Ballot Access News

On January 24, the Maine Supreme Court rejected the Secretary of State’s appeal in the lawsuit involving ballot access for former President Donald Trump.  The lower court had put the Secretary of State’s decision in abeyance pending resolution of the Colorado case in the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Secretary of State of Maine had then tried to persuade the State Supreme Court to reinstate her decision.  But the State Supreme Court said the lower court ruling isn’t yet final, so it isn’t possible to appeal it.

Thus, Trump remains on the Maine Republican presidential primary ballot.

Here is the ruling.  Trump v Secretary of State, 2024-ME-5.

Renowned Law Professor Bruce Ackerman here writes at Politico that if any U.S. Supreme Court Justice believes in originalism, that Justice must  vote to remove Donald Trump from ballots.  “Originalism” is the judicial theory that the Constitution should be interpreted in line with the framers’ thinking.”

Ackerman appears not to know that when the 14th amendment was written, no one could prevent any candidate from running.  Ackerman would like to see the Supreme Court “prohibit his candidacy”.  He says if the Court is faithful to originalism, “Trump won’t be running.”

The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment obviously did not intend section three to prevent anyone from running.  They knew that government at that time had no means to prevent anyone from running, because there were no government-printed ballots.  Ballots were private.  Clearly, if the Justices use originalism, they will rule that Trump can run, but if he is elected, he can’t be sworn in.

One of the amici filed in Trump v Anderson, 23-719, the Colorado ballot access case, says that the U.S. Supreme Court ought to rule that state election officials have no authority to decide whether a candidate is an insurrectionist.  The amicus in general is persuasive and may be useful to the Court.

However, the amicus contains a gross error of fact.  The author seems to believe that governments could determine who ran for office in 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was written.  It says on page 7, “It would have been ironic indeed for the Reconstruction Congress to believe Section Three would be fully and faithfully enforced on nothing more than the good faith of Southern Secretaries of State.”

There were no government-printed ballots in 1868.  Ballots were private.  State election officials had no ability to keep anyone from running for office.  The amicus, on page 20 and beyond, seems to understand that, because it cites various state court decisions from the late 1860’s and early 1870’s, in which persons thought to be insurrectionists were elected to office in the south, and after they had been elected, various individuals sue to prevent them from being sworn into office.

The amicus is filed by the Secretaries of State of Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia.  The Missouri Secretary of State organized the amicus for the other states.  All these Secretaries of State are Republicans.