The smell test for sheriff

The lesser evil … That’s a lotta Kamala … And props to Turning Point.

In the first debate between Maricopa County’s contenders for sheriff in the general election, Democrat Tyler Kamp nailed the essence of the choice voters have before them.

"The question is: Who do you trust?”

For Kamp, who spent more than 20 years in the Phoenix Police Department in roles like gang enforcement and homicide detective, his opponent Jerry Sheridan can’t be trusted. Sheridan was second-in-command during former Sheriff Joe Arpaio's embattled 24-year tenure when a federal court found the office racially profiled Hispanic people in traffic stops and required federal monitoring. Like Arpaio, Sheridan was held in contempt in the racial profiling lawsuit.

But Sheridan is pointing the finger right back at his opponent. An ABC15 investigation found Kamp sexually harassed a rookie police officer during his final year in the department. He was also suspended in 2014 for accessing information in a confidential law enforcement database for reasons that had nothing to do with a criminal case.

And although Kamp didn’t have the same leadership role as Sheridan during the racial profiling court orders for Maricopa County’s Sheriff Department, his experience comes from the Phoenix Police Department, which is facing potential federal oversight after a three-year federal investigation that found officers use excessive force and discriminate against people of color.

Both Kamp and Sheridan have dirty laundry that has been aired out in news reports and used as ammunition against each other in the campaign.

But if neither of them passes the smell test, the question before voters in November isn’t necessarily “Who do you trust?” as the county’s top law enforcement officer, but “Who can you stomach?”

The Maricopa County Sheriff runs the county’s jails and oversees more than 3,000 employees and deputies who patrol unincorporated areas.

And for many, the office is intrinsically tied to Arpaio’s reign as "America's Toughest Sheriff." The longtime sheriff created a “tent city” jail he likened to a concentration camp where he made inmates wear pink underwear and later used the boxers as merchandise for fans of his leadership.

Democrat Paul Penzone ousted Arpaio in 2016 with promises to rid the county of his predecessor’s policies. He shut down Tent City and stopped holding inmates on behalf of federal immigration agents.

But a 2007 class action lawsuit against Arpaio for racial profiling practices has continued to haunt the sheriff’s office. The office is still under federal supervision, and county taxpayers have shelled out around $400 million so far to clean up Arpaio’s mess. Last year, Penzone was held in contempt after a judge said he wasn’t doing enough to reduce a backlog of internal misconduct investigations.

Penzone’s unexpected resignation in January kicked off the unexpected rush to replace him.

Two longtime Republicans switched their voter registrations and applied to take over the office, which had to be filled by a Democrat. One of the new Democrats, Russ Skinner, was chosen to serve the remainder of Penzone’s term. But Kamp beat him in the primary. And Sheridan cleared the field of two other Republican candidates in the primary with more than 50% of the vote.

Although Kamp didn’t apply for the interim position to complete Penzone’s term, he’s also a recent Democrat. He changed his voter registration in December when Penzone announced his resignation. The scrutiny largely fell on Skinner, however, as the acting sheriff.

Sheridan unsuccessfully challenged Penzone in the 2020 race, as did Arpaio, his former boss. But Sheridan won the primary, leaving the door wide open to scrutiny of his past.

Former sex crimes detective Christopher Butts, who was married to Sheridan’s niece, was arrested twice for luring a minor for sexual exploitation the year of that election. The arrests shed light on previous allegations he used the N-word.

Butts’ disciplinary report detailed his explanation that “the N word was commonly used when referring to Obama by all members of the his family, including ‘Uncle Jerry’ (Sheridan) and other family members who are members of the office.” And when Obama was elected, “Uncle Jerry’s father went outside and shot the American flag,” Butts’ report says.

Sheridan, of course, denied he ever used the N-word. And he acknowledged in an interview with the Republic that comparisons to Arpaio would be his biggest hurdle in the 2020 race.

This time around, Sheridan is again facing the narrative he’ll bring forth an “Arpaio 2.0” culture to the sheriff’s department.

In 2022, Sheridan was placed on the Brady List — a watchlist of officers with histories of misconduct — after a federal judge determined he lied under oath in the civil rights lawsuit. Sheridan has repeatedly downplayed his culpability in the case, but an unearthed video showed he called the case orders “crap” and instructed deputies to comply with court orders by stopping collecting data during traffic stops.

During the Sept. 12 debate, Sheridan said he’d take a polygraph test to affirm he didn’t lie to the court.

“I'll be happy to take a polygraph to that if (Kamp) would take a polygraph to all the issues that he's got facing him,” he said.

ABC15 revealed in July a Phoenix Police Department investigation into Kamp, after he retired in 2021, that found he sent “sexually harassing” text messages to a rookie officer, and that officer provided screenshots to corroborate the claims.

Some of the more stomach-churning texts include:

• “Yoga pants?? Shoot I missed it... Ummm a little heads up next time pls.”

• “Ur too cute haha maybe cuz ur 100 pounds :)"

• And “Btw black clothes on a blonde is such a good look (upside smiling emoji)”

Kamp blamed the victim, saying the complaint was a way for the officer to pull attention away from her performance issues.

“And for my understanding is, it was more of like a shotgun blast, just trying to maybe mitigate some of her performances to avoid attention being drawn to herself,” he told ABC15.

The next debate between Kamp and Sheridan is scheduled for tomorrow at 6 p.m.

Busy battleground: Vice President Kamala Harris is coming back to Arizona on Friday for her second visit since being named the nominee. Details are scant and there’s still no word if Arizona will get billboards calling him “chicken” for refusing to debate her ahead of her visit, as the DNC paid for ahead of her Pennsylvania stop this week. But Harris could use the boost — a New York Times poll shows her behind in the Sun Belt states, including Arizona, where she’s trailing by 5 percentage points, per the poll. Still, that’s well within the poll’s margin of error, as the Times’ Nate Cohn writes.

“Arizona is the murkiest (state polled),” Cohn writes. “There hasn’t been as much polling of the state, period, and there’s never been a time when the polls there have strung together a consistent story. That goes for the last Times/Siena poll, which had Ms. Harris up five in August but now has Mr. Trump up five today.”

Michael Crow and Tom Horne thumb wrestle for funding: ASU is jacking up the price of tuition again with a surcharge on all full-time students, 12News’ Kevin Reagan reports. The university says it needs the money to make up for a $24 million funding cut lawmakers approved in this year’s budget. Meanwhile, Arizona families have a collective $360 million of unspent cash in their accounts in Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, per a Grand Canyon Institute report. The organization wants the state to claw back those funds, which can carry over from year to year, researcher Dave Wells tells KJZZ’s Bridget Dowd.

Subscribe today for all of the political education with none of the surcharges.

No power to the people: Lawmakers crafted two questions on your ballot that will make it harder for you to make laws via the ballot, Axios Phoenix’s Jeremy Duda reports. Prop 134 asks voters to amend the state constitution to require citizen initiatives to gather signatures from all of the state’s 30 legislative districts, while Prop 136 would allow people to challenge the constitutionality of citizen initiatives before they’re even approved. Meanwhile, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen takes to the Republic’s op-ed pages to urge voters to approve Prop 137, which would limit voters’ ability to fire bad judges.

“What if we could amend the process so that only the worst judges show up for retention on the ballot?  … This is exactly what Proposition 137 does,” Petersen writes.

Life is a long time: Arizona progressive groups sent a letter to Congress to fix the “broken” U.S. Supreme Court by enacting 18-year term limits, staggered terms and stronger ethical rules, the Arizona Mirror’s Jim Small reports. It’s part of a planned week-long action campaign attempting to generate support for the package of reforms that President Joe Biden first pitched in July.

Moooove over: Housing developers Shea Homes bought the last 120-acre parcel of a longtime dairy farm in Glendale, where they plan to build 920 homes, Phoenix Business Journal’s Angela Gonzales reports.

Flocking together: An Arizona nonprofit collects endangered bird feathers and allows members of Native American tribes to apply to get them for free for religious ceremonies, which cuts down on illegal black market feather sales, KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports.¹

Love them or hate them, there’s no denying that Turning Point USA knows how to seize a moment.

A Trump supporter had to throw away their MAGA hat at an Arizona Cardinals game after a State Farm Stadium employee incorrectly interpreted rules barring banners and other forms of political speech as also banning MAGA hats.

The trashed hat garnered national headlines, and after the team explained that it’s fine to wear MAGA hats at games, Turning Point started handing out free MAGA hats outside the game Sunday, 12News’ Sean Rice reports.

Well played, Turning Point.

1. This is a good excuse to mention one of our favorite editions of “This American Life” about the largest feather heist ever, which a fly fisherman pulled off just so he could make cool flies out of them.