The NAACP is supporting efforts to bar a New Mexico-based county commissioner from public workplace, alleging that the Cowboys for Trump co-founder has sought to disenfranchise voters — together with individuals of coloration — and stoke rebellion.
The nation’s oldest civil rights group urged a state district court docket decide to take away and disqualify Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin from holding future public workplace, noting Griffin’s presence on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol rebellion and his current refusal to certify native outcomes of New Mexico’s June 7 main election.
Written remaining arguments and judgement are pending after a two-day bench trial towards Griffin, who has represented himself with out authorized counsel.
In a court docket submitting Tuesday, the NAACP famous that Griffin tried to attract comparisons between the Jan. 6 rebellion and the Black Lives Matter motion.
“Lawful protests and demonstrations in help of civil rights and the Black Lives Matter motion are essentially totally different from the insurrectionist conduct that occurred on Jan. 6,” the NAACP stated in its briefing.
The lawsuit’s three plaintiffs argue that Griffin needs to be disqualified from holding public workplace on the idea of a clause within the 14th Modification to the U.S. Structure that holds that anybody who has taken an oath to uphold the Structure be barred from workplace for partaking in rebellion or insurrection or giving help or consolation to the nation’s enemies.
Griffin has invoked free speech ensures in his protection and argues that eradicating him from workplace would reduce towards the need of the individuals and set a “harmful precedent.”
Elected in 2018, Griffin withstood a recall vote final yr however isn’t operating for re-election or different workplace in November.
“If the plaintiffs prevail and a single decide subverts the need of the nice individuals of Otero County, it should solely be additional proof of the tyranny we at present reside underneath,” Griffin stated Friday in an e mail. “There was already a recall effort waged towards me after Jan. 6. In that recall effort the individuals of Otero County spoke and the recall failed.”
Griffin was convicted in federal court docket of a misdemeanor for coming into Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, with out going inside. He was sentenced to 14 days and given credit score for time served.
The NAACP has additionally highlighted makes an attempt by Griffin to invoke the plight of civil rights activists of the Sixties in his personal protection. The NAACP briefing additionally denounces Griffin’s prior criticism of those that help performances at soccer video games of “Carry Ev’ry Voice and Sing, often known as the Black Nationwide Anthem.
In a July 2020 selfie video, Griffin recommended supporters of the Black Nationwide Anthem “return to Africa and kind your little soccer groups over in Africa and you’ll play on an previous beat-out dust lot.”
Griffin has known as his feedback a poor selection phrases to precise what he sees as a double commonplace that holds white individuals answerable for racist habits.
“If there was a bunch of white individuals desirous to play a ‘white nationwide anthem’ I might have had the identical response to them,” Griffin stated Friday in response to the NAACP briefing. “And as a white individual I’d be disgusted by that concept.”
Griffin voted in June towards certification of native main election outcomes based mostly on a “intestine feeling” with out particular objections.
