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Home Front: Politix

Republican lawmaker in Maine files to impeach secretary of state Shenna Bellows after her decision to disqualify Trump from the ballot - as Bellows reveals she's been receiving DEATH threats since her ruling

2023-12-30

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A Maine Republican has filed notice of his intent to impeach their secretary of state, accusing her of overstepping her authority by removing Donald Trump from the state ballot and arguing that, by her rationale, Joe Biden should also be removed.

John Andrews, was elected in 2018 to the Maine House of Representatives, said on Friday he filed a request with the Maine Revisor's Office, saying he wanted 'to file a Joint Order, or whichever is the proper parliamentary mechanism under Mason's Rules, to impeach Secretary of State Shenna Bellows.'

Bellows on Thursday announced that Trump was disqualified from their state primaries for violating Section Three of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits anyone who has engaged in insurrection from holding office.

Her ruling made Maine the second state to strike Trump from the ballot, after Colorado's Supreme Court on December 19 came to the same conclusion. Colorado's ruling was temporarily reversed on Thursday when the Republican party filed an appeal, and the decision in both Maine and Colorado is expected to go to the U.S. Supreme Court - something which Bellows said she welcomes.

Andrews said he wants to impeach 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 Party ballot in March.'

Bellows argued that, under Maine law, Trump did not have to be convicted to be disqualified - merely to have engaged in insurrection. She has been receiving death threats as a consequence of her decision.

Trump's campaign has denounced the decision and called Bellows a 'virulent leftist and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat.'

Steven Cheung, Trump's spokesman, said: 'We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter.

'Make no mistake, these partisan election interference efforts are a hostile assault on American democracy.'

Andrews on Friday morning told Fox News that he felt, under her rationale, Joe Biden could also be removed from the vote.

'Under Shenna Bellows' new standard you could argue that President Biden be barred due to section three - the giving of aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,' he said.

'I would argue that releasing billions to Iran and selling our strategic oil reserves to Chinese interests could qualify as that, if no convictions are required under Shenna Bellows' new rules.

'And that is why this is such a dangerous game that she has created.'

Andrews said that Bellows, a Democrat who tweeted in 2021 that she believed Trump had engaged in insurrection, was a partisan who was not qualified to make the decision.

Posted by:Skidmark

#8 I didn’t have impeachment of the SOS of Maine on my bingo card.

Posted by: Super Hose 2023-12-30 15:05

#7 Times of Israel:

Maine sect. of state who blocked Trump from ballot is past head of state’s Holocaust center

Unlike in Michigan and Colorado, where decisions on Trump’s ballot eligibility were recently made by those states’ Supreme Courts, Maine’s was made by Bellows alone — putting her, and perhaps her experience as a Holocaust educator, in the political spotlight for 2024.

A Democrat who served two terms in the Maine Senate, Bellows was the Maine Holocaust center’s director from 2018-2020, concurrently with her second term in the legislature. She left the position after the state legislature appointed her as Maine’s first female secretary of state. (Unlike in other states where the position is elected by voters, Maine’s is appointed by lawmakers.)

Her Trump decision made Maine the second state, after Colorado, to rule the former president ineligible for its primary ballot based on the Insurrection Clause. The move sets the stage for a highly consequential legal battle that will likely soon play out before the nation’s highest court. Trump’s team has appealed the Colorado decision to the Supreme Court, and Bellows said she recognized its decision could soon nullify her own.

Michigan’s Supreme Court has also separately ruled that Trump can stay on their state’s primary ballot, but that the door was still open for his removal from its general election ballot.

Previously, Bellows had been the head of the state’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and founded a consulting firm for nonprofits. She ran as the Democratic nominee for US Senate in 2014 against popular Republican Susan Collins and won only 31 percent of the statewide vote.

Founded in 1985 by Holocaust survivor Gerda Haas, the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine is located on the University of Maine’s campus in the state capital of Augusta. Bellows left the helm in 2020. The center focuses on education, offering courses to the state’s schools and programming guest speakers.

*shrug* For two years. The job of the head is primarily administrative and raising funds, and possibly not more than a figurehead if the position is a political sinecure. The head or the administrative assistant book the speakers — who until recently were Holocaust survivors like my mother — but have no say in what the speakers actually say. My mother was a popular speaker for the Holocaust societies of Buffalo, NY and Cincinnati, so I heard some stories from her two decades in the trenches.

Posted by: trailing wife 2023-12-30 14:02

#6 One of the fastest pivots I have ever seen from Brave Powerful Woman Warrior against Trump to Helpless Victim Getting Death Threats.

Their playbook is so hackneyed and repetitive that all the press releases really can be written in advance.

Posted by: Tom 2023-12-30 13:47

#5 Those maybe the voices in her head.

Posted by: Procopius2k 2023-12-30 13:34

#4 She has been receiving death threats as a consequence of her decision.

That's right. Just like Jussie Smollett.

Posted by: Abu Uluque 2023-12-30 12:56

#3 Called herself a liar in her own demonstration, so yeah sure right.

That said, some real Kim-Jung move there.

Posted by: swksvolFF 2023-12-30 11:07

#2 She has been receiving death threats as a consequence of her decision.

I'll believe that when I hear about the Maine State Police investigating these claims.

Posted by: Raj 2023-12-30 10:52

#1
I see the usual political plays in action.

Will anything come of it?

Or, is it all words for votes and the party agenda as usual?

Posted by: NN2N1 2023-12-30 10:37

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