These Are Not the Sheriffs You’re Looking For

April 11, 2024

No, not this sheriff either!

On April 17, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association is sponsoring a media event in Las Vegas titled “Resist the Temptation (U.S. Supreme Court Mack v. U.S.).” *

This promises to be a repeat of the conference in 2022, which was covered widely by all the major television news outlets as well as the New York Times, AP, Washington Post, and others.

Richard Mack, the founder of the CSPOA, and his media team (viz. one Sam Bushman) have put information about this event out on the wire to ensure that every journalist will receive a notification on their Google Alerts. He even sent me a personal email invite so that I didn’t feel left out. (Mack is aware I have a book coming out in the fall on sheriffs.) The PDF brochure promises press coverage designed to make people feel left out: “Another exciting feature of this event is the fact that international media outlets will be in attendance, including media from Russia, London, Australia, CBS, ABC and many others.”

I expect that major media outlets will send their reporters to “cover” an event that is widely publicized and then report on that same event as though it were secret. They may even act as though a press conference is designed to reveal something unknown and heretofore mysterious. I don’t completely blame them for doing so since the “constitutional sheriff” movement is an important topic for those interested in the far-right.

But these events distract from the problem of sheriffs, elected law enforcement officials with a wide range of official and unofficial duties who, because they are politicians, are very concerned with satiating constituents or other powerful political interests in lieu of abstract notions of “safety.” Donald Trump appears frequently with sheriffs. He just stood with a group of Michigan sheriffs last week in Grand Rapids. In both 2016 and 2020, appearing with sheriffs was a fundamental tactic of his campaign designed to show widespread law enforcement support for his presidential campaign as well as burnish his masculine street cred. During his presidency, Trump met with sheriffs more times than any other president in history. Some commentators have noted how Trump resembles a mob boss; I think he resembles a sheriff.  (You are forgiven if the distinction is hard to see.)

I have written extensively about Mack and the CSPOA, and I have attended many events and trainings across the country for years. I can tell you two things.

First, the CSPOA does not have the influence it pretends to have. Political loudmouths and wanna-be politicians use the CSPOA to reach a core audience of people – highly motivated individuals willing to pay $49 and who already buy into a variety of conspiracy theories. Many of them are members of other far-right groups, like local sovereign citizens groups, Tea Party organizations, and QAnon. They are the “3,000 members” CSPOA claims.

Second, the sheriffs who attend the CSPOA events do not have a great deal of influence. The three sheriffs on the brochure are all rural sheriffs who are on the brink of losing their office (and salaries, guns, cars, etc.). Glenn Hamilton is a New Mexico sheriff most famous for deputizing an entire church congregation in order to permit a gathering in violation of COVID-19 rules. Bob Songer of Klickitat County Washington nearly lost his last election and is embroiled in a scandal involving his chief deputy Loren Culp (who seems to be a potty-mouth on Twitter). And Dar Leaf just released thousands of pages of Dominion emails he shouldn’t have, making it all but certain he will be sued and possibly lose the August primary.

Sheriffs are a threat to democracy because they are unaccountable officials who subject their constituents to incredible violence. They defy ethics rules and lobby state governments so that they do not face consequences. They oppose even small reforms that might make it more difficult for them to engage in whatever dangerous tactics they choose. They control their jails as small fiats, denying children the ability to hug their parents, allowing people to die for lack of health care, and undermining the dignity of people unfortunate enough to be in jail in millions of ways.

Imagine being kidnapped off the street at random, unable to pick up your child from school or call your family. You miss days of work, but you cannot reach your boss to explain. You don’t have your medications because you can’t go home and get them. You probably will have your eyeglasses taken, so now you cannot see. That bill you meant to pay? Those calls you will make? Everything will be undone and no one will even know where you are. This is what sheriffs do every day.

Sheriffs have also inserted themselves into elections in dangerous ways – not just with their rhetoric and desire to cater to election vigilantes, but also because they can and have interrogated, arrested, and terrified communities of color who are already disenfranchised.

My point is that we don’t need Richard Mack and the CSPOA to tell us that sheriffs are a threat. His medicine show is an act, one which is fine to watch but should be taken as the whole story. The problem isn’t necessarily “constitutional sheriffs.” It’s the fact that sheriffs naturally and without much urging are perfectly willing to create a world where they are the highest law in the land. And we have given them the guns, laws, and social capital, allowing the most dangerous members of the Law Enforcement Baronial Class to undermine the safety and security of the communities they pretend to represent.

* The subtitle is a reference to the 1997 SCOTUS ruling in Printz v. United States. Richard Mack was a plaintiff in one of the cases consolidated under this caption (which is named after a Montana sheriff.) The majority opinion, written by Scalia, holds that the federal government cannot order local law enforcement to enforce certain provisions of the Brady Bill. The bulk of the case has been rendered largely irrelevant by subsequent case law and legislation.