Breaking News: As Supreme Court Rules 9-0 in Favor of Trump Appeal in Colorado, Kennedy Is Hampered from Ballot Access in Maine

By Leah Watson, The Kennedy Beacon

On Monday morning, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against a Colorado Supreme Court decision, which had banned former president Trump from appearing on the presidential ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court had ruled in December that Trump had engaged in an insurrection by inciting and supporting the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, and therefore should be banned from the ballot. 

Following the Supreme Court decision, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. commented on the outcome on X (formally Twitter). “This is the correct outcome,” he wrote. “I want to win a fair election — not one in which my competitors are removed through legal maneuvers.” 

The Supreme Court decision has already impacted other states that followed Colorado’s lead, including Maine. Hours after the verdict, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows hastily withdrew her decision to remove Trump from the primary ballot. But Bellows, emboldened with an impulsive spirit of censure, has taken matters a step further and even attempted to keep Kennedy off the ballot. 

Last month, Kennedy filed a lawsuit against Bellows when she revoked Kennedy’s permission to petition and gather signatures at the polls during the Maine presidential primaries. Kennedy and his campaign saw this act as an unconstitutional violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment (as reported in The Kennedy Beacon).

But on Monday afternoon, US District Judge John Woodcock Jr. denied Kennedy’s plea to collect ballot signatures at primary polling locations today, Super Tuesday, and ruled in favor of Bellows.

It is still possible for Team Kennedy to petition for signatures today, so long as his team keeps their distance – at least 250 feet from the entrance to the polls. 

Kennedy’s fight to get on the ballot in every state continues. In Maine, he is required to submit 4,000 signatures by August 1 in order to qualify for the state’s ballot. 

In Maine on Monday, Woodcock decided that “as a practical matter, it makes eminently good sense for the law, as interpreted by Secretary Bellows, to restrict candidate solicitations from inside voting locations when the office being sought is on the ballot that day.” Woodcock agreed with Bellows’ perspective and prioritizes the protection of Maine’s primary voters from “outside influence.” Woodcock concluded, “the low burden imposed on Team Kennedy’s ability to obtain ballot signatures” did not outweigh the importance of “protecting voters from influence while they are mere feet away from the ballot box.”

In the Colorado case, the US Supreme Court justices determined that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was instrumental in justifying the banning of Trump from the ballot, can be enforced only through federal legislation. Section 3 specifically states: “No person shall hold certain positions and offices if they are oathbreaking insurrectionists.” The Colorado Supreme Court had determined that this section should apply to a president. The US Supreme Court ruling invalidated that determination, saying that “States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency.” It was determined by the majority of the justices that the power to make such a ruling lies within Congress, not the states. 

Kennedy previously expressed concerns about the Colorado Supreme Court ruling on X, warning, “If Trump is kept out of office through judicial fiat rather than being defeated in a fair election, his supporters will never accept the result. This country will become ungovernable.”

This concern was also expressed in the opinions of Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, who wrote that “allowing Colorado to [challenge Trump’s eligibility] would, we agree, create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our nation’s federalism principles.” The justices went on to say that the states’ powers are limited to their borders and that they cannot use their control over the ballot to “undermine the national government,” which can be particularly dangerous “in the context of a presidential election.”