Over at True North, Jeff Kolb posts some cautionary blogging for local Tea Party members in The Sheriff Joe I Know:
he Minnesota Tea Party Alliance announced the other day that Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio will be headlining their first quarter Tea Party event.
This confuses me, as I’m not sure how Arpaio fits in with the Tea Party’s principles of Free Markets, Fiscal Responsibility, and Limited Government- specifically the last two.
I lived in Phoenix, Arizona, which is in Maricopa county, for a few years, starting in 2008. I was excited to be living in the county that was protected by the man who calls himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff.”
. . .His media team has done well in developing his old-time, wild-west county sheriff image. I bought it, hook line and sinker.
. . .It was only after I got more involved in Arizona politics that the real Joe Arpaio started to become clear.
Kolb points readers to a recent editorial in AZ Central, Joe Arpaio, America's most expensive sheriff. Some of the tidbits:
The bills for the sheriff’s publicity stunts continue to mount.
Tent City, pink underwear and green bologna may have made the sheriff popular, but what they did most effectively was distract attention from multimillion settlements with the families of inmates killed or severely injured in Arpaio’s jails.
Next came more than $17 million in settlements with Arpaio’s political enemies — the ones he and Maricopa County Attorney Andy Thomas targeted in their supposed campaign against corruption. Every allegation they served up was laughed out of court. Thomas was disbarred. But Arpaio remains in office, kept there by the very taxpayers whose money he treats like a blank check.
And now the next bill is coming due: $21.9 million over the next 18 months to comply with a judge’s ruling that Arpaio’s office engaged in widespread racial profiling. The profiling occurred in service to the “toughest sheriff” story line. If we had a sheriff who put law enforcement ahead of his image, it’s $21.9 million we wouldn’t have to spend now.
That's a 2014 editorial, but the notion of Arpaio as America's most expensive sheriff is nothing new. in 2010, the Arizona Republic posted a short letter, 'Most Expensive Sheriff in America':
Given the millions of dollars Sheriff Joe Arpaio has cost the taxpayers in lawsuits, I think he should change his title of being the "Toughest Sheriff in America" to the "Most Expensive Sheriff in America."
-- Lee North, Peoria (Nexis All-News, accessed Jan, 15, 2014)
2007: Arpaio targets Phoenix New Times with lawsuit
Kolb notes how the recent editorial "only touches on the use of the laughably named “anti-corruption unit” as a tool to punish political enemies, while claiming that the Sheriff's Department was able to use interviews in the national press to promote an image while dodging local media. Thus, those who voted for Arpaio more than once can be forgiven because they were snookered.
That take seems overgenerous, as local media had been reporting about Arpaio's excesses for years, although like political rivals, Arpaio used the levers of power in attempts to silence critics in the media as well.
In particular, there's the Feathered Bastard, Steve Lemons, at the Phoenix New Times, and his employers. In 2007, the PNT reported in Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution:
This newspaper and its editorial staff — both current and former — are the targets ofunprecedented grand jury subpoenas dated August 24.
The authorities are also using the grand jury subpoenas in an attempt to research the identity, purchasing habits, and browsing proclivities of our online readership. . . .
In a breathtaking abuse of the United States Constitution, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, and their increasingly unhinged cat's paw, special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik, used the grand jury to subpoena "all documents related to articles and other content published by Phoenix New Times newspaper in print and on the Phoenix New Times website, regarding Sheriff Joe Arpaio from January 1, 2004 to the present."
Every note, tape, and record from every story written about Sheriff Arpaio by every reporter over a period of years.
In addition to the omnibus subpoena, which referred to our writer Stephen Lemonsdirectly, reporters John Dougherty and Paul Rubin were targeted with individual subpoenas.
More alarming still, Arpaio, Thomas, and Wilenchik subpoenaed detailed information on anyone who has looked at the New TimesWeb site since 2004. . . .
Kolb missed that six-page story, having moved to Arizona the next year, but the legal consequences of Arpaio's attack on the press and readers cost the taxpayers. Raw Story notes that the response to the article's publication was more severe than a subpoena:
. . . Lacey and Larkin wrote an Oct. 18, 2007 story detailing authorities’ actions. The night the story was published, they were arrested on charges of violating the secrecy of a grand jury. The subpoenas were later declared invalid because they were obtained without the approval of any grand jury, nor Superior Court Judge Baca, who was in charge of convening them.
That vendetta ended up costing taxpayers $3.75 million the Arizona Republic reported in Maricopa County supervisors settle lawsuits filed by ‘New Times’ founders, Stapley:
The last two lawsuits filed by political targets of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas were settled by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Friday, ending a long bout of litigation that has cost the county millions of dollars over the past few years.
Supervisors voted to settle for $3.75 million a federal lawsuit filed against the county by Phoenix New Times founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin. The news executives were arrested in 2007 after publishing details of a rogue prosecutor’s misdeeds.
Later Friday, supervisors also voted to settle for $3.5 million a federal lawsuit filed by former County Supervisor Don Stapley, who was arrested during the so-called war on political corruption waged by Thomas, Arpaio and their deputies.
The two settlements bring to at least $17 million the final taxpayer cost of lawsuits relating to Arpaio’s and Thomas’ politically-motivated legal attacks. That tab is likely to grow, due to a separate settlement that was approved last year but is currently under appeal.
Tea Party and Sheriff Joe
Kolb also turns a blind eye to the long history of the Tea Party movement loving Sheriff Joe, so it shouldn't be a surprise that Jack Rogers' Tea Party Alliance invited him to speak at the Mermaid in Mounds View on March 6. Arpaio's apparent support for the "Constitutional Sheriffs" movement against enforcing any new federal gun control law seems to be the motivation for bringing Arpaio to Minnesota.
Arpaio has been a Tea Party darling since the conservative movement took off in 2009, and Tea Party organizers have always ignored his war on political opponents and reporters who dogged stories about his record.
Witness the Arizona Capitol Times news brief about the2011 American policy Summit, Tea party gathers for Phoenix convention:
Among the speakers scheduled to address the convention are former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, former U.S. Rep. John Shadegg and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
The Arizona Republic reports an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 tea party members are expected to attend.
A Tea Party Patriots national coordinator says the group has a 40-year plan to instill in Americans the core values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets.
Even in early 2011, investigative reporters at the Arizona Republica were digging. In May 2011, the paper published Report: Arpaio aide Hendershott used MCSO unit vs. his foes:
When Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's anti-corruption unit was established in 2008, it set out to investigate and prosecute corruption in public agencies.
But once the sheriff's second-in-command, then-Chief Deputy David Hendershott, assumed control, the unit became a tool to smear political enemies, say a number of deputies interviewed in an internal investigation released this week.
Detailed testimony of the inner workings of the public-corruption unit is contained in more than 1,000 pages of an investigation by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu into the conduct of Hendershott and two other sheriff's commanders, former Deputy Chief Larry Black and Capt. Joel Fox. The heavily redacted report was released Tuesday.
Kolb has a point many conservatives have missed: Sheriff Joe isn't much a friend of constitutionally limited government.>
We only wonder what's taking so long for the Tea Party to understand these facts about this "ally."
Photo: Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Not a cheap date people.
If you enjoyed reading this post, consider giving a donation via mail (P.O. Box 108, Maynard MN 56260) or paypal:
Comments