Liberty Valance Goes to Washington

The former sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona—and current GOP candidate in Arizona’s 5th Congressional District—Mark Lamb has long been a MAGA chameleon. Over his two terms as sheriff, Lamb evolved from a polo-wearing administrative official to a cowboy-hat-wearing, pickup-truck-driving, AR-15-carrying example of masculine militarism. He is, like Donald Trump, a (small-time) reality television star and has shaped his political career to fit the screen, earning him the nickname “Sheriff Hollywood.”

Also like Trump, Lamb is also a threat to our democratic institutions, and not just because he has been accused of sexual and racist texts or because he has pilfered “inmate welfare” funds or because the Federal Election Commission flagged $28,000 of donations he spent on “campaign attire.” No, the biggest threat Mark Lamb poses is his links to the “constitutional sheriff” movement, a right-wing, Christian nationalist political movement in direct conflict with multi-racial democracy. In addition to supporting election conspiracy theories, fearmongering about immigration, and opposing government efforts to regulate health and welfare, so-called constitutional sheriffs also endorse a legal theory that permits selective enforcement of the law, pretends to be faithful to the Founders, and in practice exists to privilege the rule of white Christian men.

When I first listened to Lamb speak to a small crowd in an Arizona church 2021, he was already using his tagline: “God. Family. Freedom.” (Not to be confused with the musician and Bible-purveyor Lee Greenwood’s triad of “Faith. Family. Freedom.”)

“We’re not politicians,” he said to an eager crowd, which included a group of young women sitting in the front wearing MAGA hats and hanging on his every word. “You know, it’s funny because you’ll hear me talk about the government and I’m not so fond of it. And people will say, ‘That’s funny, Sheriff, because you are the government.’ No, I’m not. I’m your county sheriff. My job is to protect the people from the bad guys and from government overreach.” 

His campaign for Congress—like his failed 2024 campaign for Senate—relies on this combination of folksiness and law-and-order toughness with a dash of Western derring-do. “We need more cowboy hats and belt buckles in Washington,” Lamb posted this month on X. Lamb has said he would eliminate the IRS, demand more deportations, and support Trump’s voter suppression SAVE Act. Trump endorsed Lamb’s candidacy and has long expressed his admiration for the lawman. 

As I explain in my book, the sheriff is the most American of all policing institutions. While the word comes from the English “shire reeve,” the modern-day sheriff has little to do with the king-abiding, tax-collecting Sheriff of Nottingham from the Robin Hood tales. In the United States, the job of the sheriff has long been to arrest and contain people who are a threat to the patriarchal and white supremacist order. Today, most sheriffs act as street police, operate county jails, and are the primary law enforcement agency involved with immigration and border policing.

Starting in 2021, the ultra far-right think tank and boy’s club the Claremont Institute began to recruit sheriffs, around a dozen each year, to immerse themselves in Claremont ideology for a week before returning to their home county. Lamb was in the first cohort of “Claremont Sheriff Fellows,” and even received Claremont’s “Sheriff of the Year” award (which comes in the form of a John Wayne statuette) for his “his steadfast defense of the Constitution, its blessings of liberty, and the American way of life.”

It is not a surprise that the Claremont Institute sought out sheriffs. Claremont is a major player in the Trump administration and infamously provided intellectual underpinnings for the MAGA movement in 2016 when Michael Anton, a Claremont scholar, wrote “The Flight 93 Election,” arguing that making Trump president was necessary to save the country. Ryan Williams, who took over the institute in 2017, sought to reclaim the frontier roots of the organization in his quest to, as he says, “save Western civilization.” Williams has also defended John Eastman, the Claremont lawyer who wrote the “coup memo.”

At the Claremont Institute, sheriffs discuss a variety of readings with Claremont-affiliated scholars, running the gamut from “110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior” (“When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body, not usually discovered”) to Heather McDonald to Jeremy Carl (a guy who likes to talk about “white culture” as a distinct entity). Over the years, the Claremont sheriff fellowship has evolved to encompass more and more of the constitutional sheriff movement, and, in fact, the latest recruitment email to sheriffs simply called the fellows “constitutional sheriffs,” explaining, “These sheriffs are more than law enforcement officers. They are constitutional guardians, applying the Founders’ principles to defend their communities in real time, often under intense political pressure.”

The term “constitutional sheriff” has nothing to do with the status of sheriffs as “constitutional officers” as set forth in some state constitutions. It is best to understand this movement as a political one, aligned with other “patriot” movements like the Oath Keepers and militias. All of these groups claim fealty to the U.S. Constitution as if the Reconstruction Amendments had never been ratified; they argue that America is a Christian nation; they advocate against LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, and any program that emphasizes diversity of race, religion, or gender. Like most Christian nationalist ideologies, “constitutional sheriffs” are really just right-wing politicians who use their office to advance policies that match their beliefs. 

There is one big problem. Sheriffs are law enforcement officers and, by law, they have the power to arrest, jail, and even use violence in order to enforce their policies. In short, they have guns and badges and, as my work shows, they use them in service of their political ideologies.

Lamb’s career as a sheriff shows just how toxic this can be. By 2021, Lamb had already defied covid regulations, inflamed anti-vax sentiment, worked with border militias, and formed a civilian posse just in case Black Lives Matter protestors came to town, which never happened. (“I don’t think that Black Lives Matter is productive for the Blacks,” he told me in an interview.) He also expressed sympathy for the January 6 rioters and has spread election conspiracy theories for years. 

It is quite likely that Lamb will win a seat in Congress. Once there, Lamb will be a stalwart defender of MAGA values, but, more than that, he will bring the “constitutional sheriff” ideology into the federal government. One of the main tenets of this belief is the idea that sheriffs can nullify, or simply ignore, laws that they believe violate the Constitution. 

We see this most clearly with gun laws. Like militias, “constitutional sheriffs” believe that the Second Amendment is the Constitutional guarantee that protects all other rights. Since the 1990s, “constitutional sheriffs” have objected to gun regulations on the federal and state level. This has now spread to other local offices with large discretionary powers. Virginia, for example, passed a law limiting the purchase and sale of some automatic-style firearms. Promptly a group of prosecutors and sheriffs, mostly from rural counties, refused to enforce these laws. (The laws are now being challenged in court.)

Will Lamb change much about Congress? The man he will likely unseat, Andy Biggs, is already a far-right, anti-immigrant politician who previously won the GOP nomination for Arizona governor. It’s doubtful Lamb will vote any differently than Biggs. But his election does reflect just how commonplace the idea of nullification has become and how useful it is for MAGA. The Claremont Institute itself relies on the notion that individuals—men of action—can and should determine how the Constitution is interpreted. 

During their week-long training, Claremont sheriffs take an evening to watch “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” Jimmy Stewart plays Ranse Stoddard, a lawyer who arrives with a bagful of books, intent on bringing to law to an unnamed Western town. He is promptly challenged to a duel by Liberty Valance, an outlaw so dangerous that the local marshal cowers in fear when he arrives. John Wayne plays Tom Doniphon, a tough guy who tries to explain to Stoddard that Valance will only respond to force. 

Ultimately, force wins. Valance and Stoddard have their duel. Valance torments the pathetic Stoddard, like a cat playing with its food—until the last moment, when it seems like Stoddard miraculously shoots him. But that’s an illusion: it’s Doniphon who took the critical shot. Stoddard takes the credit and goes on to have a political career based on his toughness, an unearned valor. (He even steals Doniphon’s girl.) Of course, we all know the secret—it was John Wayne all along who was the real man. There is no government without force.

The Claremonters see themselves as Jimmy Stewart; they recognize that they need their John Waynes to provide the thuggery even as they claim the political glory. Of course, Lamb isn’t exactly John Wayne either. He just plays one on TV. The fact that the persona is a charade was always part of the gig. 

Liberty Valance should have taken notes.

Featured image is ""Peacemaker" Colt Single-Action Army Revolver, serial no. 4519."