Opinion: Maine’s Disingenuous Secretary of State

Maine’s Secretary of State is again blatantly mis-serving the People of Maine by misshaping another referendum question. Having created confusion by resequencing the Voter ID ballot initiative last year, after unconstitutionally removing President Trump from the 2024 ballot, the shameless Ms. Shenna Bellows is at it again.

A proposed law would clarify boys and girls are biologically different, and for their physical, mental and emotional health and safety, deserve to be treated differently by schools.

That law, on which Mainers want a referendum, says, in part:

(1) “Sex means a person’s biological status as male or female recorded at birth on the person’s original birth certificate …”

(2) “A public school … shall expressly designate athletic teams” as boys, girls, or coeducational.

(3) “Teams designated for girls … must be restricted to students whose sex is female” and “teams designated for … boys must be restricted to students whose sex is male…”

(4) “A public school shall maintain separate restrooms, locker rooms, shower rooms and other private spaces for each sex” and “a member of one sex may not be permitted to use a facility designated for members of the opposite sex.”

(5) “Separation of athletic teams and private spaces by sex under this section does not constitute unlawful discrimination …” and “an individual born with a biologically verifiable disorder … must receive all legal protections…”

(6) “A student … deprived of an athletic opportunity or suffers direct injury because of a violation of this section may bring a civil action for injunctive relief, damages and attorney’s fees against a school or entity.”

The bill’s “summary” says “the initiated bill provides that separation of athletic teams and private spaces by sex under the initiated bill does not constitute unlawful discrimination under the Maine Human Rights Act…”

The Secretary of State is required to “concisely and intelligibly” put this to referendum. Imagining she were objective, the question might read:

“Do you want to clarify that public school sports teams and private spaces must be designated by biological sex, assuring that no unlawful discrimination occurs and parents have a right to sue for student injury?”

Instead, the Secretary of State, who unconstitutionally removed a presidential candidate, misplaced hundreds of ballots, still denies Supreme Court Title IX precedent, refuses to comply with Justice subpoenas, and will not recuse herself from overseeing an election in which she is a candidate for governor, framed it this way::

“Do you want to change civil rights and education laws to require public schools to restrict access to bathrooms and sports based on the gender on the child’s original birth certificate and allow students to sue the schools?”

Objections are obvious.

(1) Neither state nor federal civil rights laws are being changed. Implying voters must “change civil rights” by agreeing boys and girls are different and should have separate teams is a red hearing.

(2) Education policies, currently misinterpreted, are amended. This is a clarification, not a change to statute or established federal caselaw.

(3) Access by biological sex is being clarified, not “restricted.” The referendum restores long understood meanings at law and biology, is intended to protect the safety, physical, emotional and mental health, plus dignity and respect due, children – who are girls and boys.

(4) The designation of teams and private spaces is by sex, a legally understood definition at birth, not choice-based gender. Birth certificates record sex not mental preferences. Without referencing biological sex, the word “private” and the privacy of children vanishes.

(5) Legally, parents not students sue for an injury. Minors lack legal capacity, so cannot sue independently, another referendum error.

In sum, a review of the referendum “word salad” by Maine’s ideologically leftist Secretary of State is again disappointing. Needed is an accurate, clear alternatively, one framed “concisely and intelligibly.”