An honorary member of the Ku Klux Klan, Darrell McClanahan III, will be allowed to remain on Missouri’s gubernatorial primary ballot, despite the state Republican party going through the motions of trying to boot him off.
On Friday, Judge S. Cotton Walker of the Cole County Circuit Court ruled in favor of the accused antisemite and self-avowed pro-white man, writing that he is on the ballot because the Missouri Republican Party accepted his candidacy. And having done so, they’re not allowed a do-over.
On February 27, the first day of filing for this year’s election, McClanahan and hundreds of other candidates descended on the Secretary of State’s office in Jefferson City to file for their bids for office. McClanahan paid the requisite fee to the state GOP’s treasurer as well as filed a declaration of candidacy with the Secretary of State's office. Through dumb luck, he also wound up in a situation where his name would appear first on the ballot among all those running to be the Republican nominee for Missouri governor.
Within about 36 hours, the fact that a former (honorary) KKK member would be atop the Missouri GOP primary ballot had made national news. Numerous Republican officials called for McClanahan to get the boot.
In March, the state party filed a lawsuit against McClanahan and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who oversees state elections, seeking to do just that.
There was just one problem. The party’s own lawsuit didn’t allege any violation of state or federal law, Judge Walker wrote in his ruling. Nor did the party allege that any of the laws governing elections in the state were unconstitutional. Walker addied that it was “undisputed” that McClanahan did what he needed to do to get his name on the primary ballot: he paid his filing fee to the treasurer of the state Republican Party and filed a declaration of candidacy with the secretary of state.
In his ruling, Walker puts the blame for the matter on the state GOP, writing that they were under no obligation to accept McClanahan’s filing fee or to accept it in a speedy manner that didn’t allow them time to do due diligence.
Also not in the state party’s favor was the fact they allowed McClanahan to run in the primary for U.S. Senate in 2022.
Walker wrote in his ruling that the state party “twice willingly created the very association of which it now complains.”
Dave Roland, who represented McClanahan, tells the RFT that the state party’s arguments in the case essentially “carbon copied” those that had been made in a previous failed effort to have a different candidate booted off the ballot in Missouri.
“That suggests to me that they knew they were likely to lose this case from the outset,” he says. “It was probably more about making a very visible statement that they don't like racism or antisemitism than it was about actually keeping McClanahan off the ballot.”
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
