MAINE’S top court said yesterday it would not weigh in on a decision by the state’s top election official to keep Donald Trump off the presidential primary ballot until the US Supreme Court rules on the Republican’s eligibility to run.

Several US states have been grappling with whether to bar Trump from ballots over his role in the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol by his supporters.

Maine’s secretary of state, Democrat Shenna Bellows, ordered that Trump be kept off the ballot, a decision the former president has asked the state’s superior court to overturn.

But that court said the Supreme Court must first rule on a Colorado case on the issue – a decision expected at an unspecified future date – and then Bellows must then adapt to that ruling.

Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled last month that Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is ineligible to appear on the presidential primary ballot because of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. The state’s Republican Party has appealed that decision to the US Supreme Court.

Section Three of the 14th Amendment bars anyone from holding public office if they engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” after once pledging to support and defend the Constitution.

The amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, was aimed at preventing supporters of the slave-holding Confederacy from being elected to Congress or from holding federal positions.

Yesterday’s order in Maine means that Trump will be eligible to appear on the ballot for the state’s March 5 primary “unless the Supreme Court before that date finds President Trump disqualified to hold the office of president.”

Similar 14th Amendment challenges to Trump’s eligibility have been filed in other states as well. Courts in Minnesota and Michigan recently ruled that Trump should stay on the ballots there. – AFP, January 18, 2024.