Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) said Donald Trump should remain on the presidential ballot unless there’s a conviction for the “crime of insurrection.”

“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. However, we are a nation of laws, therefore until he is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed on the ballot,” Golden said in a statement.

POLITICO reports:

It’s not the first time Golden, a Blue Dog Democrat who represents a district Trump won in the 2016 and 2020 elections, has bucked his party. Since he was elected in 2018, Golden has been one of the few House Democrats to support gun rights. He was also the sole Democrat to vote against President Joe Biden’s signature Build Back Better infrastructure package and has regularly voted against other marquee pieces of legislation, such as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

But the responses to efforts across the country to remove Trump from state ballots in light of the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause have split largely along partisan lines. Republicans have widely panned efforts to remove Trump from the ballot in Maine and other states as undemocratic.

Democrats, including in Maine, have largely united in their support for removing Trump. The other member of Maine’s House delegation, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), posted on social media shortly after the decision that “[the] text of the Fourteenth Amendment is clear. No person who engaged in an insurrection against the government can ever again serve in elected office.”

On Thursday, Maine became the second state to remove Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot.

JUST IN: Maine Secretary Of State Removes Donald Trump From Ballot

Maine’s Democrat Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Thursday removed Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 presidential ballot.

Bellows cited the ‘insurrection clause’ from the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“Specifically, I find that the declaration on his candidate consent form is false because he is not qualified to hold the office of the President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the order read.

“She based her ruling on a lot of documents, but also YouTube clips, news reports, things that would never pass the bar in normal court. She’s not a lawyer, by the way," CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig commented.

WATCH:

Kanekoa The Great writes:

Democrat Shenna Bellows explains that she personally decided that Trump was guilty of engaging in an insurrection.

So she unilaterally removed the leading Republican presidential candidate from Maine's ballot.

She gleefully tells MSDNC "I could not, unfortunately—or fortunately—wait for the Supreme Court to make a decision."

After disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of Republican voters in Maine, Bellows boasts about how proud she is of Maine's voter participation rate.

"I smile because we were number one for voter turnout per capita in 2022...

We're really proud of our national leadership in voter participation and citizen engagement in elections and in the democratic process."

Democracy means unelected Democrats unilaterally decide that millions of Republicans cannot vote for the leading Republican presidential candidate.

The United States normally sanctions Banana Republics for doing what Democrats are doing right now.

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