Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has sued Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows over her barring him from collecting petition signatures in Maine. 

Kennedy filed on Feb. 21 in U.S. District Court, arguing that Bellows has violated the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause.

The nephew of President Kennedy and the son of the late U.S. attorney general and New York senator Robert Kennedy, he is running as an independent, after changing his party affiliation from Democrat in 2023. An environmental lawyer, he has gained prominence in recent years for his stance against vaccinations. 

Kennedy is barred from collecting petition signatures at polling places during the upcoming March 5 presidential primary elections. Bellows, according to Kennedy, cited state law pertaining to elections as the reason. 

The law, cited in Kennedy’s suit, prohibits people at polling places from attempting to sway voters regarding an issue that is on the ballot that day. The law also prohibits political advertising.  

“Maine law is very clear: within the voting place itself, a person may not influence another person’s decision regarding a candidate for an office or question that is on the ballot for the election that day,” Bellows told the Bangor Daily News. “That’s why no presidential campaign can collect signatures on presidential primary day.” 

To use that law as the basis for barring anyone from seeking petitions for a presidential election, Kennedy wrote, is “unconstitutional as it prevents them from collecting ballot access petition signatures.” 

While the 14th Amendment does not specifically address presidential petitions, it does bar any state from denying “equal protection under the law” for all US citizens. 

Kennedy’s lawsuit called Bellows “a Democrat partisan hack” who “is out of control.” Kennedy said Bellows is acting on instructions from President Joe Biden’s “political team” to bar anyone from challenging Biden on the ballot in Maine.