A New Sheriff in Washington Takes on Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Readers of this blog know I have talked about Sheriff Joe Arpaio many times over the last few years. At least once every few months some one sends me an email which has been forwarded more times around this country than William Hung singing "She Bangs" on American Idol. The email is always a variation of this:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (in Arizona) is doing it RIGHT!! He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them. He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away their weights. Cut off all but "G" movies. He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects. Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn't get sued for discrimination.

He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails. So he hooked up the cable TV again but only let in the Disney channel and the weather channel. When asked why the weather channel he replied, so they will know how hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.
He cut off coffee since it has zero nutritional value. When the inmates complained, he told them.....this is a good one......"This isn't the Ritz/Carlton. If you don't like it, don't come back."

He bought Newt Gingrich's lecture series on videotape that he pipes into the jails. When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place. You have to love this guy!!

More on the AZ Sheriff:
With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record), the Associated Press reports:
About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts. On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees inside the week before. Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks. "It feels like we are in a furnace," said James Zanzot, an inmate who has lived in the tents for 1 1/2 years. "It's inhumane." Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates: "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn't commit any crimes... so shut your damned mouths."

Now I have been called " a media hog" by some detractors especially since I did all my own Public Information Officer work for the last 6 years. I always felt it was important for me as an elected official to be available and to personally be the spokesperson for the office the voters entrusted me to hold. However, Sheriff Joe Arpaio makes me look shy with his vote getting, media attracting stunts. Most of Sheriff Arpaio's stunts were legal yet degrading stunts designed to show how tough he was on crime and taking advantage of the fact that most people had a view of jail life that included criminals watching cable t.v. and working out all day while being served 3 decent meals a day. Sheriff Arpaio seized the opportunity presented itself by that impression and set out to show that his jail, one made of tents in the Arizona desert, took away that easy life. He instituted chain gangs and professed to feed his inmates leftovers from local grocers and restaurants. What he liked to call "Green Bologna". He also went so far as to purchase old military food packs called MRE's "meal ready to eat" at very cheap prices and feed them to the inmates.

All of these stunts allowed him to portray himself as "the toughest Sheriff in America". As I said earlier these stunts were just that, publicity stunts that were legal. In the last year Sheriff Arpaio had his deputies trained under federal government program called a 287G agreement. This is up for considerable debate but the truth is immigration law is a federal civil law not a national criminal law. This means that only federal officers (ICE Officers) can arrest someone solely on the basis that they are illegally in this country. A comparison to this is the IRS, a local police officer can not arrest you for income tax crimes. Only a federal officer can.

However local agencies can enter into an agreement with immigration in which the federal government will train and deputize local deputies to enforce immigration law. In other words give local authorities the ability to arrest illegal immigrants when that is their only crime. As usual Sheriff Arpaio decided to apply his brand of law enforcement to an agreement with ICE and having his deputies deputized to enforce immigration law. Sheriff Arpaio had his deputies perform sweeps of predominately Hispanic neighborhoods. Allegedly during these sweeps innocent people were stopped questioned and arrested if they lacked proper documentation.

In his usual circus atmosphere fashion Sheriff Arpaio arrested thousands of illegal immigrants and then paraded them in shackles in front of the media. He opened up his own segregated tent city jail just for immigrants and while moving the immigrants from one tent city to the other he led them in large chain gangs in front of TV and newspaper camera's in one big Mexican parade. The only thing missing was the mariachi's. Eventually human rights and immigrant rights groups began protesting, the Governor and the Mayor of Phoenix began to join in the protests and the State cut off funding for some of Sheriff Arpaio's programs.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon wrote a letter to the Department of Justice whom had investigated Sheriff Arpaio's office at least twice before during the Bush Administration. Those inquirys remain sealed to this day prompting the Sheriff to point to them and say "see they didn't find anything!". Now there is a new Sheriff in Town. President Obama has been elected and the new U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is taking up the complaints with a new vigor. The U.S. Justice Department launched a new civil rights investigation of Sheriff Arpaio's administration. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Michigan and chairman of the House judiciary committee has also announced plans to hold congressional hearings on local immigration enforcement and call Arpaio as a witness in the coming months. Sheriff Arpaio has laid down the gauntlet saying he would not travel to Washington and testify.

You can tell the pressure is on as Sheriff Arpaio has taken to going on National Radio and News TV shows to scream foul. He claims he is unfairly being targeted as a Republican advocate for Immigration reform. The Sheriff has latched onto the immigration reform issue and placed himself squarely in the middle of the debate between those who feel we are not doing enough and those who feel we should not persecute those who come here looking for a better life. Now obviously the locals in Maricopa County are OK with Sheriff Arpaio's antics. He is re-elected time after time. During each election I think this must be his last but like many who want to see him go we are disappointed.

Maricopa County Democrats go to the Web to Remove Joe Arpaio

I have been receiving a lot of visitors who have found my site via a link on a new website called Joes Got To Go. Apparantly the Democratic Party in Maricopa County has decided to link to a blog post I had back in May where I spoke about Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County Arizona decision to endorse Aubrey Dunn in his 2cd Congressional District primary race against Ed Tinsley. The web site mistakenly says the congressional race was in Santa Fe County and even though I am in Santa Fe County the 2cd Congressional District is in South Eastern New Mexico.

Apparently Joe's endorsement did not work as Republican Aubrey Dunn lost to Ed Tinsley in the June Primary. The controversial Republican Sheriff is facing democrat Dan Saban in the November election for the office of Sheriff in Maricopa County. Dan Saban was a republican when he ran against Joe Arpaio in 2004. Now after switching parties he returns to try and unseat the Sheriff who despite controversy after controversy continues to win re-election every 4 years. In the latest poll numbers on August 6, 2008 the Sheriff was still ahead even though his popularity has slipped in the last year. He remains ahead of his opponent with a 54% to 38% lead in polling numbers. The Sheriff enjoyed a 64% lead in March of 2007. The Sheriff has faced major opposition from Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and Gov. Janet Napolitano, who has withdrawn state funding from the Sheriff's office after the Sheriff started conducting controversial immigration sweeps.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Sheriff Candidate Dan Saban

The battle between the Mayor, Governor and Sheriff Arpaio is based on his controversial program of "Crime suppression sweeps". In the sweeps he and a posse of volunteer deputies show up in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods, stop residents for minor traffic violations and then question them about their immigration status. A recent “sweep” rounded up 27 Hispanics who the Sheriff believes may be in the country illegally. The sweeps have resulted in law suits, rallys both pro and con and sometimes heated demonstrations.

According to a five part investigative series by the East Valley Tribune in Phoenix the result of the massive effort has been slower response times on emergency calls, a slumping arrest rate and, for a time, excessive overtime costs. All while the Sheriff and his deputies wage war on immigrants.

I have always been surprised by the extent of controversy in this Sheriff's career as well as his ability to push the envelope and cross over lines and still remain an elected official. I have never visited Maricopa County but perhaps when New Mexico's Space Port is open I can visit, I imagine it is somewhere in the twilight zone.


P.S. ever wonder what happens to a candidate web site when they lose the election? In the case of Aubrey Dunn he took his campaign web site www.aubreydunn.com and redirected it to a real estate and cattle sale web site. I have been wondering what to do with solano4sheriff.com !

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Sheriff Joe Arpaio Steps into New Mexico Politics

Sheriff Joe Arpaio from Maricopa County Arizona has decided to step into the New Mexico political scene. An article from Gwyneth Doland in the New Mexican Independent News website describes how the Sheriff who is both hated and revered across this country decided to endorse Aubrey Dunn in his 2cd Congressional District primary race against Ed Tinsley.

I have described in some past blog posts some of Sheriff Arpaio's tactics regarding his tent city jails and lately he has taken to rounding up illegal immigrants in his county. He has begun using deputies to round up immigrants and even started a hot line where citizens can call in information on smugglers and individual immigrants. Using laws designed to arrest smugglers of immigrants he is arresting the immigrants who are smuggled as co-conspirators. He is one of the first and may be the only sheriff in the country who is doing this. Because of Sheriff Arpaio's hard stance on illegal immigration he is supporting Aubrey Dunn who is also taking a hard line on illegal immigrants. Aubrey Dunn has also attracted the support of the Minute Man Civil Defense Corps. The Minute Men are a group of volunteers who's mission it is to patrol the border and catch immigrants crossing over illegally.

Both Sheriff Arpaio and The Minute Men cite Aubrey Dunn's promise to fight any type of amnesty program as the reason they are supporting him. In this blog post I discussed whether Sheriff Arpaio would last a day in Santa Fe. Here are some other posts where I discussed Sheriff Arpaio.

New Mexico is a diverse state, City's like Santa Fe and Albuquerque have proclaimed themselves immigrant friendly, while cities and counties which are along the Mexico, New Mexico border take a hard line with immigration. Problems from illegal immigration are much more pronounced in the cities and counties along the New Mexico border and as such the citizens who live in the area want relief. Some candidates from these areas are positioning themselves to attract the voters who are fed up with the immigration problems in the U.S.. I do feel that immigration reform is needed and while we should strengthen our borders we must make a workable solution available for those who want to come and work here to do so in a legal way. I have often felt that Sheriff Arpaio has a tendency to tip toe if not step on civil rights and often chooses the extreme solution to a problem. This does provide media coverage and can rally the troops which, when you look at his re-election numbers seems to work well in his county. It's not my style and Sheriff Arpaio and myself are on completely opposite sides of the political spectrum.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio VS The Phoenix Times

Last week and again this week I read Julia Goldbergs blog post on someone I have discussed in previous blog posts of my own with some amazement. Sheriff Joe Arpaio from Maricopa County Arizona is both hated and revered across this nation. Emails extolling his greatness are forwarded back and forth to hundreds of thousands of computers across the nation. I could not count how many times I have received this email, usually from someone who just moved to Santa Fe and thinks I should be like Joe. Public hangings would resume on the Santa Fe Plaza with me being the first recipient of the treatment if I was like Sheriff Joe.

My counter on this blog keeps track of how search engines lead people to my blog as well as how many visit per day. The search term Sheriff Joe Arpaio is always in the top 5 even though I have only mentioned him in 3 of my 217 previous posts on this blog. I first became intimately aware of this sheriff prior to my being elected to my first term. Our local jail was the number one topic of the election at the time. The jail was privately run and was receiving criticism from the public as well undergoing an investigation by the Department of Justice. I studied jail models from across the country and was shocked and amazed that our jail was under so much scrutiny from the Department of Justice while tent jails both in New Mexico and in Sheriff Arpaio's county seemed like comparing a Holiday Inn to an outhouse.

In the latest episode Sheriff Arpaio's Deputies arrested Michael Lacey, the executive editor, and Jim Larkin, chief executive of Village Voice Media — a company that owns a number of alternative weeklies including The Village Voice, The LA Weekly and The Phoenix Times.

The Phoenix Times and its editors have been in a long running battle with Sheriff Arpaio, after publishing a series of stories about his real estate dealings. They were arrested for unlawful disclosure of grand jury information. In a strange twist they were also being investigated for publishing the Sheriff's home address. I always thought everyone knows where every politician lives and if they did not know they could find out pretty easily. I cannot count the number of people who have knocked at my door and come to my home to ask for help, advice or just to let me know what they think about me or one of my deputies. Its part of being an elected official, at least in New Mexico it is.

Seems now the Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has not only dropped the charges against the news editors but he has also canceled the investigation into publishing of the Sheriff's Home Address. So, why are Grand Jury Proceedings Secret anyway? Most states who have Grand Jury systems follow Federal Grand Jury Rules.

Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provide that the prosecutor, grand jurors, and the grand jury stenographer are prohibited from disclosing what happened before the grand jury, unless ordered to do so in a judicial proceeding. Secrecy was originally designed to protect the grand jurors from improper pressures. The modern justifications are to prevent the escape of people whose indictment may be contemplated, to ensure that the grand jury is free to deliberate without outside pressure, to prevent subornation of perjury or witness tampering prior to a subsequent trial, to encourage people with information about a crime to speak freely, and to protect the innocent accused from disclosure of the fact that he or she was under investigation.

Courts have taken seriously any attempt to publish or report secret proceedings in Grand Juries. In a 2004 article published by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Reporters are cautioned that judges will go after reporters who reveal information from secret Grand Jury Proceedings. In the Article published by The Phoenix Times the paper acknowledged they may be in trouble for publishing the subpoena's from the Grand Jury however decided that the publics right to know the far reaching effects of the subpoena was more important. The County Attorney in dropping the charges and investigations has since stated that the subpoena's were overly broad in their scope.
















In my opinion a hard headed Sheriff and his attorneys have met their match in a hard headed newspaper. The two are butting heads and I wonder how much public money is being spent in this pissing match. Both sides have made errors and one can argue who is more right or wrong. In either case the public loses. All though the offenses are not necessarily on the same scale this reminds me of the Clinton/Monica Lewinski special prosecutor investigations in that no one really won and in the end what was the point of the investigation anyway? When public officials or the media go on witch hunts they can easily lose focus of their primary responsibilities and what their true mission really is.

Blog hits 10,000 hits.

I don't usually blog on Saturdays but my wife noticed that this blog hit 10,000 views sometime last night. I started this blog on January 7, 2006 wondering if anyone besides myself and my wife would read it. Actually there was no guarantee she would read it! So, I am humbled and pleasantly surprised that there has been 10,000 views in the last 11 months. I hope there has been some enjoyment in reading my ramblings in the last year.

Here are some other stats that came from my counter service:

* The most used search terms to find my blog are:

Red Light Cameras

How to be a politician

legalize drugs

Sheriff Solano and Greg Solano

Joe Arpaio and Sheriff Joe Arpaio

* The busiest day is Wednesday

* The busiest hour is 8:00 am

* The average page views per day is 38

* Google Page Rank for this page: 5

* Yahoo! has found 17 links to this site. Who links to me?

* MSN Search has found 1,408 links to this site.


So next month this blog will be a year old, I thank all of you who regularly check in and hope you will continue.

Happy Holidays!

Sheriff Andy Griffith is running again.

Normally I might save this for funny Friday but I ran across this and couldn't resist blogging it.

A man who is a co-owner of a music store in Platteville Wisconsin is running for sheriff. No big news there, except William Fenrick has legally changed his name to Andy Griffith. And why not? Who wouldn't vote for Andy Griffith for Sheriff? What also caught my eye was that in this area, according to Andy, the Sheriff's race garners little attention in Grant County Wisconsin.

In New Mexico usually the Sheriff's race is a very heated race which often draws voters to the polls in non-presidential years. The primary races where the party's battle their own to find a General Election candidate is especially heated with the General Elections usually being very benign. One difference between New Mexico and most other states is that Sheriff's are Term Limited. The incumbent in Grant County Wisconsin has been in office ten years. Other infamous sheriffs such as Sheriff Joe Arpaio who is completing 13 years this year and despite his detractors will probably be sheriff as long as he wants to be don't have term limits. On the one hand we lose valuable experience and maybe the ability to keep someone who is doing a good job. On the other hand sometimes too many years in office can allow some offices to stagnate and halt change and innovation. My feeling is it depends on the candidate and the voters can always elect for change so why force the voters hand with term limits.

According to Andy Griffith the Sheriff candidate he changed his name in order to draw attention to the Sheriff's Race. He is running as an independent in a race which features a Democrat and the Republican incumbent. Watch video news footage here. Only in America.........

Would Sheriff Joe Arpaio last a day in Santa Fe?

Almost every Month since the day I won my first election in June 2002 someone from somewhere in America forwards me this email. They "if from New Mexico are usually recent transplants to our area" want me to be like Joe. Most of you have probably read this but if you have not, read ahead and afterwards we will discuss if Sheriff Joe Arpaio would last a day in Santa Fe.

Subject: Fw: Sheriff Joe - Re-elected

sheriff Joe - Re-elected

TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO - HE IS THE MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER.

THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (in Arizona) who created the "tent city jail":

He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.

He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away their weights. Cut off all but "G" movies.

He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects.

Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn't get sued for discrimination.

He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails. So he hooked up the cable TV again only let in the Disney channel and the weather channel.

When asked why the weather channel he replied, so they will know how hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.

He cut off coffee since it has zero nutritional value.

When the inmates complained, he told them, "This isn't the Ritz/Carlton. If you don't like it, don't come back."

He bought Newt Gingrich' lecture series on videotape that he pipes into the jails.

When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.

More on the Arizona Sheriff:

With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record), the Associated Press reports: About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts.

On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees inside the week before.

Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks.

"It feels like we are in a furnace," said James Zanzot, an inmate who has lived in the tents for 1 ½ years. "It's inhumane."

Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat Bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates: "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!"

Way to go, Sheriff! Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.

If you agree, pass this on. If not, delete it.

So there you have it. As I stated earlier the email is sent to me often and usually with a suggestion that I implement these ideas here. Here, the land of Rothstein, Donatelli, Hughes, Dahlstrom, Schoenburg & Bienvenu LLP. In case you don't know of this law firm they are the local Santa Fe Attorneys who made millions of Taxpayer dollars in the Duran Consent Decree case which came out of the 1980 Prison Riot. In between then and now, millions more taxpayer dollars were made suing practically every city and county in the state as well as numerous other state and federal cases. They specialize in suing government and taking taxpayer dollars that if not given to them could actually be used to make jail, prison, and law enforcement better.


The firm recently made 2 million in the Santa Fe Strip Search Case in which allegations were made that the private company which ran the jail at the time took part in illegal strip searches. This case amazed me since the firm did about 6 months of work on the case which amounts to about 1,600 a day assuming someone worked 8 hours a day Monday through Friday for the approximately six months this case was worked on. So How much would Rothstein, Donatelli and company get if we operated a tent city and fed prisoners 40 cents a day worth of food?

Some have tried unsuccessfully to recall Sheriff Arpaio however his election numbers continue to be very high and with no term limits he will probably be Sheriff as long as he wants to be.

The big question I have is why has the Department of Justice has allowed Joe Arpaio to continue to these conditions while we work hard to provide a safe secure facility in Santa Fe? The truth is that we have people here who continue and probably always will complain while in Arizona Joe Arpaio is considered a hero. Don't get me wrong, this is not a case of Sheriff envy. I would never want to be known for the things Sheriff Arpaio is known for. In Santa Fe the worst thing I could do would be to subject prisoners to hours of watching Newt Gingrich, that would be cruel and unusual punishment if I ever saw it. In the land of the city different, living wage, immigrant free zones, and what is arguably among the most liberal counties in America, would Joe Arpaio ever even be elected? (he is a Republican which explains a lot) I usually respond to these emails, when I do respond, with a polite but firm statement. I would be hung on the plaza at high noon from the new bandstand if I even considered 10% of what Sheriff Arpaio does in Arizona, and rightfully so.

Would you elect Joe Arpaio Sheriff in Santa Fe County? Click comments below and talk about it. You can do so Anonymously.