Today: The first disqualification of a public official for participating in the January 6 attack

An historic ruling

Today, a state court ruling with huge implications was issued: A New Mexico state district court judge disqualified Otero, New Mexico, county commissioner Couy Griffin (the leader of “Cowboys for Trump”) from holding public office because Griffin participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021

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The ruling immediately removes Griffin from his position as a county commissioner. It also permanently bars him from serving as a presidential elector and from holding or seeking any future local or federal office.

State District Court Judge Francis Mathew based his decision on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which states that

No person shall … hold any office … under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.

Mathew’s ruling marks the first time a court has removed an elected official from office for participating in the January 6 attack on the U.S Capitol. It’s also the first time a judge has formally ruled that the events of January 6, 2021, amounted to an "insurrection."

Couy Griffin was at the Capitol on January 6. He was convicted by a federal court of entering the Capitol grounds illegally (a misdemeanor for which he was sentenced to 14 days, with credit for time served).

At his trial over whether he should be disqualified from holding public office, Griffin invoked his First Amendment right of free speech. He also argued that removing him from office would violate the will of the people and set a “dangerous precedent.”

But as Judge Mathew pointed out,"the irony of Mr. Griffin's argument that this Court should refrain from applying the law and consider the will of the people … as he attempts to defend his participation in an insurrection by a mob whose goal, by his own admission, was to set aside the results of a free, fair and lawful election by a majority of the people of the entire country.”

Griffin’s arguments, said Mathew, “disregard that the Constitution itself reflects the will of the people”

Judge Mathew noted that Griffin’s efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election began before the January 6 attack and continued after it. Griffin spent "months normalizing the violence that may be necessary to keep President Trump in office" the Judge wrote, and urged supporters to travel to Washington, DC, on January 6. Griffin’s efforts included several inflammatory public speeches in which he likened the “Stop the Steal” movement to a "war" to keep Trump in office.

This year, Griffin voted twice as a county commissioner against certifying New Mexico’s June 7 primary election, in a standoff over election integrity fueled by conspiracy theories about the security of voting equipment in the Republican-dominated county. Two other commissioners eventually agreed to certify, but Griffin cast the lone dissenting vote while acknowledging that he had no basis for questioning the results of the election. He attributed his decision to “my gut feeling and my own intuition.”

So where does today’s ruling leave other lawmakers involved in the January 6 attack who had sworn an oath of allegiance to the Constitution – lawmakers such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Josh Hawley, and … Donald J. Trump?  

Unlike Griffin, none of them has yet been charged or convicted of crimes associated with the attack, making it difficult to argue that they “engaged in insurrection” against the United States.

(In Georgia, a state administrative law judge found insufficient evidence to back claims that Greene engaged in the insurrection. In North Carolina, a federal judge blocked the state elections board from formally examining whether Cawthorn (who spoke at the rally that preceded the riot) should remain on the state’s primary ballot, but the lawsuit was dismissed after he lost that election. Arizona state courts have kept Gosar and Biggs and a state legislator on the ballot amid efforts to disqualify them.)

But over time, more public officials will be charged and convicted – either of directly participating in the attack or of encouraging and inciting it or covering it up (e.g., refusing to respond to a subpoena from the congressional committee investigating it). All are forms of “engaging in insurrection.”

Hopefully, Trump will be among them.

Which means they’ll be disqualified from holding office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

What about the will of the people who elected them? As Judge Mathew points out in today’s historic ruling, “the Constitution itself reflects the will of the people.”