The Supreme Court of the state of Maine has ordered that former US President Donald Trump be admitted to the primary election of the local Republicans to determine their candidate for president. The court puts Trump back on the ballot at least until the federal Supreme Court issues its opinion.
Several US states are facing the issue of whether to allow Trump into the primaries because of his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters. Maine Secretary of State Shena Bellows had ordered Trump not to participate in the vote. The former president asked the state Supreme Court to have it overturned. In its current decision, the state Supreme Court "directs the state's secretary of state to await the decision of the United States Supreme Court."
Similarly, the state of Colorado, whose Supreme Court ruled last month that Trump is ineligible to participate in the presidential primary because of violations of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. The state's Republican Party appealed that decision to the state's Supreme Court.
Section Three of the 14th Amendment prohibits anyone from holding public office if he has engaged in "insurrection or sedition" after once pledging to support and defend the Constitution. The amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, was intended to prevent supporters of the slaveholding Confederacy from being elected to Congress or holding federal office. Wednesday's order in Maine means Trump will be eligible to run in the state's primary on March 5 "unless the Supreme Court finds before that date that President Trump is disqualified from serving as president." Other courts have also challenged Trump's right to participate in the primary vote. But the U.S. Courts in Minnesota and Michigan recently ruled that Trump must participate in the primaries. /BGNES, AFP
