The Republican candidates vying for a chance to run against U.S. Rep. Jared Golden in Maine’s conservative 2nd Congressional District are calling on Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows to resign or be impeached following her controversial decision to rule former President Donald Trump ineligible for election in Maine.
Rep. Michael Soboleski (R-Phillips) and Rep. Austin L. Theriault (R-Fort Kent) have both come out in staunch opposition to Secretary Bellows for her ruling on the challenges to former President’s Trump’s eligibility to appear on Maine’s ballot, as both look to capitalize on a decision that angered Trump voters through northern Maine.
[RELATED: Bellows Boots Trump, Biden’s Top GOP Foe, from Maine’s Primary Ballot]
Shortly after the release of Bellows’ ruling, another member of the Maine State Legislature — Rep. John Andrews (R-Paris) — announced that he had filed a request with the Maine Revisor’s Office for a Joint Order to impeach Bellows for disqualifying Trump from the ballot.
Rep. Andrews is currently serving as a member of the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee — the Committee that has jurisdiction over elections and the Secretary of State’s Office.
[RELATED: Maine Republicans Prep Effort to Impeach Shenna Bellows]
“This is hyper-partisanship on full display,” Andrews wrote on Facebook announcing his impeachment filing. “A Secretary of State APPOINTED by legislative Democrats bans President Trump from the 2024 ballot so that she can jockey for position in the 2026 Democrat Primary for Governor. Banana Republic isn’t just a store at the mall.”
Andrews also shared in this post an excerpt of the letter he filed with the Revisor’s Office.
“I wish to file a Joint Order, or whichever is the proper parliamentary mechanism under Mason’s Rules, to impeach Secretary of State Shenna Bellows,” the letter reads. “I wish to impeach Secretary Bellows on the grounds that she is barring an American citizen and 45th President of the United States, who is convicted of no crime or impeachment, their right to appear on a Maine Republican Primary ballot.”
“Donald J. Trump has met all qualifications for the March 2024 Republican Presidential Primary. He should be allowed on the ballot,” Andrews’ letter concludes. “This is raw partisanship and has no place in the offices of our state’s Constitutional Officers.”
Rep. Soboleski — who earlier this month filed a formal letter of intervention in defense of the former president’s right to appear on the state’s ballot — issued a statement Friday explicitly supporting Andrews’ efforts to impeach the Secretary.
[RELATED: Mike Soboleski Intervenes to Defend Trump’s Right to Appear on the Maine Ballot]
“The Maine people deserve an electoral process that is fair, simple, and transparent. Shenna Bellows has failed the Maine people,” Soboleski said in a statement. “She has deprived all Republicans and Unenrolled/Independent voters of the right to vote for a candidate who successfully qualified for the 2024 Primary Ballot.”
“Obstructing President Trump’s access to our Presidential Ballot is to blatantly disenfranchise the voters,” Soboleski continued. “Shenna Bellows is not operating as a non-partisan elected official; instead, her actions are those of a Democrat operative seeking to help Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.”
“She has failed to fulfill her duties faithfully as Secretary of State,” Soboleski concluded. “Therefore, I will support impeachment procedures to remove her from office.”
Secretary Shenna Bellows, by herself, has disenfranchised close to 400,000 Maine voters.
— Mike Soboleski for Congress (@mike_soboleski) December 29, 2023
We can't stand for this!
I fought against it at President Trump's hearing, now I'm asking you to join me in demanding Bellows be Impeached!
Add your name to support Impeaching Shenna…
Rep. Theriault released a similar statement on Friday, in which he also called upon Rep. Golden (D-ME) to sign onto a letter asking Bellows to resign from her position.
“Last night, Donald Trump was thrown off the ballot in Maine by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows,” Theriault said. “She’s a far left political activist once named the most progressive U.S. Senate candidate in America.”
“Bellows is subverting democracy and she should either resign or be impeached,” Theriault continued. “The voters cannot trust her. Her decision was not the result of some independent investigation — it was the result of her political beliefs.”
“That’s why I’m sending her a letter asking her to resign immediately,” Theriault said. “I’m also asking my opponent, Jared Golden, to sign this letter. This is a time for bipartisan condemnation of Bellows’ attack on voters and the fundamental principles of democracy.”
.@RepGolden: join my call for Shenna Bellows to resign!
— Austin Theriault (@AustinTheriault) December 29, 2023
She’s subverting democracy in Maine and the voters can’t trust her.
Jared Golden may talk the talk when it’s politically convenient, but will he walk the walk? Here’s the letter – we’ll see what Golden decides to do. pic.twitter.com/jIrBVLbfsi
While Rep. Golden has not responded to Theriault’s call for Bellows’ removal or resignation, he did issue a prior statement in opposition to the Secretary’s decision to remove Trump from Maine’s primary ballot.
“I voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in the January 6 insurrection. I do not believe he should be re-elected as President of the United States,” Golden wrote last night on X. “However, we are a nation of laws, therefore until he is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed on the ballot.”
My statement on the Maine Secretary of State's ruling: pic.twitter.com/ByO3XJe1JS
— Congressman Jared Golden (@RepGolden) December 29, 2023
The former president has five days from the issuance of Bellows’ ruling to appeal her decision by taking action in Maine’s Superior Court.
In the meantime, Bellows “has suspended the effect of her decision” until the court rules on any appeal, or the time to appeal has expired, meaning primary ballots will still be printed with Trump’s name on them.
Although this has not yet occurred, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement the former president’s team intends to “quickly file a legal objection in state court” in hopes of overturning the Secretary’s decision.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="24299 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=24299">10 Comments
So it is just another, not unexpected, dirty trick from the democrat/communist party’s book of dirty tricks. If one wants to read the history books about dirty tricks in previous communist nations, you will easily see that what starts out as dirty tricks like this one, street violence, election fraud and more eventually gets to imprisonment and murder of those the self-annointed ones hate. Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot and others murdered millions of people. It’s all in those history books if anyone wants to read about it. With these kinds of tricks America is moving in that direction faster than I ever imagined I would see in my lifetime.
Who in the world made this little leftist twit into “Queen for a Day” so she could exercise total power over who the rest of us get to vote for? She, and her Marxist political party, deserve to get this thrown right back in their faces good and hard. Golden’s office has helped me with a couple of issues which I am glad for. I am also glad to see that he was man enough to come out and say how awful this move by this stupid leftist fool really is. In the end it will backfire on them in ways they are too stupid to see. This just raises further questions about the leftist party’s real agenda……..holding power forever and controlling any and all future elections…….and brings more support to Donald Trump. Even my dog is smart enough to see this but the dems can’t see the forest for the trees.
Wake up Mainers!
Don’t stand for this!
Send her back to Massachusetts where she came from. We did not choose her.
I don’t need need sobriety or an education to figure out that what the director of the former head of the NSA says as the CEO of NPR is the gospel.
Trump has no rights. Period. He is too orange and masculine to be the kind of an American that the jews who run the planet can stand behind.
Besides, the native American’s are marginalized by rich trust fund whites in Maine and Trump has to be stopped.bIt doesn’t matter if janet mills hates Indian’s. Stop Trump!
Bellows is a disgrace to our great state! Impeach her immediately!!
Bellows has restored the Maine Republican Party — and if any of the petty local bureaucrats try to remove Trump from town ballots, you’ll see a badly-needed purge of the town offices as well.
It’s not Trump winning Maine — he’ll get the one vote for the 2nd District like he did the last time — but that District will go back to the Republicans, as will a *lot* of legislative seats. Bellows went a bridge too far and the Dems are going to be overextended defending her and in a bad situation if they don’t. (And many won’t want to, even if they could.)
Someone will find her a golden parachute in DC and she will be gone soon. But the average Mainer is a basically fair person and is going to say “she did WHAT?!?” — Maine people play by the rules and she didn’t. That’s going to hurt the Maine Dems more than they realize.
former United States Attorney Brett Tolman predicted Friday that Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows of Maine will lose a court battle to throw former President Donald Trump off the ballot. “Let’s cut to the chase on this, you have a secretary of state that should be determining only three things: Whether or not a candidate is a natural-born citizen, lived in the United States for 14 years and whether or not that individual is 35 years of age,” Tolman said. “That’s the criteria to run for president. She’s not endowed with power to review whether or not a non-conviction of a non-charged insurrection is justification for her to unilaterally use her power.” Seems that a real legal mind doesn’t hold much value in the ACLU leftist’s hacks fake decision!
Great catalyst for civil war!
Bear with me for a moment and consider this:
Jared Golden says it all when he says he voted for Trump’s impeachment based on the January 6 “insurrection” despite the fact, as he says himself, that Trump has never been found guilty of “insurrection”. In other words, the January 6 impeachment was nothing but political theater. Nancy Pelosi became a master of political theater where truth doesn’t matter. Only perception matters.
It’s time for we the people to vote for people who want to clean up the mess that Pelosi and her minions created in Congress. It isn’t Trump who belongs in prison. It’s these radical Democrats who use their power and our money to advance their political fortune. Nobody who voted for Trump’s second impeachment should ever be allowed to hold public office again!
I see it as all about the show, how else could a hack multiple time looser get her face in the national news? Lets face it Maine is a oasis for limousine liberals that have moved here in droves during and after covid buying up quaint properties east of 95. Bellows wants nothing more than becoming their poster child for fake justice. Just sit back and watch the dark money pour in when she takes on her next campaign.