He Won a GOP Primary Despite a Sexting, Harassment, and Racism Scandal. Somehow, There’s an Even Bigger Problem.

Politics Arizona’s Next House Member Has a Cool Hat—and a Massive Problem With the Constitution Meet the sheriff whose approach to the law is more than a little complicated. By Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Molly Olmstead? July 23, 202611:30 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. The story journalists told about Mark Lamb’s victory Tuesday night was one of victory over scandal. Lamb, who ran with the slogan “God, Family, Freedom,” won the Republican primary for Arizona’s deep-red 5th District despite reports that for years he had engaged in sexual behavior at odds with his traditional-values image. Lamb, an Arizona Republic investigation found, had sexted women other than his wife and threatened one with consequences if she didn’t keep quiet. The paper also uncovered racist texts. (Lamb’s campaign denies the allegations.) Despite the reports, President Donald Trump endorsed Lamb—and reiterated his support after the scandal came to light—and Lamb won easily. It was another data point for the power of Trump’s endorsement, and a significant one: Due to his district’s makeup, Lamb is heavily favored to win the general election in November. But beyond the scandal, there’s another story to be told about Mark Lamb, one that’s arguably more concerning: Lamb has ties to the fringe right-wing “constitutional sheriff” movement. This movement argues that sheriffs have the ultimate authority in their county, per the Constitution, to decide which state or federal laws are lawful and therefore which should be enforced. Legal experts consider this to be bogus. Lamb, apparently, does not. As a former sheriff from the Phoenix-area Pinal County, Lamb had achieved national celebrity as a kind of archetypal Western sheriff, appearing on Fox News and Newsmax in a cowboy hat to talk about stopping “bad guys.” As that persona, he spoke of the importance of enforcing the law when dealing with illegal immigration—but struck an entirely different tone altogether when dealing with COVID public health measures. When he was responsible for enforcing stay-at-home orders, he instead fashioned himself a resistance figure, arguing that he, as sheriff, needed to protect the people’s constitutional rights. His decision not to enforce the state’s stay-at-home order turned him into a national figure. And whether or not he knew it, it also made him a representative of the community of constitutional sheriffs. Lamb doesn’t describe himself as a constitutional sheriff. And there’s likely a good reason for that: The term is typically only deployed by those comfortable being relegated as fringe, and Lamb seeks broad popularity. But regardless of what he calls himself, Lamb’s behavior aligns with a movement with a deeply checkered history. Constitutional sheriffs emerged from white nationalist anti-government groups in the 1970s; a far-right organization known as Posse Comitatus in particular spread the idea that the county sheriff was the highest authority in the land. As these organizations collapsed and birthed new extremist movements, such as the “sovereign citizen” and militia movements, the belief persisted and became a mainstay of anti-government ideologies, particularly when it came to guns and taxes. According to Travis McAdam, a researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center, the concept of the constitutional sheriff saw a major revival during the pandemic, when certain figures, like Lamb, rebelled against the health measures. “You could call it sheriff supremacy,” McAdam said. “Sheriffs had this duty to decide what laws would and wouldn’t be enforced. And it was up to sheriffs to protect community members from an evil federal government.” Lamb clearly subscribes to these beliefs. The promotional description of his 2020 book, American Sheriff: Traditional Values in a Modern World, for example, describes county sheriffs as “the last bastion of freedom against government overreach on a local and federal level.” He appeared to believe sheriffs could play a vital role in overturning the 2020 presidential election, organizing to have sheriffs play a larger role in “election monitoring” in its aftermath and working with the group True the Vote to “empower sheriffs” to investigate voter fraud. And he seems to have a frontier-days idea of justice: In 2020, he formed a civilian “posse” to respond to potential protests after the George Floyd murder. (No such protests occurred in Pinal County.) According to a Politico profile of Lamb, he has also spoken in support of private militias. Today, the movement has one major public-facing group, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. Lamb spoke at a 2020 CSPOA event in Virginia and told the crowd he had “committed” to the group’s founder to “defend and protect the Constitution of the United States.” Lamb is a celebrity sheriff in its truest, most American sense. Before COVID, he was a regular on Live PD, the megapopular show on the A&E Network in which law enforcement officers broadcast live feeds of their work. (The show was canceled after George Floyd’s murder.) He also appeared regularly as an analyst on the 2019 spinoff Live PD: Wanted, and was a featured character in the fifth season of another A&E reality TV show called 60 Days In. He even launched his own subscription streaming network, the American Sheriff Network, with featured ride-alongs and other reality TV programming. He eventually spun this persona out for his political ambitions. “We need more cowboy hats and belt buckles in Washington,” he wrote in a campaign post on July 15. Lamb, like other celebrity sheriffs, has built his political reputation off of being a tough-on-crime cowboy-lawman, happy to tell audiences when the government is ruining the country by being too soft. That defiant persona works best in times of Democratic administrations. But lately, he and the other constitutional sheriffs have managed to channel energy into their movement by latching onto the Trump administration’s deportation machine. And as the group made itself increasingly synonymous with immigration enforcement, McAdam said, the constitutional sheriff movement staved off the typical decline in popularity that comes with Republican administrations. “Right now, the level of energy and ability to pull in and recruit new members—the last few years has been a time of a lot more activity,” he said. “There’s a lot more visible activity.” Lamb is virtually guaranteed a victory in November, which means that Congress will indeed have more “cowboy hats and belt buckles.” It will also have another lawmaker from the tradition of law enforcement officers who believe that MAGA principles, not legislation or court rulings, are the true arbiter of the law. Get the best of news and politics Sign up for Slate's evening newsletter. Constitution Elections House of Representatives Law Republicans Law Enforcement Arizona