Sheriff Joe, for example, cannot say with a straight face that he recognizes good governance when he sees it. In June, for example, Arpaio settled an embarrassing lawsuit, brought by the Justice Department, which alleged that he was illegally withholding documents relating to a civil rights investigation. When the feds sued Arpaio in 2010, government lawyers said they hadn't seen such an example of local intransigence since the Civil Rights era. Arpaio spent public time and money fighting the lawsuit-- before caving in and abiding by the law.
What hasn't fully settled yet for Sheriff Joe is the fallout from two significant local investigations into fiscal mismanagement in his Maricopa County offices. In April, for example, The Arizona Republic reported that Arpaio's office misspent $99.5 million in public funds -- money for inmates was used to pay officials' salaries. In May, the former chief financial officer of the County told the paper that she "repeatedly" told Arpaio about the problem before it came to light. And how did Sheriff Joe respond? Here's what Loretta Barkell said:
The sheriff waved his hand and said
he was not allowing the bean counters to manage his operations, that the budget
people, the accounting people, personnel people would have to figure it out and
fix it. But he was not going to change his decisions on how he was managing his
staff.
The problem evidently is so bad in Maricopa County that investigators from neighboring Pinal County had to come in to investigate allegations about the alleged conduct of some of Arpaio's top officials. Again, a great deal of Arpaio's time and taxpayer funds were spent. Again, the investigation revealed problems with Arpaio and his people. In fact, Pinal County spent six-figures identifying some of what went wrong under Sheriff Joe's watch. Here's how The Republic characterized the extent of the damage so far:
The $102,000
spent investigating the memo's claims is a fraction of what has been spent by
the county on internal battles. The tab so far totals more than $5.6 million,
most of that spent on legal costs tied to more than a dozen lawsuits between
the Board of Supervisors and Arpaio and former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew
Thomas. More than $177 million in notices of claims or lawsuits have been filed
by judges, county supervisors, current and former employees and one private
citizen. They were targeted by public-corruption probes initiated by Thomas and
Arpaio's office. The claims and suits allege malicious prosecution or false
statements by those on both sides of the county conflict.
Even within the last two weeks we've gotten a glimpse of the chaos Arpaio has wrought upon both his bosses and his constituents. In
2009, he improperly purchased a $456,000 customized bus for his office. On November 16th, over two years later, the
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors finally approved the purchase,
contorting their precedent to do so. Is Rick Perry going
to employ the same buy-first, justify-later financial policies of his
endorser? Is he going to run the White House the way Sheriff Joe runs
his sheriff's office?