Republican Dr. Gavin Clarkson

From the Gavin Clarkson for U.S. Senate Campaign:

LAS CRUCES – Republican Dr. Gavin Clarkson is a candidate for New Mexico’s open U.S. Senate seat.

Clarkson is proposing federal legislation to override the controversial red flag statute Gov. Lujan Grisham signed into law in February.

“New Mexico’s Red Flag law is the most extreme in the nation because it allows people to sue the County Sheriff personally for not enforcing it,” Clarkson said. “On my first day in office as your next United States Senator, I will introduce federal legislation to eliminate this self-serving payoff to trial lawyers.”

Under Clarkson’s proposed POSSE Act (Protecting our Sheriffs from Spiteful Enforcement), any sheriff, deputy or other law enforcement officer would be able to remove a Red Flag tort claim to federal court, and federal courts would be barred from taking any action other than dismissal until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the underlying state statute. Congress has the power to limit the jurisdiction of federal courts under Article 3, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

Clarkson has previously voiced support for the Second Amendment sanctuary county movement and for sheriffs vowing not to enforce extreme risk protection orders that he says “shred fundamental rights given by God that are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.”

His campaign has been endorsed by Gun Owners of America.

About Gavin Clarkson:

In addition to holding both a BA and an MBA from Rice University, Dr. Gavin Clarkson is a cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School where he was president of the Native American Law Students Association, a member of the Federalist Society, and the first tribal member to earn a doctorate from the Harvard Business School.

Named the nation’s “leading scholar in tribal finance” by The Financial Times, Dr. Clarkson has been cited by Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today on matters of tribal finance, economic development, and federal Indian law, subjects he has taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Montana, the University of Houston, and New Mexico State University.