(C) Florida Phoenix This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Maine Sec. of State hears arguments for and against challenges to Trump’s ballot eligibility [1] ['Emma Davis', 'More From Author', '- December'] Date: 2023-12-18 Mainers who filed challenges to former President Donald Trump’s primary election eligibility say putting him on the ballot would violate two amendments of the U.S. Constitution, the 14th and 22nd. Counsel for Trump says only one section of the Constitution matters — the three qualifications for the presidency. The challengers presented their arguments on Friday to Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who is expected to issue her ruling later this month. The hearing also sought to answer the question of whether Bellows, who served as presiding officer over the hearing, has the authority to rule on the challenges, a power objected to by Trump’s counsel. Maine is the latest state to see pushback to Trump’s eligibility, coming after closely watched challenges in Michigan, Minnesota and Colorado. Colorado’s case is both topically related to some of the challenges in Maine, as it is based on the 14th Amendment, and has personnel overlap. Trump’s counsel in both Colorado and Maine include Gary Lawkowski and Scott Gessler, and the challengers in both cases called the same expert witness. So far, no state has sided with challengers to Trump’s ballot eligibility. Three challenges have been filed in Maine, all of which centered on constitutional violations. Two argue Trump is ineligible under the “insurrection clause” of the 14th Amendment. The other argues he is ineligible under the 22nd Amendment, which outlines term limits, because the former president has maintained that he won the 2020 election. Hearing to continue After an eight-hour hearing on Friday, proceedings remained unfinished. Counsel representing those who filed challenges to Trump’s eligibility presented evidence—mainly a series of videos related to the Jan. 6 attack as well as after the 2020 election, in which Trump claimed he won—as well as exhibits from the public hearings of the U.S. House Select Committee on Jan. 6. However, this evidence was only permitted to be considered provisionally on Friday after objections from Trump’s counsel on the basis that the exhibits submitted by the challengers could not be reviewed in advance of the hearing, both due to technical difficulties as well as timing. The timeline is compressed by Maine law, which requires that a hearing be held within five business days of the challenge. Bellows intends to rule on the validity of the challenges by 5 p.m. on Dec. 22, although under Maine law she has five business days after the conclusion of the hearing. Once she does, challengers or Trump can appeal the decision to the Superior Court, whose decision can then be appealed to the Law Court. The challenges Lawyer Paul Gordon, a Portland resident, filed a challenge with the state based on the 22nd Amendment, which reads, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” Because Trump maintains that he won the 2020 election — a claim that has been widely disproven — he is ineligible to seek reelection because he has reached his two-term limit, Gordon argues in his challenge. On Friday, Gordon said the fact that Trump has only served one term as president is irrelevant. The amendment at hand “expressly focuses on whether someone has been elected twice, independent of whether they have actually served a second term,” Gordon explained, adding that because Trump maintains that he won the 2020 election, he has reached his term limit. “It isn’t enough, if you know that he lost,” Gordon said. “It isn’t enough that I know that he lost. If he wants to be on the presidential ballot, he needs to acknowledge that he lost.” State Rep. Michael Soboleski (R-Phillips) spoke on Friday in support of the Trump campaign, urging Bellows to let the former president remain on the primary ballot because he obtained the necessary 2,000 signatures from Maine Republican voters. “To obstruct Mr. Trump’s access to our presidential ballot is to blatantly disenfranchise the voters who signed those petitions,” Soboleski argued. The other two challenges to Trump’s eligibility heard Friday invoke reasoning that has been used in other states. They center on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits anyone who took an oath to uphold the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office in the U.S. A bipartisan group of former elected officials filed one of these challenges. They include former Portland mayor Ethan Strimling (a Democrat) and former state Sens. Kimberley Rosen and Thomas Saviello (Republicans). The other challenge based on the 14th Amendment came from Winterport resident Mary Ann Royal. Royal argued Friday that Trump violated the presidential oath of office when “he organized, he welcomed, he sent, he watched” and did nothing to stop the attack on the Capitol. “If we allow individuals, no matter how popular, access to our ballot after having violated their oath of office we undermine the very foundation of our Republic,” Royal said. Counsel for Trump cross examined both Royal and Gordon with the same line of questioning: Do you believe President Trump is a natural born U.S. citizen? Do you believe he has been a resident of the United States for the past 14 years? Do you believe he’s at least 35 years of age? Royal and Gordon answered yes to all. Those three qualifications are the only qualifications that the state must consider in whether Trump can be on the ballot, they argued. The 14th Amendment argument has not been upheld in other states. The effort in Colorado has proceeded the farthest, as the state is now awaiting a ruling from its Supreme Court. This story was published earlier by the Maine Morning Star, an affiliate of the nonprofit States Newsroom network, which includes the Florida Phoenix. [END] --- [1] Url: https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/12/18/maine-sec-of-state-hears-arguments-for-and-against-challenges-to-trumps-ballot-eligibility/ Published and (C) by Florida Phoenix Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/floridaphoenix/