The origins of constitutional sheriff ideology lie in the two concepts of the county supremacy movement: The county — not the state or federal governments — should control all land within its borders, and the county sheriff should be the ultimate law enforcement authority in the U.S. These ideas were pioneered by Christian Identity minister William Potter Gale in the 1970s and described as “Posse Comitatus.”
Top Takeaways
In 2024, the constitutional sheriffs movement was dominated by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), whose advisory board is led by former Graham County, Arizona, Sheriff Richard Mack and Sam Bushman, an IT guy and online radio network owner who has close ties to white supremacists.
The group continued to portray itself as constitutional defenders, even as they simultaneously tried to undermine the constitutional process through promoting their inaccurate beliefs about the supremacy of the county sheriff.
Throughout the year, CSPOA marketed its organization and beliefs to law enforcement, domestic extremists and anyone else who would listen. It continued to share conspiracies with its members, the public, and law enforcement, while bringing a level of theatrics to all their activities.
In 2024, the organization’s prime focuses were alleged voter fraud, the development of so-called constitutional sanctuary counties, and the supposed dangers posed by immigrants.
Prior to the 2024 presidential election, CSPOA helped promote voter fraud conspiracies by hosting an April event in Las Vegas, Nevada, which included a who’s who of election deniers. Directly after the presidential election, the group went radio silent on the topic, with no immediate criticism of the 2024 election that resulted in the election of their preferred presidential candidate.
In 2024, both CSPOA and constitutional sheriff Larry Kendrick of Idaho’s Owyhee County promoted another dangerous idea called the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates. The doctrine is a Protestant belief regarding “divine justice.” Its modern-day interpretation asserts that disobedience against the government is justified when it goes against “God’s law.” Sheriff Kendrick cited it while saying it was important to stand against “political despots” who are “in open rebellion against God.”
CSPOA has centered the doctrine in its work to create so-called constitutional counties, especially through its work with the Florida Foundation for Freedom. A model county ordinance encouraged county commissioners to invoke the doctrine and refuse to follow or enforce any federal law they believed to be unconstitutional. The constitutional county, sometimes called constitutional sanctuary county, plan basically seeks to grant nullification powers to county government. CSPOA Florida state director Bill Mitchell has stated the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates exists to protect community members “from state or federal governmental encroachment, upon the God-given rights and privileges of its citizens.”
During the second half of the year, CSPOA pivoted to immigration. It used the rhetoric of invasion to describe undocumented immigration, shared conspiracies, and called on sheriffs to investigate the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and White House alleging they were “effectively aiding and abetting those who invade our borders.”
In early December 2024, CSPOA distributed a press release declaring the group’s “full support for the proposed deportation initiatives outlined by former President Donald Trump and former ICE Director Tom Homan.” The group encouraged sheriffs to be “proactive” in trying to work with the incoming president to help with his mass deportation goals.
Despite CSPOA’s persistent efforts to radicalize sheriffs and the public, some groups that worked closely with CSPOA in the past were quiet in 2024. This included the Gorilla Learning Institute in California, which previously claimed to be helping find funds for CSPOA, and We the People for Constitutional Sheriffs in Iowa, which had supported the development of CSPOA counties in the state.
Key Moments
CSPOA held an event on April 17, 2024, called “Resisting Temptation.” The event claimed America was dying, its destruction imminent, and CSPOA had the evidence to save our “constitutional republic,” a term antigovernment groups typically use to deny the existence or need for democracy in the United States.
The event was held at the Ahern Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Ahern was the home of the 2021 QAnon conference “Patriot Double Down” and previously hosted CSPOA in July 2022.
During the 2022 CSPOA event at the Ahern, the group called for “investigations [into elections] in every county in the United States,” which was a call to action based on their belief in election conspiracies and their former public partnership with True the Vote (TTV). TTV is a Texas-based organization that admitted in 2024 that they had no evidence to back up their voting conspiracies, including in Georgia, where a Secretary of State spokesperson said, “Once again, True the Vote has proven itself untrustworthy and unable to provide a shred of evidence for a single one of their fairy-tale allegations.”
At its April 2024 conference, CSPOA marketed its idea of constitutional sheriffs with the help of some its members, including Sheriff Dar Leaf (Barry County, Michigan), Sheriff Bob Songer (Klickitat County, Washington), and Raymundo Del Bosque (Zapata County, Texas). Songer taught sheriffs in attendance how to build their own sheriff posses.
Also speaking were election deniers Mike Lindell, Michael Flynn and Patrick Byrne, who told sheriffs to ally with militias. Another featured speaker was Tina Peters, who was convicted for her role in allowing unauthorized access to voting machines when she was County Clerk in Mesa County, Colorado.
“Over 100 attendees listened to speaker after speaker on stage push the debunked claim that immigrants voting for President Joe Biden posed the greatest threat to the integrity of the presidential election,” wrote David Gilbert of Wired. According to NBC News, Wayne Allen Root alleged, as part of his speech, “They [immigrants] want to replace American citizens who love this country.” Participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection were also present at the event.
In early September 2024, CSPOA took part in the Florida Foundation for Freedom Conference in Orlando, Florida. The group continued to push the idea that America is being destroyed. Mack claimed it was an event to “Take Back America” and would include hundreds of sheriffs and county commissioners, along with thousands of community members.
The main theme of the event was the development of constitutional counties in Florida, which would only follow laws that county officials deemed constitutional. This concept rejects the clear insistence in the actual U.S. Constitution that the role of arbitrating laws is in the hands of the judicial branch.
The model ordinance to supposedly create a constitutional county that was associated with the event lists county commissioners as “lesser magistrates.” This title is based on the “Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates,” a new interpretation of an old Protestant doctrine referring to interposition and divine justice. The newer version comes from a book and speeches by Matthew Trewhella, a militant anti-abortion activist who argues:
The lesser magistrate doctrine declares that when the superior or higher civil authority makes unjust/immoral laws or decrees, the lesser or lower ranking civil authority has both a right and a duty to refuse obedience to that superior authority. If necessary, the lesser authorities even have the right and obligation to actively resist the superior authority.
Larry Kendrick, the constitutional sheriff of Owyhee County, Idaho, also invoked Trewhella’s version of the doctrine in a March 2024 comment on the Idaho Dispatch website, stating:
We need to hold the line and take back the rights taken away in other states under Marxist oppression. Another man cannot take away a right God gave you upon your conception. Do not suffer the arrogance of liberal, godless politicians who are open rebellion against our Creator. An unjust law is no law at all.
On Oct. 3, 2024, the CSPOA group put out a highly conspiratorial press release calling on all sheriffs to investigate the DOJ, FBI and White House, who they claimed were committing high crimes and misdemeanors, alleging they were aiding and abetting migrants and promoting illegal immigration.
In the press release, the group lauded constitutional sheriff Mark Lamb’s efforts to investigate DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, stating, “The rest of the states should follow suit.” The release was also signed by the Mack-aligned, constitutional sheriffs organization American Police Officers Alliance, conspiracy propagandist Michael Flynn and his “America’s Future, Inc.,” and the decades-old conspiracy group the John Birch Society.
CSPOA went on to distribute another press release in early December that shared their support for Donald Trump’s deportation plans and lobbied publicly for the inclusion of county sheriffs in those plans. “By leveraging this localized expertise,” the press release claims, “the deportation process can prioritize public safety while minimizing errors.”
In addition to CSPOA, people sharing their views on constitutional sheriffs ran for that office during the 2024 election cycle. Michigan had a large number of candidates running as constitutional sheriffs. This included Dean Brandt of Allegan County, Jason Long of Berrien County, Michael Thyng of Branch County, Jon Rutan of Hillsdale County, and Brandon Putman of Tuscola County, who was part of a reality television show called “Meet the Putmans.” The large number of candidates in Michigan with this ideology may be a result of CSPOA Advisory Board Member Dar Leaf, sheriff of Barry County, Michigan, who has been prominent in his support of constitutional sheriffs, election denialism, militias, and sovereign citizenship.
Arizona also saw two prominent elections involving sheriffs in 2024. Constitutional Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County lost his bid for the U.S. Senate and went on to accept a position with the anti-immigrant group FAIR. His campaign appeared to negatively impact his constitutional sheriff group, Protect America Now, which no longer has a website. Meanwhile, Jerry Sheridan of Maricopa County, who was formerly the chief deputy under constitutional sheriff Joe Arpaio, was endorsed by Mack, and identifies as a constitutional sheriff, was elected as the sheriff of the most populated county in Arizona.
What’s Ahead
Constitutional sheriffs will likely have additional influence in 2025. This is partially a result of the 2024 presidential election and its winner. During Trump’s first presidential term, he welcomed constitutional sheriffs into the White House. This included constitutional sheriff Tom Hodgson of Bristol County, Massachusetts, who introduced Trump at the event. Hodgson would later have his county’s 287(g) ICE detainment contract terminated in 2021 after a report found he and his staff violated the civil rights of immigrant detainees during a violent altercation.
After his visit to the White House, Hodgson said he saw “no greater ally in cracking down on illegal immigration than President Donald Trump.” This seems to be the same sentiment of CSPOA and many constitutional sheriffs who envision a partnership of some kind during Trump’s second administration.
Background
The concept of the constitutional sheriff is a subset of the larger antigovernment movement. Its origins are in the American county supremacy movement, which includes two concepts that often work in tandem. One is that county government should have control of all the land within its borders, taking this power away from the state and federal government. The other is focused on the role of the county sheriff, who is believed to have ultimate law enforcement authority in the United States.
Christian Identity minister William Potter Gale’s idea of “Posse Comitatus” is Latin for “the power of the county.”
Gale promoted the formation of citizens militias, making the claim that “all healthy men between the ages of 18 and 45 who were not in the military could be mobilized into a posse comitatus to redress their grievances,” according to the book Aryan Cowboys: White Supremacists and the Search for a New Frontier, 1970-2000.
Citizens could either volunteer or be called up by their county sheriff, who Gale believed was the “only legal law enforcement officer” in the country.
Gale’s beliefs were widely disseminated. Henry Lamont “Mike” Beach of Oregon is alleged to have stolen Gale’s writings and used them to start a national “Sheriff’s Posse Comitatus” organization, which claimed that the federal government had overstepped its authority under the Constitution and that the posse could remove federal officials from office and hang them.
Gale’s views, some parroted by Beach, grew in popularity among white supremacists, tax protesters and aggrieved citizens, such as farmers in the Midwest who faced significant financial crisis in the 1980s.
They were also pivotal to the formation of the modern constitutional sheriffs, militia and sovereign citizen movements, all of which distrust or detest the government.
Much of this distrust by the antigovernment movement was built around the federal government’s response to the Weavers of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas.
A leading promoter of constitutional sheriffs, Richard Mack was so heavily influenced by the events at Ruby Ridge that he contributed to a book written by Randy Weaver, the white supremacist who provoked the standoff with the government. Mack wrote the foreword for Weaver’s book Vicki, Sam, and America: How the Government Killed All Three.
Mack is a former Graham County, Arizona, sheriff and a former Oath Keepers board member. He has previously declared that the “greatest threat we face today is not terrorists; it is our own federal government.”
His CSPOA is an extremist group that espouses similar rhetoric to Gale and Beach. The group endeavors to radicalize county sheriffs across America into believing they are the ultimate law enforcement authority, able to enforce, ignore or break state and federal law as they choose.
On April 1, 2014, Mack told Lou Dobbs, “This really is a badge versus the badge situation, and I believe that the biggest badge in the country is the county sheriff.”
CSPOA claims this is because county sheriffs are the only elected law enforcement officers and therefore accountable only to their constituents, not any higher government power. In a May 2020 interview posted to YouTube, Mack described this view, saying: “Let me make this real clear: The president of the United States cannot tell your sheriff what to do. I don’t care if it’s George Washington himself. They cannot tell us what to do.”
The group justifies this by declaring that constitutional sheriffs are “upholding and defending the Constitution.”
By endorsing the idea that sheriffs can choose which U.S. laws are legitimate, constitutional sheriffs are conferring onto themselves a job assigned to the U.S. Supreme Court by the nation’s founders.
Whereas Supreme Court justices are often fervent legal scholars, the Montgomery County, Texas, sheriff’s office, which held a constitutional sheriff event in February 2021, requires its sheriff to be:
- A U.S. citizen.
- A county resident.
- At least 18 years of age.
- Registered to vote.
- Free of any felony convictions (with a few caveats).
- Free of any partial or total mental incapacity.
There is no requirement that a sheriff read or understand the Constitution.
Despite CSPOA’s effort to usurp the role of the Supreme Court, Mack has spent many hours praising the court for its decision in the case Printz v. United States, which made him a quasi-celebrity among antigovernment extremists.
The case was brought by Mack and Ravalli County Sheriff/Coroner Jay Printz of Montana, who argued against a provision of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act that would have required chief law enforcement agents to conduct background checks until a national system was implemented. The Supreme Court sided with Mack and Printz on June 27, 1997, determining that the Constitution did not impel state officers to carry out federal duties without their consent.
As Mack tells it, the Supreme Court agreed with him that “the federal government could not tell him what to do; that they were not his boss.”
This Posse Comitatus-based rallying cry continues to be the primary theme that permeates the ideology of CSPOA and other constitutional sheriffs across the U.S.
Beginning in 2013, numerous sheriffs and county officials refused to enforce future gun control laws. Constitutional sheriffs and CSPOA were involved in many of these efforts, using gun control to further their own agendas of radicalization and recruitment.
These efforts were in reaction to public calls for increased gun control measures after the deadly mass shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater on July 20, 2012, and another at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012.
In 2013, CSPOA publicly distributed a list with the names of over 400 county sheriffs and made the claim that these particular sheriffs would not enforce any new gun laws.
Around the same time, county officials began passing Second Amendment sanctuary legislation, most of which affirmed that additional state and federal gun control laws would not be enforced by the county.
This sheriff movement for gun “sanctuary” policy picked up exponentially after the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14, 2018. Multiple county sheriffs wrote the language for or publicly supported these laws. Constitutional Sheriff Scott Jenkins of Culpeper, Virginia, said he would deputize the citizens in his county if gun control laws were passed. “Every sheriff and commonwealth attorney in Virginia will see the consequences if our general assembly passes further unnecessary gun restrictions,” Jenkins said.
One county law, titled the Newton County, Missouri, Second Amendment Preservation Act, was enacted in that county in February 2021. It declares, “Any and all federal agents trying to enforce the regulations,” as they had stipulated, “shall be subject to arrest by the Newton County Missouri Sheriff’s Department.”
When asked about this legislation during an interview, Mack expressed that he loved it and said, “Let’s all follow Newton County’s example.” This illustrates the potential danger of these laws. Although many of the measures are legally toothless, if they are used in conjunction with constitutional sheriffs refusing to carry out their law enforcement authority, or assuming jurisdiction over state or federal agents, it creates a challenge to the U.S. rule of law itself.
This issue became more evident in 2021 when constitutional sheriffs, including CSPOA, began to oppose state and federal COVID-19 health measures.
Mack compared sheriffs who refused to enforce the stay-at-home orders to civil rights activist Rosa Parks. He claimed a sheriff who refused to enforce his own state’s executive order was standing against Nazi tactics.
Constitutional Sheriff Dar Leaf of Barry County, Michigan, openly defied his governor’s stay-at-home orders, as did constitutional Sheriff Mike Carpinelli of Lewis County, New York. Carpinelli told WWNY: “At the end of the day, it’s about respecting each other and each other’s boundaries when it comes to concerns about the virus. … That responsibility and those boundaries should be set by people, not local law enforcement.”
CSPOA lifetime member and constitutional Sheriff Bob Songer of Klickitat County, Washington, forwarded to multiple Washington sheriffs an email from Mack titled, “You Swore an Oath to Our Constitution,” and Songer claimed, “No governor’s proclamations order can override your liberties without violating your constitutional rights even during a crisis.” Songer’s stance remained the same even after he was hospitalized for five days with COVID-19.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee struck back at state law enforcement officers such as Songer in a press conference on April 22, 2020: “Whatever talents they have, they just are not given the right in our democracy to make a decision about the Constitution. That is a decision we leave to the courts. We cannot have individual law enforcement officers arbitrarily decide what laws to enforce.”
In addition to defiance over coronavirus laws, Songer, along with constitutional Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County, Arizona, formed their own sheriff’s posses. Songer has said posse members are trained witnesses. Some members who are on horseback can attend crime scenes and searches, as well as hunt their county’s cougar population. Those without horses are auxiliary, according to Songer.
Lamb called his posse, created in 2020, a citizen’s academy but said they are also a resource “should [sheriffs] need them.” In December 2020, Lamb gave an update on Facebook about the posse, telling the audience that hundreds of people had graduated from the training, and that he was “looking forward to getting a lot more of you in there and getting you trained as well.”
Sheriff Leaf in Michigan invoked the Posse Comitatus in a Facebook post on Aug. 2, 2021, declaring that a sheriff’s posse was necessary to suppress rioting.
Leaf, who has been openly friendly to militias and questioned whether the men charged with kidnapping Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan were actually attempting a legal citizens’ arrest, claimed in the post that “‘The Posse’ and militia have more lawful character than the agencies that have recently arrested the militia.” Leaf is also associated with the sovereign citizen group National Liberty Alliance.
Gale’s legacy of linking constitutional sheriffs to other members of the far right has lived on — with not only Leaf but also a bevy of current and former sheriffs. Lamb, along with Sheriff Wayne Ivey of Brevard, Florida; Sheriff Jesse Watts of Eureka, Nevada; former Sheriff Scott Jenkins of Culpeper, Virginia; and former Sheriff Tom Hodgson of Bristol County, Massachusetts, served as advisers to the group Protect America Now, which was linked to anti-immigrant hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Lamb was also a confirmed speaker at sovereign citizen group RidersUSA’s seventh annual Second Amendment event held in Phoenix, Arizona, on Feb. 15, 2020. It was attended by the Proud Boys and anti-immigrant group AZ Patriots.
CSPOA’s current CEO Sam Bushman owns Liberty News Radio, which produces his own show “Liberty Roundtable.” On the show, he has hosted antigovernment figures such as Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, Scott Bradley of Freedom’s Rising Sun, and members of the John Birch Society. Bushman’s network also syndicates the white nationalist radio show “Political Cesspool,” which is hosted by James Edwards and Keith Alexander, who have invited numerous guests from the white nationalist and neo-Confederate movements.
Mack has been associated with an extensive list of extremists. He considered the late Randy Weaver a friend, asserting that Weaver was not a bigot, just a separatist “in a way” who did not believe in interracial marriage.
Mack also held a spot on the board of directors of the nationwide Oath Keepers militia group until 2015. In 2014, Mack participated in the Bundy standoff against the U.S. government, in Bunkerville, Nevada, alongside his fellow Oath Keepers and additional militias. That year, Mack shared their strategy with Fox News: “We were actually strategizing to put all the women and children up front. If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.”
In 2021, Mack went on the ARISE USA tour hosted by late antisemitic conspiracy theorist Robert David Steele. On May 15, 2021, the tour stopped in Lander County, Nevada, where the county commission voted to become CSPOA lifetime members and held a “Patriotic Social Gathering.” The audience consisted of locals, Nevada constitutional sheriffs, anti-vaccine groups and multiple militias, one with a recruiting booth set up. All of them, including the sheriffs and militias, seemed to be associating with and friendly with one another, according to a source at the scene.
CSPOA and PAN spent 2022 challenging democracy. Both groups promoted the idea of possible voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The groups worked with True the Vote, the controversial Texas-based organization that has traveled the country claiming they have evidence of voter fraud that they have been unable to prove.
PAN and True the Vote created a campaign called ProtectAmerica, which they debuted in June 2022. This included offers of grants to sheriffs to investigate the election, a sheriff’s hotline for individuals to report voter fraud in the 2022 midterm elections, and an informational campaign.
In July 2022, CSPOA held a press conference in Las Vegas, calling on sheriffs across the country to investigate voter fraud in the 2020 election. Multiple sheriffs heeded the call and initiated investigations, including Cutter Clinton of Panola County, Texas; Calvin Hayden of Johnson County, Kansas; Dar Leaf of Barry County, Michigan; and Chris Schmaling of Racine County, Wisconsin.
2024 Constitutional Sheriff Groups
*Asterisk denotes headquarters
American Police Officers Alliance
Arlington, Virginia
Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association
Higley, Arizona*
Flagler County, Florida
Loving Liberty Network
Weber County, Utah
Sheriff Brigade of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania