A New Mexico judge on Tuesday ordered a county commissioner be removed from office over his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
1st Judicial District Court Judge Francis Mathew ruled that Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin violated the 14th Amendment clause that bars people who participated in an insurrection from holding public office.
Griffin, who is the founder of Cowboys for Trump, vowed to appeal the ruling. Griffin said he was “shocked” that “an elected representative can be removed from office in a civil trial by one liberal, Democrat judge.”
Marco Alarid White and Leslie Lakind, of Santa Fe, and Mark Mitchell, of Los Alamos, New Mexico, brought the case against Griffin.
Mathew’s decision appears to mark the first time in 153 years that someone was removed from public office under the clause, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which was part of the plaintiffs’ legal team, said in a statement.
In his ruling, Mathew said that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment barred Griffin from public office because he “engaged in” the Jan. 6 insurrection.
According to the amendment, “no person shall be a senator or representative in Congress” or “hold any office, civil or military” if they, after having taken an oath to support the Constitution, “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
The amendment was ratified following the Civil War, and the provision was meant to bar members of the Confederacy from holding office after the war.
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