Poll: Maricopa voters tired of costly oversight of sheriff

In 2013, a federal judge ruled the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office violated Latino drivers’ constitutional rights after the office used racial profiling and illegal traffic stops.

To implement policy reforms, the office was placed under federal oversight with a court-appointed monitor.

Maricopa County Supervisor Thomas Galvin previously told The Center Square that by this year, the ongoing federal oversight program will have cost taxpayers $353 million. According to ProPublica, auditors of the fund found that 72% of all the money the sheriff’s office had spent was “misattributed or misappropriated.”

The Center Square reached out to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors but did not hear back before publication time.

The poll found knowledge of the federal oversight is limited. The poll showed that 62% of county voters had heard little to nothing about the program, while 32% had heard at least some information about it.

When Maricopa County voters were asked about federal oversight without being told about the financial costs, 43% supported it, 27% opposed it and 30% were unsure.  

However, after voters were told about the financial strain on Maricopa County taxpayers, 53% said the oversight is lasting too long and is too expensive.

 “Maricopa County voters say federal oversight has gone on too long," NPI CEO Mike Noble told The Center Square this week.

“The taxpayer cost clearly breaks through,” Noble said. “Voters may support accountability in theory. But when they hear this has cost hundreds of millions of dollars over more than a decade, they start asking whether the current arrangement still makes sense.”

Joseph Popolizio and John Masterson, attorneys representing the sheriff’s office, told The Center Square in a statement this week that the office “continues to educate the public about the substantial progress it has made and its significant compliance with the Court's orders, as well as the dramatic cultural transformation that has taken place since 2013.”

“Sheriff [Jerry] Sheridan understands the public's frustration and recognizes the importance of these issues to the community. He remains fully committed to achieving full and effective compliance with every aspect of the Court's orders,” said Popolizio and Masterson, who are with the law firm Jones, Skelton & Hochuli PLC.

U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, told The Center Square this week that he thinks the federal oversight of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has “gone on far too long.”

Biggs, who's running for governor, said he introduced a bill called the Monitor Accountability Act, which put guardrails on the monitor positions nationwide.

The act places limits on the hourly rates and fees that federally appointed monitors may charge. The act also prevents monitors from overseeing more than one monitorship, with the monitor allowed to serve only five years at one place.

Biggs pointed out that Robert Warshaw, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office monitor since 2014, is monitoring several other jurisdictions.

Biggs’ bill passed the House in May by a vote of 219 - 204 and was assigned to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

Jon Riches, vice president for litigation at Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, said there are two “fundamental problems” with the current federal oversight.

The first issue concerns federalism, which Riches said “law enforcement and local spending decisions are a state and local function.”

“They shouldn’t be administered indefinitely by federal officials,” he said.

The second issue is taxpayer transparency. “When massive amounts of taxpayer dollars are being spent to operate a local law enforcement agency, taxpayers have a right to know how that money is being spent,” Riches explained.

The attorney said the problem with Warshaw is that he is an “unaccountable federal official” managing a local law enforcement agency.

He added that the monitor has spent tens of millions of dollars and “has not provided taxpayers any kind of transparency regarding how the money is being spent.”

“Every time the county gets close to 100% compliance, there’s some change or the monitor will find some area where the county has fallen short,” the attorney noted.

“[Warshaw] is incentivized financially to keep the case open,” Riches said.

America’s federalism system “exists to ensure local law enforcement and spending decisions by local governments are locally and democratically accountable,” according to Roth.  

“Having the federal government oversee the minutiae of [how] local law enforcement spend [taxpayer] money and then not provide details to [voters] about how that money is being spent raises federalism and transparency concerns,” he noted.