ST. LOUIS—The Missouri Republican Party has filed suit to have a gubernatorial candidate removed from the August primary ballot, saying it wants to avoid an “unwanted association with a man linked to white nationalist groups.

Darrell McClanahan III was one of eight GOP candidates to file on Feb. 27 and drew the lowest random number, meaning he would appear first on the primary ballot.

The Anti-Defamation League reported in 2022, when McLanahan was a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, that it had been tracking his activity for years.

McClanahan sued the ADL for defamation, but a federal judge ruled in December that the characterizations made in the piece substantially aligned with the truth, noting that McClanahan’s own complaint acknowledged that he was an “honorary member” of the KKK and the League of the South and that he acknowledged having attended a 2019 cross lighting ceremony.

“Based on the ease with which individuals can declare their candidacy, a political party has virtually no ability to screen potential candidates to determine the extent to which the party wants to be associated with a potential candidate. This difficulty is compounded on the first day of filing when hundreds of candidates file for office,” the Missouri Republican Party said in a lawsuit against McClanahan and the Secretary of State’s office filed this week.

The party said it didn’t know about McClanahan’s past until the day after he filed. In a Feb. 29 social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter, McClanahan said the GOP knew exactly who I am.”

The party said it will suffer “irreparable harm” if forced to be associated with McClanahan, in violation of its First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, while McClanahan could still run as an independent candidate if he’s removed from the Republican ballot.

Independent candidates have a late July deadline to submit petitions in order to appear on the general election ballot. 

Seven other candidates have filed to run on the GOP ballot in August. The three main contenders, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe and State Sen. Bill Eigel have each called for McClanahan to be removed.

Candidates have until March 26 to file to run in the August 6 primary.