{"id":22034,"date":"2023-12-30T02:31:13","date_gmt":"2023-12-30T08:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=22034"},"modified":"2023-12-30T02:31:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-30T08:31:17","slug":"risks-of-us-electoral-chaos-deepen-after-trump-is-barred-from-another-state-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=22034","title":{"rendered":"Risks of US electoral chaos deepen after Trump is barred from another state ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


Maine<\/a> pitched the 2024 election into deeper chaos and constitutional confusion Thursday by becoming the second state to throw Donald Trump<\/a> off the ballot over the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The move<\/a> from the Maine secretary of state \u2013 following a similar decision from the Colorado Supreme Court<\/a> earlier this month \u2013 worsened a growing crisis for Trump\u2019s campaign and strengthened the rationale for the US Supreme Court to take up the issue, arising from the 14th Amendment\u2019s \u201cinsurrectionist ban.\u201d It has already exacerbated the havoc already surrounding the election and could cement ever wider national divides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increasing uncertainty urgently needs a resolution, with Iowa poised to kick off voting in the Republican nominating race on January 15 and other key ballot deadlines looming. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, paused her decision pending a potential appeal in state court, which Trump\u2019s team said they intend to file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision came on the same day that Trump\u2019s ascendant rival in New Hampshire, Nikki Haley, tried to stop her gaffe over slavery<\/a> from turning into a momentum-killer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea that a presidential candidate cannot plainly state in 2023 that the enslavement of humans is what tore the country apart more than 160 years ago is stunning in itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the drama surrounding the former South Carolina governor less than three weeks before voting starts is also having the effect of easing the scrutiny on Trump \u2014 who has caused many more scandals and outrages during his gravity-defying political career, many of which are related to the 2020 election denialism behind his swirling legal exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maine\u2019s decision only deepened the unprecedented legal and political tangle surrounding the 2024 campaign \u2013 all of which stems from Trump\u2019s refusal to accept defeat and his historic challenge to the fabled US transfer of power. After all, two states have now found that a former president engaged in an insurrection against the US government \u2013 an unheard of state of affairs at any other moment in history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The controversy, however, also raises new questions over whether efforts to make Trump pay for January 6 are justified on the grounds of protecting America\u2019s democracy from a uniquely pernicious challenge or could backfire politically against President Joe Biden and Democrats next fall. The multiple criminal charges Trump is facing have tended to hike his popularity among base voters even if his wild anti-democratic conduct in 2020 could be a major general election liability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie told \u201cCNN This Morning\u201d on Friday that actions like those in Colorado and Maine make the former president a \u201cmartyr.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile there may be \u2013 people may think there\u2019s a justification for doing this, it\u2019s not good in our democracy. In the end, Donald Trump should be defeated by the voters at the polls and defeated by someone like me, who is willing to tell the truth about him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bellows wrote in her decision that the circumstances were so outlandish that the Constitution left her no choice but to disqualify the Republican front-runner from the ballot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do not reach this conclusion lightly,\u201d Bellows said. \u201cDemocracy is sacred \u2026 I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s team lashed out in response, with the former president demanding that the country protect the the exact foundational American privilege that he tried to destroy three years ago \u2014 the right of voters to choose their president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter,\u201d Trump\u2019s campaign said in a statement. \u201cDemocrats in blue states are recklessly and un-Constitutionally suspending the civil rights of the American voters by attempting to summarily remove President Trump\u2019s name from the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The claim is richly ironic, since Trump is still denying the result of the 2020 election, which was followed by his attempt to disenfranchise voters, including in key swing states that voted for Biden. Trump\u2019s false claims of voter fraud were thrown out of multiple courts and denigrated by his administration. But that has not stopped him from putting them at the center of his 2024 campaign, which has become a vehicle for accusing Biden of the very transgression which Trump perpetrated \u2013 election interference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dramatic news from Maine also emerged hours after an exclusive CNN report<\/a> revealed fresh details of the extent of the ex-president\u2019s election meddling in early 2021. Recordings showed that Trump advisor Kenneth Chesebro said the Trump camp got \u201cfreaked out\u201d that fake elector ballots were stuck in the mail days before Congress was due to certify the result of the election. Arrangements were swiftly made to get them to Washington on January 5 to bolster a scheme to declare Trump the rightful president in which then-Vice President Mike Pence refused to participate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new evidence further undermined Trump\u2019s latest and increasingly far-fetched legal defense \u2013 that his frantic efforts to stay in the White House in fact represented a proper use of presidential power to protect voters after a fraudulent election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ever-widening reverberations of Trump\u2019s behavior in 2020 unfolded Thursday alongside another extraordinary controversy \u2013 over Haley\u2019s failure to name slavery as the cause of the US Civil War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haley\u2019s misstep \u2014 and her somewhat clumsy efforts to clean it up \u2014 revived unflattering criticisms that have trailed her during her career, including an impression that on issues like race and the Civil War, she has often equivocated about history\u2019s truths for her own political gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The controversy is also a reminder of the scrutiny of a presidential campaign since it came in her first event back on the campaign trail after her Christmas break and is allowing her rivals to argue that she\u2019s not ready for the biggest political stage. While her comments may not be a big deal in deep red state primaries, they could complicate her effort to win over independent voters who can join the GOP primary in New Hampshire and who she needs to help her trim Trump\u2019s lead in the polls. The Granite State has a proud record of sending regiments to fight the Confederacy in the Civil War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haley\u2019s rivals tried to capitalize on her discomfort. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who  earlier this year was stuck in a controversy over the teaching of slavery in his state\u2019s schools, declared that she \u201cis not a candidate that\u2019s ready for prime-time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe minute that she faces any type of scrutiny, she tends to cave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Christie seized on her troubles to bolster his refusal to bow out of the race. \u201cI\u2019ll make it easy for you. If someone asked me what the cause of the Civil War was \u2026 It\u2019s easy, it\u2019s slavery,\u201d Christie said in New Hampshire on Thursday. \u201cI\u2019ve been really fair to Nikki, but let me say this, she\u2019s smart,\u201d he added. \u201cShe didn\u2019t say what she said last night and today about this because she\u2019s dumb. She\u2019s not. She\u2019s smart, and she knows better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haley\u2019s troubles and Trump\u2019s legal morass tell a tale about the modern Republican Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haley\u2019s refusal to talk openly about the obvious, historic implications of slavery appeared to be an attempt to appease hardline conservative voters in a party that has marched far to the right in recent years. She has been similarly reticent to openly confront Trump over his attempt to overturn US democracy in 2020, apparently to avoid alienating voters who have bought into the ex-president\u2019s falsehoods about the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Haley\u2019s discomfort is far from over, Trump\u2019s legal shadow is also darkening though his campaign is taking steps to challenge his ballot disqualifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Republican Party in Colorado has already challenged the state Supreme Court\u2019s decision to bar him from the ballot over the 14th Amendment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Maine, the Trump campaign said it would quickly file a case in state court to stop the \u201catrocious\u201d decision from taking effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Bellows argued that she had the authority to disqualify Trump over his conduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe oath I swore to uphold the Constitution comes first above all, and my duty under Maine\u2019s election laws \u2026 is to ensure that candidates who appear on the primary ballot are qualified for the office they seek,\u201d she said. Bellows wrote that the challengers presented compelling evidence that the January 6 insurrection \u201coccurred at the behest of\u201d Trump \u2013 and that the US Constitution \u201cdoes not tolerate an assault on the foundations of our government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Colorado, several other states, like Michigan<\/a> and Minnesota<\/a>, rejected similar efforts. And California\u2019s secretary of state released a certified list of candidates Thursday night that included the former president. The fact that different states now have a divergent view of the Constitution and Trump\u2019s eligibility to run again means that it is almost incumbent on the US Supreme Court to step in, even if wading into this political tsunami could further expose an institution that has been battered politically in recent years to further strain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two key questions will be before the justices. First, whether the constitutional ban on insurrectionists holding office also applies to the president. Second, the top bench will be under pressure to rule on whether a single state can simply decide that a candidate engaged in an insurrection without offering them due process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

edition<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maine pitched the 2024 election into deeper chaos and constitutional confusion Thursday by becoming the second state to throw Donald Trump off the ballot over the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot. The move from the Maine secretary of state \u2013 following a similar decision from the Colorado Supreme Court earlier this month \u2013 worsened a growing crisis for Trump\u2019s campaign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22035,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1324,22184,2381,1213,25461,1230,24311],"class_list":["post-22034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-another","tag-attend","tag-ban","tag-chaos","tag-state-vote","tag-trump","tag-us-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22036,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22034\/revisions\/22036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}