The Maine primaries excluded former US President Donald Trump due to the third section of the 14th amendment which prohibits anyone who has acted against the US Constitution, after having sworn by it, from holding public office. Trump Primaries.
Trump is currently being charged for his involvement in the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Bellows, in his 34-page decision, has stated that Trump was “aware of the consequences of delegitimizing the democratic election and the chaos it would cause” and was “using a false narrative about electoral fraud to mobilize his supporters to prevent the certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power.” Trump’s spokesperson has spoken of the decision as an “attempt to steal an election and deprive an American voter of their rights”, and Trump will be appealing to the Maine state court to prevent this from taking effect. If the court rules against Trump, the Supreme Court of Washington may make a decision on whether or not to allow the former president to participate in primaries across all states.
Fourteenth Amendment
Section 1
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5
The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
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