Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has claimed he cannot stop a KKK-affiliated man from running for governor. He said it would be “too much authority to have in one person.”
Darrell Leon McClanahan III of Milo, Missouri, who held honorary membership in the KKK, filed this month to run in the Republican primary as one of eight Republican candidates.
His decision was met with widespread anger and there were calls for his application to be blocked after footage of him giving the Nazi salute at a cross burning was discovered.
But Republican Ashcroft has now done so told the Kansas City Star that a 2014 court decision means he has no power to stop him from adding his name to the August ballot.
Despite damning photos of McClanahan saluting next to a burning cross, Ashcroft said he doesn’t think he should be “judge, jury and executioner.”
In the left photo, McClanahan (center) is shown with Knights of the KKK party leaders Thomas and Jason Robb. On the right, he is pictured next to a hooded Klansman at a cross burning in 2019
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (pictured) says he has no authority to stop McClanahan from voting
He added, “I think that’s too much authority to have in one person.”
A ruling after the 2014 Missouri Vowell vs. Kander The case found that the secretary of state does not have the authority under state law to decide the qualifications of candidates.
The Missouri Republican Party has taken steps to prevent McClanahan from running for office.
They said earlier this month: “The Republican Party of Missouri has been notified that Darrell Leon McClanahan III has filed for governor as a Republican despite his ties to the Ku Klux Klan, which is fundamentally inconsistent with its values and the platform of our party.’
They then filed a lawsuit to stop Ashcroft from putting McClanahan’s name on the ballot, claiming they asked Ashcroft to remove him, “but he refused to do so.”
Ashcroft said that while he did not personally block him, he is happy that the party is trying to remove him.
He said, “I don’t want members of the Ku Klux Klan associating with the Republican Party… they believe different things than I do.
“I wish we had processes in place to vet candidates to make sure this wouldn’t happen. But I’m glad they’re going to court to make sure he won’t be a representative of the Republican Party on the ballot.”
The party disavowed McClanahan after a photo surfaced showing him with two KKK leaders and next to a burning cross.
McClanahan previously ran for an open Senate seat in Missouri last cycle. He received 0.2 percent of the vote in a contest that was ultimately won by current Senator Eric Schmitt.
McClanahan has insisted to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he is ‘not a Nazi’ despite the photo
In 2022, the Anti-Defamation League published an article with a photo of McClanahan with two men described as leaders of the Knights Party – the ‘Knights of the Ku Klux Klan’ is a modern offshoot of the KKK.
Another photo apparently shows McClanahan at a cross burning in 2019.
In the photo, McClanahan stands next to a person wearing white KKK garb and a pointed hat. Both men raise their right arms in what appears to be a Nazi salute.
Earlier this month, McClanahan told the newspaper St. Louis Postal Service that he is ‘not a Nazi’.
“I don’t believe in heil Hitler,” he said, claiming the photo is just “a bad photo of me.”
Regarding the photo of himself with the Knights’ leaders, McClanahan said, “That’s me. Yes that’s me.’
McClanahan sued the ADL for defamation last year in a case that was transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri before being dismissed in December.
Although the Missouri GOP claims they unknowingly accepted his filing fee, McClanahan says they knew exactly who he was when he registered to run.
In his original petition to the court, McClanahan described himself as a “pro-white male, equestrian, politician, political prisoner activist committed to traditional Christian values.”
The lawsuit goes on to claim that McClanahan does not belong to the KKK. Although it later says that he was ‘given an honorary membership for one year’.
McClanahan tried to clarify to the Post-Dispatch that the membership referred to the League of the South — a self-described “Southern nationalist” group that advocates the “both cultural and political separation” of the former Confederate states.
The petition also appears to address the cross-burning statue, which in 2019 is being called a “private religious Christian identity cross-lighting ceremony.”
Former state Rep. Shamed Dogan, who was the only black Republican lawmaker in the state legislature during his term, highlighted the McClanahan issue to the state party on X.
“Hey @MissouriGOP “I just learned that the candidate first on our primary ballot for governor is a burning KKK member who ran for the U.S. Senate two years ago and openly admits his KKK membership and white supremacist beliefs,” he wrote , adding that the body should reject the wannabe file charges of a politician.
“Please tell me you’re going to… dismiss this racist loser’s filing charges?” he said.
