JEFFERSON CITY — The Missouri Republican Party filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop a candidate with ties to the Ku Klux Klan from running for governor as a Republican.
Darrell Leon McClanahan III, of Milo, Missouri, filed to run as a Republican for governor on Feb. 27, the first day of candidate filing for the upcoming Aug. 6 Republican primary.
But the party announced two days later it would seek to remove McClanahan, saying his affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan “fundamentally contradicts our party’s values and platform.” The state GOP followed through with a lawsuit filed in Cole County Circuit Court on Thursday.
Longtime GOP attorney Lowell Pearson is representing the state party. The case was assigned to Circuit Judge Cotton Walker, and no hearing date had been set.
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The lawsuit by the Missouri Republican State Committee names both McClanahan and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, another Republican candidate for governor, as defendants.
The lawsuit said that the party asked the secretary of state to remove McClanahan from the ballot for governor, “but he refused to do so.”
JoDonn Chaney, spokesman for Ashcroft’s office, said Thursday there was no way for the secretary of state to remove McClanahan from the ballot absent a court order, McClanahan voluntarily removing himself, or an action by the Missouri Ethics Commission.
Ashcroft, in an interview Thursday, said “in my official capacity, I have no authority to remove someone from the ballot, and I should not have that authority.”
Ashcroft said that personally he believed it was incumbent on the party to go to court to remove a candidate from the ballot “when they have evidence to believe that someone is a racist or an antisemite.”
“I’m thankful that they have done that,” he added.
The lawsuit said the party “did not learn of Mr. McClanahan’s racist and antisemitic past until after he filed his declaration of candidacy.”
The lawsuit goes on to say “MSRC does not want to be associated with Mr. McClanahan. ... MRSC’s right to not be associated with Mr. McClanahan is protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.”
The lawsuit adds, “no legal remedy exists under Missouri law for MRSC to enforce its Constitutional right to not be associated with Mr. McClanahan.”
McClanahan, on Thursday, said in a text message he was seeking legal counsel and that “The Missouri GOP knew exactly who I am.”
To run in the Aug. 6 primary, gubernatorial candidates must declare their candidacy with the secretary of state and pay a filing fee to the political party in question.
The party said on the first day of candidate filing, “as many as 100 candidates” had lined up at the Republican Party’s table at once.
“Based on the ease with which individuals can declare their candidacy, a political party has virtually no ability to screen potential candidates to determine the extent to which the party wants to be associated with a potential candidate,” the lawsuit says.
The party says that the day after McClanahan’s filing, the party “was made aware of Mr. McClanahan’s disturbing racist and antisemitic history.”
On March 4, the party said it sent McClanahan a letter “disavowing him as a candidate.”
“MRSC will suffer irreparable harm unless the Secretary of State is enjoined from certifying McClanahan’s name on the Republican Party primary ballot for Governor,” the lawsuit said.
House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat running for governor, said in the days following McClanahan’s filing that the state party should have never accepted his filing fee.
“They should have never accepted it and should immediately refund it and denounce him and his beliefs,” she said.
It wasn’t McClanahan’s first foray into politics. He joined a crowded Republican field for U.S. Senate two years ago, garnering 0.2% of the vote, or 1,139 votes, in the primary that Sen. Eric Schmitt won.
After the primary, the Anti-Defamation League on McClanahan. The post includes what the organization describes as a photo of McClanahan with two Knights Party leaders. Another photo is said to show McClanahan at a cross burning in about 2019.
Seven other candidates have filed to run for governor as Republicans, poised to appear alongside McClanahan.
Better-known candidates include Ashcroft, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe and state Sen. Bill Eigel.
Also running are Jeremy Gundel of Washburn; Robert James Olson of Springfield; Chris Wright of Joplin; and Darren L Grant of Maryland Heights.