This story is a collaboration between InvestigateWest and Bolts, a nonprofit publication that covers criminal justice and voting rights in local governments.
Beneath a wide-brimmed, black cowboy hat, Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer warned in a Facebook video earlier this year that state lawmakers planned to strip voters of the freedom to elect their own local leaders.
“They’ll decide who qualifies to run for sheriff,” Songer said of the Democrats running Washington’s state Legislature. “If the sheriff is not toeing the governor’s mandates … then they remove the sheriff.”
An American flag hung on the wall behind him as he recorded his “call to action” from his office in the rural county along the Columbia River in southern Washington state. He encouraged citizens to oppose the new legislation that would set minimum qualifications for county sheriffs, regulate department volunteers and allow for the removal of sheriffs who lose their peace officer certifications.
The legislation was a response, in part, to “constitutional sheriffs” like Songer who reject the state’s authority over them and say they get to decide what laws are unconstitutional. Songer cast it as an attack on Klickitat County’s residents. “They’re violating your rights,” he said.
Songer, 81, has drawn national attention as an outspoken figure of the constitutional sheriff movement, which civil rights watchdogs describe as a far-right, anti-government ideology that dangerously asserts elected local sheriffs can nullify state or federal law. He has championed the sovereign authority of sheriffs across the country, linking up with like-minded lawmen.
At home, he has rejected the state’s authority to tell him how to uphold the law in Klickitat County. He has defied gun control measures and COVID-19 public health mandates, recruited an armed posse of more than 100 volunteers and asked immigration agents to put him on “speed dial” — despite a state law prohibiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. His aggressive posturing has split his community into devout supporters against outraged critics.
With Songer retiring this year, many voters seem eager to turn the page. The candidate Songer supported as his successor, Detective Sgt. Tony Warren, a Republican, received just 27 percent of the vote in the all-party primary in August, far behind former deputy Dwayne Matulovich, who is running as an independent and received 57 percent. Matulovich and Warren must face off again next month in a two-person runoff.
In the campaign, Warren has echoed Songer’s claim that sheriffs have the authority to not enforce laws they think are unconstitutional. That claim is core to the constitutional sheriff’s movement, and is one Matulovich has distanced himself from.
But both men also sounded similar notes in interviews with Bolts and InvestigateWest, signaling that some of Songer’s legacy is bound to endure no matter who wins in November. Both candidates said they respected Songer’s dedication to constitutional freedoms, but want to keep their priorities anchored in the county’s local challenges and community safety. And both were broadly supportive of one of the more controversial aspects of Songer’s tenure — his use of volunteer posses that operate under his direction with few guidelines.
Across the country, other sheriffs who align with far-right organizations are also facing significant pushback this fall, often from immigrant communities that have been targeted by local law enforcement, though candidates challenging them often sound a cautious note.
Washington lawmakers in March ended up passing the legislation Songer warned about in his “call to action,” joining other states in adopting qualification standards for sheriffs and limiting the uses of volunteer posses. State Rep. Roger Goodman, a Democrat and chair of the House Community Safety Committee, said he backed these reforms in part due to concerns he heard directly from Klickitat County residents about potential abuses of authority.
“Constitutional sheriffs believe that they interpret the Constitution,” Goodman said. “They enforce the law as they interpret it. [But] in practice, it ends up being a failure to enforce the wildlife laws, women’s reproductive freedom, the laws to make sure our elections are truly nonpartisan and safe, the laws related to firearms safety.”
“We establish a duty of the sheriff to enforce the law,” he added, “which is kind of absurd to have to put into the law.”
Sheriff’s authority
Much of the modern constitutional sheriff movement has coalesced around the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association founded in 2011 by Richard Mack, a former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona. The Southern Poverty Law Centerdescribed the CSPOA as an “extremist group” with ideological roots in antigovernment and sovereign citizen movements. The Anti-Defamation Leaguereports Mack has used the CSPOA to push conspiracy theories and far-right propaganda.
Songer is a CSPOA board member and he has talked at CSPOA conferences that have convened sheriffs from around the country.
Mirya Holman, a professor at the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston, said the association claims that elected sheriffs have unique authority granted by the voters to enforce laws at their discretion in order to protect constitutional rights. She explained they regularly recite false legal doctrines as justification.
“None of it is legally true,” she said. “There’s no legal grounding for that. That doesn’t exist.”
In researching her book “The Power of the Badge” with co-author Emily Farris, Holman said she found the movement had leveraged grievances on gun control, COVID-19, wildlife conflicts, immigration, federal overreach and election security to gain ground with voters — particularly in Western states and other rural areas, including Klickitat County.
But despite the accountability to the voters that constitutional sheriffs often cite as the ultimate safeguard, Holman said many sheriffsrun term after term unopposed, or they can expect to run against someone who previously worked for them.
“It turns out that when you are the boss of all of your future political opponents … you could make sure that people that are potential political competitors don't receive leadership roles or don't receive the training that would help them,” she said. “You can engage in retaliation against people that you think are going to run against you.”
Both candidates hoping to succeed Songer have worked under him.
Warren, a current detective sergeant for the county, and Matulovich, a longtime law enforcement officer who left the sheriff’s office in 2023, both told Bolts and InvestigateWest they wanted to move the department away from national culture wars so they could focus on local outreach and day-to-day improvements to service.
“A lot of people would have rather had Songer’s attention here,” Matulovich said. “[The national constitutional sheriff movement] was his passion, so that’s fine, but I think it kind of took away from things here within the county. … To me, it felt like it divided the county a little bit.”
When asked about cooperating with immigration enforcement, both Warren and Matulovich said they would not task deputies to work with federal agencies.
“If they're going to come to these communities and they want to do enforcement, that's on them,” Warren said. “If it escalates or additional crimes are broken … we'll take enforcement action on the local end. But I'm not going to ask people to go out and work side by side with immigration enforcement.”
Another point of contention has been Flock Safety cameras and other automated license plate readers that have drawn public outrage over privacy concerns and police abuses. While Warren previously described the cameras as a valuable investigative tool, both candidates now say they oppose investing in the cameras over privacy, budget and public record considerations.
“It’s overly abused,” M