A censure by any other name

County supervisors aren’t happy with Nanos … A roadblock arises on Tuesday ... Ballot counting continues.

The Pima County supervisors showed up to Tuesday’s board meeting ready to censure Sheriff Chris Nanos for suspending his political opponent, a lieutenant at the sheriff’s department, during the final weeks of the campaign.

But after a passionate statement from Supervisor Matt Heinz comparing Nanos’ actions to threats made by President-elect Donald Trump, the supervisors ran into a bureaucratic wall.

They don’t have the authority to censure another elected official, Chief Civil Deputy County Attorney Sam Brown told the supervisors.

The “prudent approach” would be to ask for an independent investigation and then take action, Brown said. “But a decision to censure before an investigation seems risky,” and could lead to legal liability.

That left the supervisors trying to wiggle their way toward saying what they thought of Nanos’ actions, without getting sued over it.

Supervisor Sylvia Lee started looking up synonyms for “censure,” while Supervisor Steve Christy came up with with a list of ways the board should be able to “express our displeasure and our concern.”

“If you want to call it censure, if you want to call it reprimand, if you want to call it being mad at, any kind of words that mean the same thing, but circumvent the concerns that the county attorney has expressed, I think would be appropriate,” Christy said. He later added “spanking him on the butt.”

The only official act the board took on Tuesday was to ask the Arizona Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to investigate Nanos’ suspension of Lt. Heather Lappin, his Republican opponent in the race, and Sgt. Aaron Cross, the head of a deputy organization who criticized Nanos.

Shortly after the suspension, Lappin’s attorney said the rules of the suspension prohibited her from discussing it. She also was forced to stay home during work hours, which cut into her ability to campaign.

Nanos has disputed whether any of those restrictions were actually in place, in comments to reporters from the Tucson Sentinel and other outlets. But he didn’t show up to Tuesday’s meeting to explain his side of the story, and he rejected an invitation from the board to publicly clear the air last month.

Tuesday’s vote, which was unanimous, was the second time the supervisors have asked the AG’s Office to investigate Nanos, and a sign of the souring relationship between the sheriff and the supervisors.

It’s also one of the few things that bring together Christy, the only Republican on the board, and his Democratic colleagues.

Last year, the supervisors were concerned about how Nanos and his command staff dealt with an allegation by a female deputy who said she was sexually assaulted by her supervisor at a holiday party in 2022.

The AG’s Office said in September they didn’t find any criminal wrongdoing by Nanos and his command staff, but they pointed to several department policies that command staff may have violated.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Christy also took a moment to say Heinz “eloquently” described the situation and he “wholeheartedly” agreed with him.

Heinz said Nanos’ actions were “unconscionable” and stripped away Lappin’s ability as a political candidate to “get their ideas out there, to engage with the community and with the public.”

While it’s “not acceptable” for Trump to call for locking up Hillary Clinton or anyone he doesn’t agree with, Heinz said, those are threats and “hopefully not a real plan.”

“But here in Pima County we have a government official entrusted by the voters with this awesome authority who has actually enacted some of that. I think it’s devastating,” Heinz said.

One point Nanos made in a letter to the board was that the board erred when they allowed employees to run for political office within their department without taking a leave of absence.

Supervisor Adelita Grijalva supported the call for an investigation of Nanos’ actions, but she also said the board should consider the “stress” of having two people in the same department running for an elected office.

“People should have the right to run for office, but I think there should be some limitations, some changes,” Grijalva said.

Nanos still leads Lappin in the race to be the next county sheriff. But as the remaining ballots are counted, his lead shrank from about 4,000 votes on Monday to 1,600 on Tuesday.

Counting complications: In Cochise County, election officials tabulated a batch of 16,000 ballots ahead of election day but were worried they potentially hadn’t followed procedure, so they voided the batch and recounted those ballots. But they didn’t bother to tell anyone, including the board of supervisors, until the Herald/Review’s Terri Jo Neff started asking questions.

Conspiracy time: Republican state Rep. Cory McGarr believes the election he lost was rigged. He told talk show host Garrett Lewis that, based on his own math, the only way he could have lost in his competitive Tucson-based Legislative District 17 was if independents went for his Democratic opponent by 91%.

“Something is severely wrong, this needs to be investigated,” he said.

Southern Arizonans at the statehouse: Two Tucson-area lawmakers are going to be prominent faces for Democrats in the upcoming legislative session. Democratic lawmakers chose Sen. Priya Sundareshan as Senate minority leader and Sen. Rosanna Gabaldon as Senate minority whip.

Secure the nursing homes: Attorney General Kris Mayes is urging lawmakers to pass legislation to track adult care facilities where patients are able to just wander away, telling ABC15’s Nicole Grigg that her office often doesn’t even know about cases unless it hits the news. Earlier this year, Tucsonan Miguel Moreno wandered away from his memory care unit and died.

Border secured: Arizona’s Prop 314, the Secure the Border Act, may never go into effect, despite being overwhelmingly approved by voters, since it’s on hold until a similar Texas law is litigated, the Republic’s Rafael Carranza and Paula Soria explain. That could take a very long time. And in the meantime, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen says the idea is moot since Donald Trump is taking office.

Trumpy border towns: Three heavily Latino Southern Arizona border cities topped the list of farthest swing toward Trump this election cycle, ABC15’s data guru Garrett Archer found. Voters in San Luis, Somerton and Rio Rico all moved 10 percentage points or more in Trump’s direction this year compared to 2020 results.

42,228: Uncounted ballots in Pima County as of Tuesday evening.