By Ray Cardello for January 6, 2024, Season / Post 5

Shenna Bellows, the Secretary of State for Maine, has been making the circuit of media news shows basking in the adoration of the Liberal talking heads. Bellows has turned her fifteen minutes of fame into a two-week media blitz. Unfortunately for the Pine State Politician, she is no match for the folks in the national media, and she is getting caught up in her past that she hoped was buried forever. Shenna has practiced the holier-than-though persona that she is playing for the cameras. She is the keeper of the Constitution. The role of protecting Mainers had fallen to her, and she accepted the responsibility with all the zeal of a true American hero. The problem is she is a sham. This action to keep Trump off the Maine ballot is an embarrassment for Maine, shows how divided the state is, and is exposing a past that will now fuel the impeachment efforts by Republicans to remove Bellows from office.

Bellows knew her decision was flawed, so she ended her verbose 34-page conclusion with a one paragraph suspension of her ruling pending court challenges. The Secretary was playing both sides of the fence. She made the move to appease the Left of Maine, and her suspension was her built-in defense when the decision blew up. And it has.

Trump has already challenged the Maine decision in the Maine Supreme Court. The left-leaning court could rule against Trump, but that is highly unlikely. Nearly every Constitutional expert believes any court ruling will be unanimous in shutting down any removal of Trump, including Maine. Time is of the essence, as the primary in Maine is on March 5.

Papers have been filed to begin the impeachment of Sheena Bellows. Bellows has had a short career in Maine politics. She was a state senator for four years before being appointed to the Secretary of State position by the Legislature. The Trump decision is one of the reasons the Right is moving to impeach the Secretary. The other is what Bellows did before her public career.

She was executive director of the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine between 2018 and 2020. She served as the executive director of Maine’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) between 2005 and 2013. But less than a decade ago, she found herself in a far more subdued role: Interim Executive Director for Learning Works, a non-profit founded by socialist activist Ethan Strimling. It was this job that was the focus of complaints against Bellows.

Representative Sobolesky filed an ethics complaint against Bellows and wrote in a letter to the Maine Ethics Commission:
“What occurred appears to be election interference of the highest order. It would seem that Secretary Bellows did not act ethically and instead did what was best for her preferred candidate and the Democratic Party instead of the voters of the state of Maine.”

Trump claims in his challenge of Maine’s ruling that Bellows should have recused herself from the decision process. Trump and Sobolesky are pointing to Bellow’s position in Strimling’s non-profit.

Soboleski filed his complaint on January 1, accusing Secretary Bellows of bias in her decision to bar former President Trump from the 2024 GOP primary ballot in Maine. Strimling, the former mayor of Portland, was the ringleader behind the ballot eligibility challenge filed with the Secretary of State’s office, providing a pretext for Bellows’ ruling.

If Bellows is to continue her role in Augusta, she must beat the Ethics charge and the Impeachment action. With the Maine Legislature predominantly Democrat, she has a better chance of keeping her job than her decision holding up in court. Either way, her career is badly bruised.