(The Center Square) — Maine Republicans want Secretary of State Shenna Bellows to resign over her “refusal to cooperate” with the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on undocumented immigrants and voter fraud.
In a letter to Bellows, House Minority Leader Billy “Bob” Faulkingham led GOP lawmakers in criticizing the Democratic candidate for governor for allegedly denying a request from Homeland Security to access the state Registry of Motor Vehicle records to determine if the state is issuing driver’s licenses to noncitizens.
“Your brazen unwillingness to cooperate with the federal government, both in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Division of Elections, has become deeply troubling,” the GOP lawmakers wrote. “Recently, you have expressed numerous public positions and engaged in a problematic pattern of partisan rhetoric in response to routine requests for data.”
The GOP lawmakers cited two recent pedestrian fatalities in Maine involving foreign drivers who had overstayed their visas. Both suspects were later apprehended by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities over their immigration status.
But the lawmakers also pointed to Bellows’ refusal to provide voter registration information to the Department of Justice, which is investigating state election policies as part of broader efforts to prevent voter fraud.
Bellows issued a statement in response to the Justice Department’s demands, telling the federal agency to “go jump in the Gulf of Maine” and saying she wouldn’t comply. She said the DOJ “has no right to the sensitive, personal information of every voter” in the state, saying it would violate a provision of the U.S. Constitution giving the states authority over elections.
But the GOP lawmakers said Bellow’s resistance to the Trump administration’s demands suggest that she’s more focused on campaigning for governor than fulfilling the duties of the office.
“The citizens of Maine reserve full confidence that the individual overseeing our elections and motor vehicle laws does so within impartiality, transparency, and without appearance of conflict,” they wrote. “If you’re not willing to prioritize your official duties over your gubernatorial campaign, we feel it is incumbent upon you to resign from the position before you damage the secretary of state beyond repair.”
Bellows fired back at Republicans in a statement that criticized them for “exploiting the recent tragic deaths of two Mainers to attempt to score political points” and said the drivers in both cases were “accurately issued credentials based on their legal presence in our country and residency in our state.”
“I will always follow the law and I’ll never back down from doing what is right for the people of Maine,” Bellows said. “To best serve Maine people, I call on the House and Senate Republicans to work with me, not against me, on traffic safety, voter privacy, and other vital nonpartisan issues.”
Republicans pushed unsuccessfully to impeach Bellows for trying to remove Donald Trump’s name from the 2024 presidential primary ballot over his alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riots. But Democrats who control the state Legislature rejected the impeachment proposal.
