The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an appeal on Monday from a former New Mexico state official who was barred from office due to his involvement in the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol Building.
Couy Griffin, a cowboy pastor known for endorsing former President Donald Trump with horseback caravans, was the former Otero County commissioner and is the sole elected official to be disqualified from office under the “insurrection” clause of the 14th Amendment.
In a 2022 trial held in a state district court, Griffin became the first person in more than a century to be removed from office under a provision of the 14th Amendment designed to prevent former Confederates from holding government positions after the Civil War.
Although the Supreme Court recently ruled that states cannot prohibit Trump or other federal candidates from being on the ballot, they made it clear that separate regulations apply to state and local candidates.
“We conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office,” the justices wrote in an opinion that was not signed.
The AP added: “Griffin, a Republican, was convicted in federal court of entering a restricted area on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 and received a 14-day prison sentence. He served time following his arrest in Washington after returning there to protest Biden’s inauguration in 2021, which reduced the sentence. That conviction is under appeal. Griffin contends that he entered the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 without recognizing that it had been designated as a restricted area and that he attempted to lead a crowd in prayer using a bullhorn, without engaging in violence.”
The recent decision by the high court overturned the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling to exclude Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot, effectively halting similar efforts in other states under the ‘insurrection’ clause, despite Trump not facing any charges or convictions related to the crime.
In addition, the nation’s highest court has agreed to review key cases that could significantly impact the authority of the Executive Branch and reshape how administrations govern, as outlined by constitutional expert Thomas M. Boyd.
These decisions may curtail federal agencies’ power to interpret congressional laws and issue binding legislative rules, potentially marking an end to a constitutional shift that began during Reagan’s presidency.
Boyd notes that Justice John Paul Stephens’ opinion in the Chevron U.S.A. v. National Resources Defense Council case in 1984 marked the start of what legal scholar Gary Lawson later termed a “bloodless constitutional revolution,” which could now be at a turning point with these upcoming court rulings.
The ruling brought about a significant change in how federal agencies were allowed to interpret laws that they found to be “ambiguous.” Boyd noted that after Stephens’ decision, future presidential administrations used it as a basis to implement policies that essentially acted as laws, sometimes straying from the precise language of the legislation approved by Congress.
“At long last, on Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear two cases that may signal the beginning of the end to that revolution,” Boyd wrote in his column for the New York Post.
Boyd noted that Article I of the Constitution says explicitly, “All legislative power herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States”—not federal regulatory agencies.
However, he adds, Justice Stephens’ opinion found that “agenc[ies] may . . . properly rely upon the incumbent administration’s views of wise policy” in “reasonably” defining statutory ambiguities.
