Democratic Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos is facing a criminal investigation this week over allegations of election interference.
Nanos' Republican opponent, Heathen Lappin, is also his employee. Just weeks before Election Day, he put Lappin on administrative leave, as well as an outspoken deputy union leader. The Pima County Board of Supervisors was not happy about it.
Supervisor Matt Heinz called for a formal censure of the sheriff and for him to step down. But first, the board voted unanimously to request an investigation into his actions.
It isn’t the first time the sheriff has been in this kind of situation. Tim Stellar, an opinion columnist for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, joined The Show to talk more about it.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: So, this is a convoluted tale I outlined there. Tell us first, right where this race stands now, Tim, it's gotten very close in recent days.
TIM STELLAR: Yeah. So, I mean, we thought he, Sheriff Chris Nanos, had been reelected, but actually, we came to, came to find out last night that the margin has narrowed to 199 votes. That's, that's his lead. And there's still, as of yesterday, there were, last night, there were about 8,500 votes left to count. So conceivably, conceivably that lead could flip. We're not sure right now.
GILGER: OK. So tell us about the history here. Were you surprised to see the sheriff put his opponent on administrative leave just a few weeks before the election?
STELLAR: Well, no. To make a long story short, I've written a column and I've observed in the past Sheriff Nanos has a tendency to, I think, overreact. He, he, he reacts harshly to being crossed at times.
And so, what occurred in this case was in mid-October, a couple of deputies at a couple of different times dressed up in clothing that looked like deputies’ uniforms, including handcuffs on the back, although they weren't actually their uniforms and, and they didn't wear badges. And they stood on busy … sidewalks near busy roads and held up signs that said “deputies oppose Nanos,” so that sort of thing.
So that's what prompted, and then the opponent, Heather Lappin, someone posted these photos on the opponent's Facebook page. And so as a result, Sheriff Nanos suspended both the deputy who led this campaign effort and Lappin herself. She's a lieutenant in the department.
GILGER: Right. So he says she's crossed a line in that, that they, you even wrote in your column, right, you know people who thought that they were in uniform there even though they weren't.
STELLAR: Yeah, right. I mean, so part of the question is what she did, what role she played in this because she was not participating in this. But it would, I don't know, stand a reason that she at least is connected to the actions by people who support her.
So, yeah, I mean, but the, the crazy thing that happened next is, of course, there was a lawsuit. The, the, the sergeant who was suspended, sued. And in fact, the federal judge who heard, they, they, they sought a restraining order, the, the federal judge rejected that but said you gotta adjust these rules in the Sheriff's Department to make it more clear what people can do. And in addition, he found, he said that he thought these people violated the Hatch Act by how they, how they behaved that day.
GILGER: OK. So this is not the first time though that the sheriff has done something like this. You wrote about what happened in 2016 as well. Tell us what happened then.
STELLAR: Yeah. Well, it was another, another existing, I think, sergeant in the sheriff's department filed to run for the sheriff's position. And at that time there were different rules in the county and basically, if there was any sign that the, the sort of run would interfere with your duties, you, you would be put on unpaid leave. As I recall, I think it's unpaid, not paid.
And so he promptly put this person on leave, although it was kind of something that was up to his discretion. Yeah, and it just goes on, you know, he, he lost that race in 2016 to a political newcomer, a Republican named Mark Napier, which is notable in a county that votes ever more reliably Democratic. You know, he was, he was rejected, but then in 2020 he narrowly won in a rematch against the same Republican, Mark Napier. So here we are in a similar situation.
GILGER: Right. And I want to ask you about the political environment that surrounds all of this controversy in Tucson, right? Like, as you say, it's a largely democratic place. It has elected Republicans though in this office before. Should we assume that Nanos, you know, has the edge because he's the Democrat in this race? How do the politics usually play out?
STELLAR: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a very individual thing. I mean, you see that with like, Trump voters apparently voted for Gallego in, in the state election. I, I think you see that a lot of Democrats in Tucson chose not to vote for Chris Nanos for various reasons. And I think they include this last-minute suspension, which occurred during the period of early voting.
I mean, it was right there in the middle of, in the middle of the hot moment of people voting for his race. So he's clearly not as popular as other Democrats, other Democrats, even if they're unknown, are running away with their races. But he has struggled. He won narrowly, lost narrowly, won narrowly and is winning narrowly again. But that may flip.
GILGER: Yeah, very quickly. Last 30 seconds here you wrote in this column that, but this only all reinforces the reputation that Nanos has earned of being authoritarian, essentially in this sense of, of retaliating against dissenters. What has he had to say about all this?
STELLAR: Well, I mean, he says that's just not the pattern. He says he has retained and even promoted people who campaigned against him and that, you know, he'll keep doing things, doing what he thinks is right no matter what.
But he's challenged by the conflict with the Board of Supervisors, which is a whole other topic and he's now going to be under, he's now going to be under another criminal investigation. They already requested one a year or two ago. And now he's going to be under another one.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Associated Press had not called the Pima County Sheriff race as of Thursday morning. The audio attached to this story prematurely states the race's outcome.
