Tim Steller Political Notebook: Sheriff's race opens up

And you thought we knew who replaced Clarence Dupnik as sheriff.

Yes, in July last year the Pima County Board of Supervisors appointed Dupnik’s choice, Chris Nanos, to the job of sheriff.

But the news of the last week makes it clear that Nanos’ grip on the position is not the firm hold that Dupnik had over 30 years. If there will be another long-term successor to Dupnik, we won’t know who that will be until the November election.

First, on March 24, Republican Mark Napier announced he planned to run against Nanos, who is a Democrat. Not that surprising since Napier gave Dupnik his toughest challenge in the 2012 campaign before losing narrowly.

Then, May 1, a Sheriff’s Department sergeant, Terry Staten, also announced he is running in the Republican primary, leading to a kerfuffle that may further undermine Nanos’ political position.

A week ago, as my colleague Caitlin Schmidt reported, Nanos placed Staten on unpaid administrative leave for six months, citing a county policy that allows such moves if the employees candidacy is harming their job performance or having an adverse effect on the workplace.

That on its face looks bad: Taking the paycheck away from a man who is challenging you for your job seems like an abuse of power. But was he justified by the facts on the ground? Maybe.

Nanos said County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry told him about the option of putting Staten on leave the day that Staten announced his candidacy, May 1. Nanos told me he tolerated some political polarization in the criminal investigations division — until Staten started messing with uniform patches last week

On May 19, Staten did an interview on the “Jon Justice Show,” on KQTH 104.1 FM. In the interview, he described participating in a bicycle ride to honor fallen officers, in which every rider wears the same jersey.

“The only way we distinguish ourselves is we are allowed wear a patch from our uniforms,” he said. “I’ve taken mine off because I am embarrassed about what’s going on in our department.”

That alone is a bit of an eye-roll to me. The next day, May 20, someone twice turned a Pima County Sheriff’s Department patch upside down in a display at a deputy’s desk at the department. Nanos suspected Staten, though he denies having anything to do with it. In any case, other high-ranking personnel said that day the atmosphere had become too politicized.

That same day a week ago Huckelberry wrote a letter requesting that Nanos put Staten on leave. That’s when he did. But a Huckelberry letter is not a good reason. The sheriff, of course, is an elective office, capable of making his own decision without the administrator’s backing. And the administrator is, abstractly speaking, just an appointee of the board.

And the board is Democrat-controlled, meaning it would likely prefer to keep Nanos in office.

Napier is none too happy to have a Republican challenger in the primary race, but he questioned whether Staten was given due process before having his paycheck taken away.

The incident also raises questions about a characteristic of Nanos that has emerged since he took over the department: his thin skin.

He got angry when my colleague Schmidt asked him about an FBI investigation into the department. He got upset when I asked him about the Staten incident Thursday. The man hasn’t been in an election campaign before, and it shows.

When I asked Nanos how he likes being in a political campaign, he said “I like it fine. The battles and the pettiness I could do without, but that’s OK. I’m tough.”

Tough enough? We’ll see.

Pima union battles

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No one has gotten under Nanos’ skin quite like Sgt. Kevin Kubitskey has. Kubitskey is chairman of the Pima County Deputy Sheriffs Association, which represents around 310 deputies and sergeants.

He’s challenged Nanos ever since taking over that office last year and is the one who accused Nanos of assaulting him earlier this year, an allegation that a Tucson police investigation did not sustain.

The union he leads appears to have shifted suddenly this month from supporting Napier in the sheriff’s race to supporting Staten.

“A lot of people asked Mark Napier to step forward in the beginning,” Kubitskey acknowledged when we spoke Wednesday.

Then something happened. What it was is not clear, but the loyalties quickly shifted toward Staten.

“From my vantage point, I thought I had a great base of support with them. I had spoken with them numerous times about my prospective candidacy and when I became a candidate,” Napier said. “ I was really surprised when they informed me that because Staten got in they would go with him.”

That endorsement isn’t formal yet. The union is still waiting for some ballots to be cast. But that appears to be the direction they’re going.

Staten is positioning himself as having a valuable insider’s perspective.

“I think that because I’m on the inside and know the functions and dysfunctions of the department, I’d be a better candidate to lead it,” he said.

Napier says he has the necessary command experience and outsider status to correct what’s wrong. In any case, they’ll be fighting each other as much as Nanos until the primary Aug. 30.

“It’s certainly his prerogative to get into the race,” Napier said. “If the goal is to defeat Sheriff Nanos in November, a contested primary is not the best way to do that.”

Anti-Ward mailer

Over the last week or so, some Arizona voters have received a glossy, 8½-by-11 mailer denouncing Kelli Ward, the Republican challenging Sen. John McCain, as “siding with conspiracy theorists and liberals over our troops and national defense.”

It’s pretty standard fare for this era of gaudy accusations, except for one thing: There is no indication on the mailer who it’s from. All there is is a return address to a Phoenix P.O. box. That’s illegal.

It’s also lazy, as Republican political consultant Sam Stone pointed out.

“I can create a group out of scratch today and send out the mailers in a couple of days,” he said. “It’s an incredibly simple process.”

The group wouldn’t even have to disclose its donors if it were created correctly, he said.

Whoever it is, though, apparently had money. The mailers were slick, on colored paper, and probably cost more than $2 apiece to make and send out, Stone said. Ward’s campaign has filed a complaint about it.