Maine election chief tells POLITICO: Barring Trump from ballot was 'my duty'

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Friday defended her decision to bar Donald Trump from the ballot, telling POLITICO in an interview that he simply did not meet the constitutional requirements for holding high office.

Bellows’s decision this week to eject Trump — on the grounds that he engaged in insurrection, violating the 14th Amendment — intensified an already roaring legal debate over his eligibility to run for the presidency and added pressure on the Supreme Court to adjudicate the matter.

Speaking with POLITICO, Bellows, a Democrat, cast her ruling as a matter of fulfilling her basic responsibilities as the state’s chief election official: “I do not have the discretion to choose, or decline to do, my duty,” she said.

Bellows said state law requires her to make the call on candidates’ eligibility to run for office all the time — and this decision, while much more high profile, fell within that parameter.

“The legislature did not write into the law an exception for complexity or difficult natures of interpretation,” Bellows said. “They didn't say enforce all of the constitutional qualifications except for the ones that are difficult or complex.”

Bellows likened blocking Trump from the ballot to rejecting candidates who do not meet other basic prerequisites, like the constitutional age requirement on people seeking the presidency.

“I don't have the right to place on the ballot someone who does not meet the age requirements; if a teenager sought to run for president in Maine, I would have to deny them ballot access,” she said. “The constitutional qualifications for ballot access are not a menu. I do not have the discretion to choose which of those I enforce or do not.”

This story will be updated.