Free Republic

(The Center Square) — Maine is required to release its voter lists to a conservative group that's conducting audits of recent elections to probe for fraud following a new federal court ruling. A U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in Boston sided with lawyers for the Virginia-based Public Interest Legal Foundation, which filed the lawsuit, who argued that federal law allows data to be available for public inspection. The three-judge panel cited a provision of the National Voter Registration Act requiring public disclosure of "all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy...

A Democrat-sponsored bill in Hawaii that could ban former President Trump from the ballot for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol advanced in the state legislature Monday. Hawaii state Sen. Karl Rhoads, a Democrat representing Honolulu who frequently criticizes Trump and Republicans over the Jan. 6 riot online, first introduced SB 2392 last week, which aims to "specify that election ballots issued by the chief election officer or county clerk shall exclude any candidate who is disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; article XVI, section 3 of...

Maine is on the docket to becoming a "sanctuary state" for children seeking to undergo life-alternating transgender treatments. In an effort to create a "safe space" for teens, Maine's state legislature is eyeing a bill that would give authorities the right to take custody of kids away from parents and guardians who oppose allowing medical providers to impose "gender-affirming care" onto their children. The "Act to Safeguard Gender Affirming Health Care" would allow a "court to take temporary jurisdiction because a child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care." LD1735, brought forth by Rep....

A bill being debated in Maine’s state legislature would give authorities the power to take children away from parents who oppose allowing medical providers to impose “gender-affirming care” onto their children. The bill, LD1735, is explicit about this startling new power In its summary, for instance, directly states, “The bill authorizes a court to take temporary jurisdiction because a child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care.” There seems to be no provision made for religious objection. Parents would have no parental rights on the issue; either they allow their children to be exposed...

The Maine Superior Court on Wednesday ordered Trump back on the ballot pending a decision from the US Supreme Court. President Trump appealed Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ 2024 ballot ban to the state superior court on Tuesday. “Former President Donald Trump’s legal team on Tuesday appealed Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ ruling that deemed him ineligible from appearing on the state’s GOP primary ballot to Maine’s Superior Court, the state’s top trial court,” ABC News reported. Maine’s psychotic Democrat Secretary of State Shenna Bellows unilaterally barred Trump from the 2024 ballot because she decided the former president...

“The error is significant”: South Portland Faces $4 Million Budget Shortfall After Mistakenly Failing to Increase Property Taxes Enough Edward Tomic The City of South Portland is working to close a $4 million shortfall in their current fiscal year budget they identified earlier this month — a gap the city attributes to mistakenly not taxing residents enough to support the City Council-approved budget. According to the city, South Portland’s current mill rate is $14.14, meaning property owners must pay $14.14 out of every $1,000 of their property’s assessed value. But it should have been raised to $14.69 this past summer...

Maine House Speaker’s Plan to Give Illegal Aliens Driver’s Licenses is Dead – For Now Edward Tomic A bill proposed by Maine House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland) that would have allowed illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses was shot down by the Legislature’s Transportation Committee during a Tuesday afternoon public hearing. The bill, LD 1138, would have removed the requirement to prove legal presence in the U.S. in order to obtain a Maine driver’s license or state identification card. When opening the public hearing on the bill, Transportation Committee Chair Rep. Lydia Crafts (D-Newcastle) said that Talbot Ross had...

The Maine Wire Maine Court Orders Secretary of State Bellows to Revisit Trump’s Ballot Eligibility After SCOTUS Decides Colorado Case Libby Palanza The Maine Superior Court on Wednesday ordered Secretary of State Shenna Bellows to revisit her decision blocking former President Donald Trump from Maine’s primary ballot pending the Supreme Court’s issuance of an opinion in a similar case out of Colorado. Secretary Bellows will need to release her updated ruling within thirty days of the Supreme Court publishing its ruling in Trump v. Anderson, a case concerning former President Trump’s eligibility to appear on Colorado’s presidential primary ballot later...

Maine officials are coming under fire after handing a $132,000 contract to a racial justice group, only for it to conclude with a 30-minute webinar on 'problematic' place names. Taxpayers footed the bill for the lecture as part of the state's employment of non-profit Atlantic Black Box (ABB), which claims to 'engage the public in the collective rewriting of our regional history.' In footage of the webinar this week, ABB founder Meadow Dibble urged attendees to acknowledge suffering caused by 'white settler people' as she rattled off place names Maine residents should feel offended by.

Maine’s taxpayers are footing the bill for new apartments built specifically for newly arrived border crossers and illegal aliens who will have at least two years’ worth of rent paid for. This week, Maine officials in Brunswick unveiled new apartments that will go to border crossers and illegal aliens who will have their rent paid for at least two years, News Center Maine reports:

No Labels, a national group preparing for a potential third-party presidential campaign this fall, has qualified as a political party in Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said on Friday.Bellows said No Labels had met the requirement that it enroll at least 5,000 voters into the new party, making it eligible to participate in the June primaries and November general election. As of Tuesday, there were approximately 9,423 Maine voters enrolled in the No Labels Party, the Department of the Secretary of State said.“This milestone validates what has been clear for a long time, which is that the No Labels...

Maine has now become the second state in as many weeks, following a December 19 Colorado Supreme Court decision, to make the determination that President Donald Trump cannot appear on the ballot in the 2024 election. In a unilateral decision, the unelected secretary of state and far-left activist, heretofore unknown Shenna Bellows, disqualified from her state’s ballot the leading presidential candidate and presumptive nominee for the GOP. Rejecting any pretense of acting in accordance with due process or the rule of law, Bellows reasoned that our “sacred” democracy would only be preserved if she took it upon herself to reject...

Faculty said they felt trapped in an ‘alternate reality’ when trying to navigate the college’s ‘toxic’ DEI environment.. College students attending universities with restrictive speech codes are used to walking on eggshells and keeping their heads down on campus out of fear of committing social suicide or experiencing violence. In the disordered world of contemporary higher education, Jewish students receive limited, if any, support from school administrators amid explicit calls for violence against them, while other students face punishment for banal infractions like rolling a “free speech ball” around campus. But if you are shocked at how students are subject...

The home of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows was “swatted” Friday evening, police confirmed Saturday. Maine State Police responded after an unidentified man lied about having broken into the house. Bellows and her family were away at the time of the hoax call. […] On Saturday, Bellows called the swatting call “unacceptable” in a lengthy statement on Facebook. …

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Saturday said her home was the target of a swatting call and she has received threats since her ruling Thursday that Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s ballot in the Republican primary in 2024. “This behavior is unacceptable. The non-stop threatening communications the people who work for me endured all day yesterday is unacceptable,” Bellows, a Democrat, wrote on Facebook Saturday afternoon. “It’s designed to scare not only me but also others into silence, to send a message.” The Maine Department of Public Safety issued a statement Saturday confirming the...

The Maine Democrat who moved to boot former President Donald Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot visited the White House twice in the past year — meeting President Joe Biden during one jaunt — and reportedly once referred to the Electoral College as a “relic of white supremacy.” Secretary of State Shenna Bellows visited the White House in March and again in June, visitor logs show. On March 22, she attended a Women’s History Month event and took a photo with a smiling Biden, putting his left hand and on her shoulder and clutching one of her hands with...

Maine GOP Chairman Joel Stetkis tells @WGANMorningNews that Republicans are preparing a challenge to @shennabellows' decision in Maine Superior Court. They are also looking at converting Maine's GOP nomination to a caucus system. Lawmakers are also filing impeachment orders. 6:16 AM · Dec 29, 2023 · 8,224 Views

Republican lawmakers in Maine are preparing impeachment orders against Secretary of State Shenna Bellows following her decision to remove former President Donald J. Trump from the Maine GOP presidential primary ballot.“I wish to impeach her on the grounds that she is barring an American citizen and 45th President of the United States, who is convicted of no crime or impeachment, their right to appear on a Maine Republican Party ballot in March,” Rep. John Andrews (R-Paris) said in a statement. “This is raw partisanship and has no place in the office of our state’s Constitutional Officers,” Andrews said. Bellows, a...

Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) voiced his objection to the ruling by Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, to keep former President Trump off the primary ballot.That move should only have been made if Trump was convicted of a crime, the Democrat argued.“I voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in the January 6th insurrection. I do not believe he should be re-elected as President of the United States,” Golden said in a statement posted on X. “However, we are a nation of laws, therefore until he is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed...

Maine’s Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Thursday disqualified former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot, citing the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause. -snip “I do not reach this conclusion lightly. Democracy is sacred,” Bellows wrote in her 34-page decision on multiple complaints challenging the 77-year-old Trump’s eligibility for the primary ballot in Maine based on his actions leading up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. “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...