On the same grounds, Constitution 14 A sec 3 as the Colorado Supreme Court barred Trump in that state. I am on record as predicting, confidently, that SCOTUS will reverse the Colorado decision. The Maine case gives me pause. The Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, explained her decision:
1) "The U.S. Constitution does not tolerate an assault on the foundations of our government.
2) And Maine election law required me to act in response. ...
3) we have a statute that makes me different from any other state that I have observed.
4) My obligation under Maine state law was to issue a decision very quickly.
5) I'm not permitted under Maine law to wait for the United States Supreme Court to intervene in this particular proceeding.
6)....Trump engaged in that insurrection and thereby, is not qualified to be on the ballot."
7)...her decision, Bellows recognized..."could soon be rendered a nullity" but "that possibility does not relieve me of my responsibility to act."
The Penn Law Review article authors argued that disqualification under 14 A sec 3 is self-executing, you don't have to file a court case. That's what Bellows did, she acted. So this case goes to SCOTUS in a very different procedural posture than the Colorado case. Here is an action by a state official, an action required by state law. That is not as easily reviewable by the federal courts as is an inferior court's decision.
In our federal system, the states are the foundation. The federal courts are reluctant to intervene in an election case. "It's up to the states", that's the strong tilt of election jurisprudence. See the gerrymandering cases, for example. In Michigan the state court permitted Trumpie to appear on the primary, not general election, ballot, holding that the political parties determine ballot access in their primaries. Same kind of deference.
What might leave Bellows hanging from the gallows is that she based her decision on the federal Constitution. If she had not cited the Constitution, if she had decided on the same facts, that Trumpie violated Maine law by inciting a riot elsewhere; or in his attempt to overturn an election he attempted a fraud on the voters of Maine; or that he intends to be a dictator, as he has stated he does; or even if she had said Trumpie’s actions “are just not the way Mainers behave", the decision would be worrisome for the federal courts, I think. But she based her decision on a provision of the federal Constitution, she interpreted the Constitution, applied federal Constitutional law rather than Maine state law, and that opens her up to review by the federal courts.
In other words, if she had kept it all state all the way down: compelled to act by state law; disqualified Trumpie for violation of Maine state law—she would not have run near the risk of federal judicial intervention. But dang, when you say the U.S. Constitution says something, then you make a federal case out of it.
