BREAKING: Unlike Maine And Colorado, California Declines To Kick Donald Trump Off The Ballot—California’s secretary of state included former President Donald Trump on the certified list of candidates released Thursday for the state’s March 5 primary.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber faced political pressure to reject Trump’s candidacy in the state, including from Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a fellow Democrat who urged her in a Dec. 20 letter to “explore every legal option” to remove the former president from the California ballot. Weber later responded that she was guided by “the rule of law,” and indicated the proper venue to resolve ballot challenges was in the courts.
This comes after Maine’s Democratic secretary of state removed Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the Constitution’s insurrection clause, becoming the first election official to take action unilaterally as the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to decide whether the former president remains eligible to return to the White House.
The decision by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows follows a ruling earlier this month by the Colorado Supreme Court that booted Trump from the ballot there under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That decision has been stayed until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether Trump is barred by the Civil War-era provision, which prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.
The Trump campaign said it would appeal Bellows’ decision to Maine’s state courts, and Bellows suspended her ruling until that court system rules on the case. In the end, it is likely that the nation’s highest court will have the final say on whether Trump appears on the ballot in Maine and in the other states.
Bellows found that Trump could no longer run for his prior job because his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol violated Section 3, which bans from office those who “engaged in insurrection.” Bellows made the ruling after some state residents, including a bipartisan group of former lawmakers, challenged Trump’s position on the ballot.
“I do not reach this conclusion lightly,” Bellows wrote in her 34-page decision. “I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”
The Trump campaign immediately slammed the ruling. “We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
Legal experts said that Thursday’s ruling demonstrates the need for the nation’s highest court, which has never ruled on Section 3, to clarify what states can do.
