Maine state Rep. James White (R-Guilford) has filed an objection to the selection of Troy Jackson by party delegates to replace Graham Platner on the ballot. The basis of the challenge is that Jackson previously lost in the primary and, under Maine law, cannot appear twice in the same election. It will be a tough case to make, but he would seemingly be making it to the perfect Secretary of State: Shenna Bellows. Bellows, who was herself a candidate for the spot, previously adopted a wildly unfounded interpretation to try to block President Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot. In comparison, this demand is modest. Yet, the expectation is that Bellows will go from an unrestrained impressionist to a narrow textualist in this ballot controversy.
I was highly critical of Bellows when she moved to remove Trump from the ballot as an absurd interpretation used to pander to the perpetually irate. A judge in Maine quickly stopped her. The Supreme Court later effectively downsized insurrection claims to a matter of trespass.
Ultimately, all of these challenges, including the ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, were rejected unanimously by the Supreme Court.
Bellows then ran for governor and later the Senate after Platner’s implosion by parading her unconstitutional action as a qualification.
Rep. White is arguing that, while Maine does not have a “sore loser” provision barring successive appearances on ballots after losing a primary, the state law implicitly created such a barrier for Jackson.
In the letter below, White argues that “The vacancy process exists to fill an unexpected vacancy, not to provide a second opportunity for a candidate who already sought and lost another office during the same election process.”
He is relying on Title 21-A, which bars a person from filing as a candidate for more than one office at any election. Since another provision limits the party committee to filing a vacancy with a “qualified person,” he is arguing that the law constructively bars Jackson.
It is unlikely that White will prevail in the challenge, but Bellows will have to adopt a distinctly more narrow approach to such challenges than she did to bar Trump from the ballot.
In the earlier controversy, Bellows bases her unprecedented action on the conclusion that the riot on January 6th was an actual “insurrection.” Even after losing repeatedly in that interpretation, she continued to maintain the fiction.
The effort to remove Jackson would seem almost trivial in comparison to Bellows’s earlier effort to remove Trump.
Here is the letter:
“Now it looks like Maine is reading f the California playbook and trying to emulate it”
I think that it might be more accurate to claim that they are becoming a subsidiary of Massachusetts, but the symptoms are nearly identical.
Isn’t Bellows conflicted? She was also a loser in the primary for governor and a candidate in the process to replace Platner, before she withdrew.
I was born in Bangor. Still got family up there, and yeah, most of them lean pretty liberal. But this isn’t really about which way Maine votes. It’s about whether the people voting are actually paying attention. Bellows tried to knock Trump off the ballot with a legal theory the Supreme Court shot down unanimously, then turned around and ran for governor using that same failed stunt as a selling point. That only works if voters have stopped tracking what their own officials actually do. Doesn’t matter how small the political bench is or which party’s running it. If the people watching stay sharp, that kind of move costs you. If they don’t, it becomes a résumé line instead.
“That only works if voters have stopped tracking what their own officials actually do.”
Sadly, that would seem to apply to something approaching a simple majority of voters (those who actually cast ballots) nationwide.
Don, good point. One more thing. A weak candidate slipping through a primary just means one party’s own voters weren’t paying attention. That’s narrow. But when that candidate wins the full statewide race against the other party’s pick, that’s not a party problem anymore. Neither side caught it. That’s the whole floor talking. Ceiling of government competence, floor of citizen capacity. Same rule, just playing out in real time.
What has happened to Maine, a land of independent-thinking individuals, home of Civil War hero Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, an American college professor and politician, and the majestic moose? With the exception of practical but careful Senator Susan Collins, this state has begun considering any wild-eyed thinking as serious. Now, the Democrats are duking it out as though the political rutting season has become permanent, women included in the rut.
Makes me wonder too. I am a descendant of a father and son who fought in the Revolution as members of the Maine Militia. Now it looks like Maine is reading f the California playbook and trying to emulate it.
No one gives a hoot about your ancestry RToberts. Stop braaging and stick to the facts.