Judge Gives Vernon County GOP A-OK to Boot 8 Impure Candidates

Judge Gayle Crane’s preliminary order is a big win for Republicans' vetting efforts

Apr 10, 2024 at 11:33 am

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A judge in Vernon County, Missouri, has ordered that several candidates who did not pass a GOP vetting test must be removed from the ballot there unless the county clerk can change her mind in the next two weeks.

The preliminary order, which came down late yesterday, is a win for the activist wing of the Missouri Republican Party, which wants to exert greater control over who can run as a Republican in the state by forcing would-be candidates to complete a "values survey" and have their criminal and financial records scrutinized by county committees before being allowed on the ballot. The judge’s order doesn’t bar the candidates from running, but does stop them from being able to run as Republicans.

It’s also a victory for St. Louis attorney (and former candidate for U.S. Senator) Mark McCloskey, who represented the Vernon Committee Republican Committee in this case.

It's not publicly known what the specific values being surveyed are; however, a vetting manual offers some clues. For instance, a would-be candidate who believes marriage is anything other than a union between one man and one woman would face significant headwinds in the vetting process.

Vernon County is one of a handful of counties whose Republican committee adopted the vetting standards. Cyndia Haggard, the chairwoman of Vernon County's Republican Committee, sent the county clerk a list of would-be candidates who had not been vetted and, she believed, should be kept off the ballot.

The county clerk, Adrienne Lee, put those people on the ballot anyway, drawing the lawsuit that led to yesterday’s court order. The order states that Lee should remove the candidates' names from the ballot, unless she sees "any reason" to argue otherwise before April 23.

The judges in Vernon County Circuit Court recused themselves from the suit, so Judge Gayle Crane from Jasper County is presiding over it. She wrote in her preliminary order yesterday that the county clerk is to remove the unvetted candidates from the ballot until the Vernon County Republican Committee says otherwise.

Haggard's original lawsuit stated there were four insufficiently pure Republicans who should be kicked off the ballot, but that suit was filed prior to the deadline for candidates to declare their intention to run, and additional candidates proved impure. Crane's order says that eight candidates need to be booted off the GOP primary ballot, including four incumbents, unless Lee chooses to keep arguing in the coming days.

Editor's note: We updated this story a few hours after publication to make more clear the preliminary nature of the judge's order and the fact that removal from the ballot is not necessarily immediate. We regret any implication to the contrary.