Maine’s Dishonest Secretary of State

Photo Credit: Andy Jacobsohn/The Daily Beast

Like other blue state officials – like Minnesota, Illinois, and California – Maine’s Democrat leaders are regularly dishonest, unethical, and skates the line of illegality. Maine’s Secretary of State is a special case.

Maine’s Secretary of State – the one who shamelessly threw Trump off the ballot in 2024, only to be unanimously reversed by the US Supreme Court – is now misshaping another referendum question.

In 2025, she tortured language and re-sequenced a “Voter ID” referendum question so completely that the heavily favored measure failed, for confusion. Now, the shameless Shenna Bellows is at it again.

A simple legal change would clarify that boys and girls are biologically different – and for their physical, mental, and emotional safety, deserve to be treated differently by Maine schools.

That law, on which Mainers now want a clear referendum, reads, in part:

1. “Sex means a person’s biological status as male or female recorded at birth on the person’s original birth certificate …”
2. “A public school … shall expressly designate athletic teams” as boys and girls or coeducational.
3. “Teams designated for girls … must be restricted to students whose sex is female,” while “teams designated for … boys must be restricted to students whose sex is male…”
4. “A public school shall maintain separate restrooms, locker rooms, shower rooms and other private spaces for each sex” and “a member of one sex may not be permitted to use a facility designated for members of the opposite sex.”
5. “Separation of athletic teams and private spaces by sex under this section does not constitute unlawful discrimination …” and an individual born with a biologically verifiable disorder … must receive all legal protections…”
6. “A student who is deprived of an athletic opportunity or suffers direct injury because of a violation of this section may bring a civil action for injunctive relief, damages and attorney’s fees against a school or entity.”

The bill’s “summary” notes that the initiated bill provides that separation of athletic teams and private spaces by sex under the initiated bill does not constitute unlawful discrimination under the Maine Human Rights Act, and that “the Maine Human Rights Act may not be construed to conflict with the provisions of the initiated bill.”

The Secretary of State is required by law to “concisely and intelligibly” put this to a referendum. Imagining she was objective, the question might read:

“Do you want to clarify public school sports teams and private spaces should be designated by biological sex, assuring no unlawful discrimination, giving parents a right to sue for student injury?”

Instead, the Secretary of State who unconstitutionally removed a presidential candidate from the ballot, misplaced hundreds of ballots, denies Supreme Court Title IX precedent, refuses to comply with Justice subpoenas, and will not recuse herself from overseeing an election in which she is a candidate for governor, reframed it this way:

“Do you want to change civil rights and education laws to require public schools to restrict access to bathrooms and sports based on the gender on the child’s original birth certificate and allow students to sue the schools?

Beyond confusion, objections are legal and obvious.

1. Neither state nor federal civil rights laws are being changed. Implying voters must “change civil rights” by agreeing boys and girls have separate teams is a red hearing.
2. Education policies, currently misinterpreting established federal law, are amended. This is a clarification not a change to statute or established federal caselaw.
3. Access by biological sex is being clarified is not a new or objectionable “restriction,” but restoration of long understood meanings of law and biology, intended to protect the safety, physical, emotional and mental health, dignity and respect of girls and boys.
4. The designation of teams and private spaces is proposed to be by biological sex, a legally understood definition at birth, not choice-based gender. Birth certificates record sex not mental preferences. Without referencing biological sex, the word “private” vanishes.
5. Legally, parents may sue a school based on injury to their minor child. The minor’s lack of legal capacity prevents the child from suing independently, another referendum error.

In sum, a review of the latest referendum word salad by the ideologically leftist Secretary of State should be set aside in favor of a more accurate, clear, concise, and intelligible alternative.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!