Former US President Donald Trump appealed Tuesday a decision that excluded him from the ballots in the Republican primary in the state of Maine, the second having taken such a measure ten months before the presidential election .
A week after a similar decision in Colorado, Maine ruled on Thursday that the great favorite of the Republicans was “unfit for the office of president” due to the violent assault on the Capitol, committed in 2021 by his supporters who contested the election of Democrat Joe Biden.
Donald Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday asked the Maine courts to overturn the decision of Maine’s Democratic Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, calling her a “biased leader” who “acted arbitrarily and capriciously.”
The State of Maine, like the Supreme Court of Colorado, asserted the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which excludes from any public responsibility people who have engaged in acts of “insurrection”.
The Supreme Court as arbitrator?
On January 6, 2021, hundreds of supporters of Donald Trump violently stormed the Capitol, seat of Congress and sanctuary of American democracy, to try to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
The ex-president was indicted in August at the federal level as well as by the state of Georgia, accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The historic decisions of Maine and Colorado at this stage only relate to the Republican primaries held in these two states on March 5.
They will not be applied as long as the legal proceedings challenging them continue. Several procedures have been launched in various states of the country to block the path of the big favorite in the Republican primaries. Michigan and Minnesota have rejected them, and the Supreme Court of the United States could act as arbiters by spring.