Maine court pauses Trump ballot case until Supreme Court ruling

Maine Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy on Wednesday said she wouldn’t rule on Trump’s eligibility to appear on the state’s primary ballots before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a similar case in Colorado. The high court earlier this month agreed to hear arguments on a Colorado Supreme Court ruling saying Trump was not eligible to appear on Colorado’s primary ballots, due to his involvement in the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

So this is all about the 14th Amendment? Both Maine and Colorado have witnessed efforts to block Trump’s name from their primary ballots over his involvement in an alleged insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says any official who has sworn an oath of office and then has engaged in an insurrection is unable to take office again without two-thirds approval of both chambers of Congress. Trump denies any wrongdoing related to the events of Jan. 6, 2021. In Colorado, voters sought to ban Trump from the ballots, and in Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows decided Trump didn’t qualify for the ballot.

Dig deeper: Read Carolina Lumetta’s report in The Stew about Trump’s historic margin of victory over other Republican candidates in the recent Iowa caucuses.