Interesting story about a Missouri county party claiming the authority to “vet” Republican candidates and bar them from running as Republicans if they fail its test.

In March, the Vernon County Republican Committee filed what is known as a writ of mandamus through their attorney, Mark McCloskey, to, in effect, compel the Vernon County clerk, Adrienne Lee, to do what they believe to be her public duty.

In the filing, the plaintiff maintains that, just like a club is allowed to determine who its members are, the Vernon County Republican Committee is “solely responsible” in the county for determining who may run for office under the Republican banner.

The county clerk, they insist, went beyond her authority when, in February, she took the filing fees from several candidates who were rejected by the committee and told them that their names would be placed on the Republican primary ballot in August.

The committee’s interpretation of state law is that, while the county clerk can take a filing fee, those checks are then passed on to the party committees. They argue that it is ultimately up to a the political parties — Republican or Democrat — whether to accept or reject those fees and accept or reject any particular candidate. In this case, they did not accept those candidates and did not cash their checks. Thus the candidates’ names should be taken off the ballot, the committee argued.

“The whole purpose of the vetting program is to verify that people who run as Republicans adhere to Republican values and principles and aren’t merely putting an ‘R’ behind their name so they can get elected,” McCloskey told The Star. “We believe the courts have backed us up — that a party should have the exclusive right to determine who gets to run under that party’s banner.”