasn’t planning to impeach the Secretary of State tonight, but here we are,” Andrews wrote on Facebook that night.
Andrews accused Bellows, a former U.S. Senate candidate, of trying to juice a campaign for governor in 2026.
“I wish to impeach Secretary Bellows on the grounds that she is barring an American citizen and 45th President of the United States, who is convicted of no crime or impeachment, their right to appear on a Maine Republican Primary ballot,” he said in a press release.
“A Secretary of State APPOINTED by legislative Democrats bans President Trump from the 2024 ballot so that she can jockey for position in the 2026 Democrat Primary for Governor. Banana Republic isn’t just a store at the mall.”
Bellows has experienced some overnight fame (or infamy). Since Thursday, she’s appeared on both CNN and MSNBC to defend her decision, and she’s also gone viral for having worn a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “DEMOCRACY DEFENDERS.”
“No secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access,” Bellows said on CNN. “But no presidential candidate has ever engaged in insurrection.”
Sure enough, she’s facing allegations of partisanship and abuse of power.
In a Thursday statement, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung called her “a former ACLU attorney, a virulent leftist and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat who has decided to interfere in the presidential election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden.”
The Democrat-controlled statehouse looks unlikely to impeach Bellows, according to some observers. Following news of the impeachment effort, one columnist joked, “Stern letter to follow.”
Some officials have stopped short of endorsing impeachment, but they’ve still urged the courts to overturn Bellow’s decision. Republican Susan Collins, one of Maine’s U.S. senators, tweeted, “The Secretary of State’s decision would deny thousands of Mainers the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice, and it should be overturned.
Members of both parties have blasted Bellows’ decision. U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat, said in a statement Thursday, “Until [Trump] is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed on the ballot.” Golden represents a congressional district won by Trump both in 2016 and 2020.
Bellows on CNN:
"No Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access… But no presidential candidate has ever engaged in insurrection" pic.twitter.com/3n0WnZEnVZ
— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) December 29, 2023
The Horn editorial team