AUGUSTA, Maine — A Republican lawmaker is trying to once again impeach Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday reversed her decision to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the Republican primary.
The second impeachment attempt from Rep. John Andrews, R-Paris, may be seen as frivolous by Democrats after his initial resolution to impeach Bellows failed to pass the Maine House of Representatives in January.
But Andrews cited Monday’s unanimous Supreme Court decision to restore Trump to the 2024 presidential primary ballots in a case stemming from Colorado’s high court, along with Bellows and an Illinois judge, disqualifying him by finding Trump violated the 14th Amendment’s ban on engaging in insurrection when he incited the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol.
The nine justices ruled a day before Super Tuesday primaries in Maine and more than a dozen other states that, without initial action from Congress, states cannot invoke the post-Civil War constitutional provision to keep presidential candidates from appearing on ballots.
Bellows had paused her December decision to disqualify Trump before reversing it following Monday’s Supreme Court opinion.
“I think that clarity is useful moving forward,” she said of the court’s decision.
Andrews said Bellows “unilaterally disenfranchised Maine voters” and Trump, and he said his impeachment resolution should reach the House floor Wednesday.
“She must be impeached and held accountable so that this kind of tin pot electioneering never ever occurs in the Maine secretary of state’s office again,” Andrews added.