Ashcroft says he does not have authority to block candidate with KKK ‘affiliation’
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft on Friday said he does not have the authority to unilaterally remove a candidate with alleged ties to the Ku Klux Klan from running for governor as a Republican.
But Ashcroft, a Republican who is also running for governor, said he supported a lawsuit from the Missouri Republican Party that seeks to block the candidate, Darrell Leon McClanahan III, from the ballot.
Ashcroft told The Star on Friday that a 2014 court decision bars him from blocking McClanahan from the August ballot, saying he doesn’t “believe I should be judge, jury and executioner.”
“I think that’s too much authority to have in one person’s hands,” he said.
Ashcroft’s comments came a day after the Missouri GOP filed a lawsuit seeking to block Ashcroft from certifying McClanahan’s name on the ballot. The state party alleged in the lawsuit that it had previously asked Ashcroft to remove McClanahan, “but he refused to do so.” Ashcroft confirmed that on Friday.
However, he said he was glad the party was seeking to remove McClanahan and would not certify his name on the ballot if ordered by the courts.
“I don’t want members of the Ku Klux Klan that are associating with the Republican Party...they believe different things than I do,” he said. “I wish that we had processes to vet candidates to make sure that this wouldn’t happen. But I am glad that they are going to court to make sure that he will not be a representative of the Republican Party on the ballot.”
McClanahan filed to run for governor as a Republican and paid his filing $500 fee last month. His name still appears at the top of the list of Republican candidates for governor, according to the unofficial candidate filing list on the Missouri Secretary of State Office’s website.
The state party later disavowed McClanahan after a photo resurfaced online of him saluting in front of a burning cross next to a person wearing what appeared to be a hooded Ku Klux Klan robe.
The state party last month promised to seek to remove McClanahan from the ballot, saying in a statement that his “affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan…fundamentally contradicts our party’s values and platform.”
The lawsuit filed on Thursday alleges that the party did not learn about McClanahan’s “racist and antisemitic past” until after he had filed for governor. But McClanahan has alleged that the party “knew exactly who I am” and this is not the first time he has run for elected office as a Republican in Missouri.
The final certification date for the August election is May 28.
