(C) Minnesota Reformer
This story was originally published by Minnesota Reformer and is unaltered.
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Former sheriff tries to enlist Minnesota law enforcement in his far-right crusade [1]
['Deena Winter', 'More From Author', '- October']
Date: 2023-10-13
Richard Mack is a former Arizona sheriff who is the most visible proponent of a baseless legal theory asserting county sheriffs have the power to refuse to enforce any state and federal law they deem unconstitutional.
He just finished a tour of nine Minnesota cities, where he was feted by right-wing audiences eager to hear his argument that sheriffs — as opposed to the courts — are empowered to nullify a law they deem unconstitutional.
For conservative audiences who feel besieged by Democrats winning the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections, Mack’s argument sounds comforting, especially in ruby red counties.
Mack’s assertion has no basis in history or law, however.
The National Association of Sheriffs rebutted Mack’s idea in a short memo a decade ago:
“Sheriffs should not fall into the mythology that any ‘oath of office’ taken by the man or woman who fills the position of sheriff conveys upon that individual any extraordinary powers or duties that are not otherwise set out under the constitutions and laws of the respective states. Furthermore, a sheriff should always perform his or her duties in accordance with the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court.”
During his appearance at a Republican Party meeting at a Blaine Thai restaurant this week, Mack downplayed the radicalism of his project, arguing he’s only advocating for simple constitutional checks and balances. (Sheriffs, which originate from medieval English “shire-reeves,” are unmentioned in the U.S. Constitution.)
About 50 mostly white, older people showed up at the Blaine event, none in uniform. That bothered Mack, who said he’s disappointed that just two Minnesota sheriffs — Crow Wing County Sheriff Eric Klang and Stearns County Sheriff Steve Soyka — attended any of the nine meetings, even though all Minnesota sheriffs were invited.
They may have declined because the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights sent a letter to every Minnesota sheriff and the attorney general warning them about Mack and the group’s connections to white supremacists.
Mack, who wore a black, button-down shirt and crisp Wrangler jeans, said the feds aren’t the boss of sheriffs. Abortion and Democrats are bad. And he’s being unfairly labeled “crazy” by the left and the media.
And for $11 a month, you, too, can be part of his “posse,” by joining his group, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association.
The Posse Comitatus concept is a key antecedent to the “constitutional sheriff” movement, historians say.
Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson said earlier this year on the Vox podcast “Now and Then” that “in the late 19th century we get the rise of both lynching parties and posses” who sought to restore the law from those considered unworthy.
Its roots lie in the 19th century’s power struggles over who should get to be full participants in American democracy as it expanded to include immigrants and freed slaves.
Richardson characterized their thinking this way: “We don’t think the law is being enforced because the people who have been elected to do it by the voters — the judges, the politicians — that system has been corrupted. Therefore, the good guys, as they were often described as … the great hero coming in from outside, need to take over the law and restore … the law to what it should be.”
Later, elected sheriffs in this tradition were often the most violent opponents of federal Civil Rights laws. The infamous attack on the Edmund Pettus Bridge took place in Selma, Ala., the county seat of Dallas County, where the Sheriff Jim Clark maintained he had the authority to override Civil Rights laws intended to make it easier to vote, Richardson said.
More recently, the “constitutional sheriff” movement can be traced to the Posse Comitatus movement — a far-right, violent anti-government group that peaked in the early 1980s and evolved into the sovereign citizen movement — which also believed sheriffs could nullify laws.
Mack traces his awakening to a 90s-era U.S. Supreme Court case in which the tribunal invalidated a piece of the Brady Bill gun control law on federalism grounds. The court said the federal government couldn’t require sheriffs to do background checks on gun purchasers. Mack was a plaintiff.
It was just one of many federalism cases decided every year, in which the courts weigh the rights and responsibilities of federal, state and local government. Mack took a maximalist view of the court’s decision, claiming for himself the power of a local sovereign.
He lost reelection in the mid-1990s and has been touring ever since, trying to recruit law enforcement officers to join the movement and his group. He’s managed to win the blessing of some state sheriffs’ associations, which have allowed members to receive continuing education credits by attending his sessions.
Jessica Pishko, an independent journalist and lawyer who is writing a book about the rise of sheriffs in America, has been following Mack and his “trainings,” which she considers more like holy roller sermons and sales pitches.
He goes to rural America and presents himself as an expert, waving his pocket Constitution and quoting from the U.S. Supreme Court decision that made him famous.
But he’s had mixed results lately, especially since Texas and Arizona stopped allowing law enforcement officers to get training credits for attending them, Pishko said.
Mack doesn’t yell or swear or say openly racist things, and focuses on the importance of law enforcement.
“He doesn’t do anything weird,” Pishko said. “I think where he’s dangerous is he cloaks himself in respectability … And a lot of times, he’s the most normal one in the room.”
He can also be a storyteller, using embellishment and fiction when helpful.
He talked at the Blaine event about an Amish farmer who was sentenced to six years in prison for refusing to abide by the FDA’s order to stop selling herbal products like chickweed salve. Mack doesn’t mention that the man claimed they could cure cancer and skin disorders.
He repeats a debunked claim that U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is now a multi-millionaire after four years in Congress.
He tells the story about how a U.S. Department of Education SWAT team detained a California man for hours because his ex-wife didn’t pay her student loans — even though the feds disputed that, saying the case revolved around fraud.
Perhaps seeking to avoid charges of racism given the movement’s roots, Mack makes a curious claim about how he would’ve responded as a “constitutional sheriff” when police were called to arrest Rosa Parks for refusing to get up from her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus. He would have escorted her home, Mack said, and then ordered his deputies to guard her home while telling her husband to use his gun to defend his property.
(Parks’ arrest would become a profoundly significant event in the Civil Rights Movement’s history.)
For all of the legal argle bargle, however, Mack’s real aims may be less political and more conventional: To get some of the giant pile of cash that conservative Americans are willing to give to people who will enliven their hopes and — just as important — assuage their fears.
On his website, Mack promotes organic survival food, gold and silver and the idea that harmful radiation emanates from towers, power lines, cell phones and microwaves.
“He’s getting old. A lot of what he says is kinda dopey,” Pishko said.
Mack and his like in the other concentric circles of the far right have won influence in Donald Trump’s Republican Party, however.
Senate District 32 GOP Chair Mary Amlaw ran the Mack meeting, Allie Schmidt promoted her school board candidacy, and Rep. Nolan West, R-Blaine, who was forced during his 2016 run for the Legislature to disavow his previous support for the Confederacy and white supremacy, told the crowd that “The socialists in the (DFL) party really own the Legislature.” West added: “These aren’t your grandpa’s Democrats.”
Mack’s argument that sheriffs can decide which laws to enforce — and the preeminent place of counties in election administration — has groups that monitor right-wing radicalism concerned about the 2024 election.
Especially since Mack was an early board member of the Oath Keepers, the violent extremist group whose senior leadership were convicted in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Mack didn’t mention election fraud at the Blaine event, though Pishko suspects he and his allies are gearing up for 2024.
Legal analysts worry about the authority Mack is claiming for sheriffs.
“These sheriffs are concerned about federal tyranny, but overlook their own despotism. The president’s authority is limited by the Electoral College, Congress, and judges. These sheriffs have devised a theory whereby they answer to no other authority and many of them believe in a conspiracy that could be used to ignore their own election losses,” attorney Jason Cheung has written. “Despite claiming to be patriots against federal overreach, they are in fact would-be dictators who seemly accept no limits on their own power.”
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