It’s one thing to have the audacity to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6th because you didn’t like election results. Then there’s another aspect of refusing to certify the results of a primary election because of a false voting machine conspiracy theory. Otero County Commissioner and Cowboys for Trump Co-Founder Couy Griffin may say he’s not going for reelection or another office in November. Still, the NAACP wants to keep that from happening in the future. The organization seeks to have Griffith barred from running for public office entirely, citing his presence at the Jan. 6th insurrection and push to disenfranchise Black voters, Associated Press notes.
Griffith was previously found guilty of trespassing on U.S. Capitol grounds in March. In the court filing, the NAACP pointed out Griffith had tried to compare the Jan. 6th riot with the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. I’m not sure why the Capitol rioters continually compare with Black people exercising their right to protest police brutality peacefully as their own “civil rights movement,” but here’s another example. The NAACP noted the absurdity of the last comparison as well.
“Lawful protests and demonstrations in support of civil rights and the Black Lives Matter movement are fundamentally different from the insurrectionist conduct that occurred on Jan. 6th,” the NAACP said in its briefing.
There was also another incident where Griffith had an issue with the NFL playing “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” before football games. In a video, Griffith told whoever supported the anthem to “go back to Africa and form your little football teams over in Africa, and you can play on an old beat-out dirt lot.” Afterward, Griffin called his comments a “poor choice of words” while saying, “if there was a group of white people wanting to play a ‘white national anthem,’ I would have had the same response to them.”
Specifically, the NAACP argues Griffith’s presence at the Jan. 6th riot violates the 14th Amendment – where all representatives agree to uphold the constitution or to be banned from ever running from office again. Griffith, representing himself in these legal proceedings, claimed his right to free speech and that removal would set a “dangerous precedent.” A recall effort back in September of 2021 against Griffith fell short of the 345 signatures needed to proceed.