This is corrupt, illegal and unconstitutional. And we’re not even in 2024 yet.
The Maine move is a good deal worse than the Colorado move because it’s purely unilateral. There isn’t even a pretense of a legislative or judicial process here. Just a Democrat in a position to supervise elections removing a possible presidential nominee from the ballot.
And if we’re going here, what exactly is to stop Republican secretaries of state from doing the same thing? That’s why saner voices even in the media were urging their party to stop doing this before they open the door to a Republican response.
Instead, Maine’s Democrat Secretary of State Shenna Bellows decided to one-up Colorado. And while Colorado is a mostly lost cause, Maine splits its electoral votes and Trump picked up an electoral vote here in 2016 and 2020.
Here’s her unilateral verdict.
“I conclude… that the record establishes that Mr. Trump, over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power. I likewise conclude that Mr. Trump was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it.”
Which record is that? Glenn Gould’s ‘Goldberg Variations’?
The president gets to declare an insurrection, not an election official in Maine three years later. If election officials get to declare insurrections, we’re gonna be in for an exciting 2024 election.
“I do not reach this conclusion lightly. Democracy is sacred… I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection. The oath I swore to uphold the Constitution comes first above all, and my duty under Maine’s election laws, when presented with a Section 336 challenge, is to ensure that candidates who appear on the primary ballot are qualified for the office they seek.”
The oath to the Constitution requires Bellows to uphold laws, not to violate or pervert them, or to make herself the sole arbiter of federal laws when she’s a state official, and to remove a candidate from a ballot for federal office because she doesn’t like him.
None of that is constitutional.
But obviously, it’s not about the Constitution. It’s about fundraising, scoring points, owning the other side, draining their resources and keeping the lawfare going.
Remember, Maine taxpayers will be paying for Shenna’s lawfare while the Trump campaign will pick up his legal bills. Keep multiplying this by several states and contemplate the cost of arguing a case in multiple jurisdictions and then before the Supreme Court and you’re looking at millions in campaign expenditures which are also effectively a contribution to the Biden campaign.
This is corrupt, illegal and unconstitutional. And we’re not even in 2024 yet.
Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield
