The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from a convicted New Mexico official who was barred from office under the Constitution’s insurrection clause over his involvement in the January 6 Capitol riot.
The justices denied former Otero County commissioner Couy Griffin’s petition seeking to overturn a lower court’s ruling that prevented him from holding public office in New Mexico again. The Supreme Court kept the ruling in place, writing that state candidates can be disqualified, per Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, if they are found to have engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the government.
The Court’s move represents a different conclusion than the one that was reached in former president Donald Trump’s Colorado ballot-eligibility case, in which all nine justices agreed that states cannot disqualify federal candidates from office. Rather, that power lies solely with Congress.
“We conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But states have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency,” the Court wrote in its unanimous decision on March 4.
As a result, Trump was allowed back on the GOP primary ballot in Colorado, and subsequently every other state that attempted to stop him from running for the 2024 presidency.
In September 2022, a state judge removed Griffin from the board of commissioners in Otero County, N.M. Earlier that year, he was convicted on misdemeanor offenses related to his role in breaching Capitol grounds, though he didn’t enter the Capitol building himself. The ex-commissioner was the second January 6 defendant to be convicted at trial.
Griffin, a Republican, is the first modern official barred from office by the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 to block former Confederate officials from infiltrating the reconstructed government following the Civil War.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal watchdog organization, notably backed the respective January 6 lawsuits against Griffin and Trump, though the latter was overturned earlier this month.
Griffin, who co-founded Cowboys for Trump, rose to prominence by supporting the former president with a series of horseback caravans.