Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has said he cannot stop a man with ties to the KKK from running for governor, saying it would be “too much authority to have in the hands of one person.”
Darrell Leon McClanahan III of Milo, Missouri, who was an honorary member of the KKK, filed this month to run in the Republican gubernatorial primary as one of eight Republican candidates.
His decision was met with widespread anger and calls for his application to be blocked after footage of him giving a Nazi salute at a cross burning was discovered.
But Republican Ashcroft now he told the Kansas City Star that a 2014 court decision means he can’t stop him from adding his name to the August ballot.
Despite damning photos showing McClanahan saluting next to a burning cross, Ashcroft said he doesn’t believe he should be “judge, jury and executioner.”
Pictured left, McClanahan (center) appears with KKK Knights Party leaders Thomas and Jason Robb. On the right, he appears alongside a hooded Klansman at a cross burning in 2019.
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (pictured) says he does not have the authority to block McClanahan from the ballot.
He added: “I think it’s too much authority to have in the hands of one person.”
A ruling after the 2014 Missouri ruling Vowell vs. Kander The case found that the secretary of state has no power to decide candidates’ qualifications under state law.
The Missouri Republican Party has taken steps to block McClanahan from running.
They said earlier this month: “The Missouri Republican Party has been informed that Darrell Leon McClanahan III ran for governor as a Republican despite his affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, which fundamentally contradicts our party’s values and platform. “.
They then filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent Ashcroft from certifying McClanahan’s name on the ballot, claiming that they had asked Ashcroft to remove him, “but he refused to do so.”
Ashcroft said that despite not personally blocking him, he is glad the party is trying to unseat him.
He said: ‘I don’t want members of the Ku Klux Klan who are associating with the Republican Party…they believe different things than I do.
‘I wish we had processes to vet candidates and make sure this doesn’t happen. But I’m glad they’re going to court to make sure he won’t be a representative of the Republican Party at the polls.”
The party disavowed McClanahan after a photo surfaced showing him with two KKK leaders and next to a burning cross.
McClanahan previously ran last cycle for an open Senate seat in Missouri. He earned 0.2 percent of the vote in a race ultimately won by now-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 that included a photo of McClanahan with two men described as leaders of the Knights Party: the ‘Knights of the Ku Klux Klan’ are a modern branch of the KKK.
Another image apparently shows McClanahan at a cross burning in 2019.
In the image, McClanahan stands next to a person wearing a white KKK robe and a pointy hat. Both men have their right arms raised in what appears to be a Nazi salute.
Earlier this month, McClanahan told the St. Louis after shipping that he “is not a Nazi.”
“I don’t believe in Heil Hitler,” he said, stating that the photo is simply “a bad image of me.”
Regarding the photo of himself with Knights leaders, McClanahan said: ‘That’s me. Yes that’s me.’
McClanahan sued the ADL last year for defamation 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 Republican Party claims they unknowingly accepted his filing fee, McClanahan says they knew exactly who he was when he signed up to run.
In his original petition to the court, McClanahan described himself as a “pro-white man, horseman, politician, political prisoner, and activist dedicated to traditional Christian values.”
The lawsuit goes on to claim that McClanahan does not belong to the KKK. However, he later says that he was “provided with an honorary membership for one year.”
McClanahan attempted to clarify to the Post-Dispatch that the membership referred to the League of the South, a self-proclaimed “southern nationalist” group that advocates for “cultural and political secession” from the former Confederate states.
The petition also appears to address the image of the burning of the cross, which in 2019 is known as a “private religious Christian Identity Cross lighting ceremony.”
Former state Rep. Shamed Dogan, who was the only black Republican lawmaker in the state legislature while in office, highlighted McClanahan’s issue to the state party in X.
‘Hello @MissouriGOP I just found out that the candidate listed first on our gubernatorial primary ballot is a member of the KKK who ran for the US Senate 2 years ago and freely admits his membership in the KKK and his supremacist beliefs white,” he wrote, adding that the body should reject the politician’s presentation fees.
‘Please tell me you’re going to… refuse this racist loser’s appearance fee?’ he said.