The biggest political race in Southern Arizona right now isn’t in our competitive congressional district — it’s the fight over whether Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos should keep his job.
It’s a multi-faceted (and somewhat bipartisan) political firestorm, but it has little to do with the abduction of Nancy Guthrie from her home during the early hours of Feb. 1, 2026.
The knives are out for the 70-year-old Nanos — and those wielding them aren’t just Republicans still sour over the 2024 election, when he suspended a political opponent and union leader weeks before voters went to the polls.
A quick reminder: He won that race by just 495 votes.
Republican Daniel Butierez, who recently kicked off his third consecutive bid for the Congressional District 7 seat, is helming a recall campaign against Nanos. As of Tuesday morning, with no website or social media presence tied to the effort, Butierez faces a steep climb — he’ll need to collect roughly 1,000 valid signatures per day from Pima County voters to qualify for the ballot within about four months.
The last time Pima County voters actually removed someone from office? During the Clinton administration — when dial-up internet was still the tool of choice for researching the recall of Pima County Assessor Alan Lang. 1
Today, the Democratic-controlled Pima County Board of Supervisors is set to meet behind closed doors to discuss Nanos, their fellow elected Democrat. The item is light on details — it’s described simply as “Sheriff Nanos’ work history and apparent related false statements, and related personnel, management, internal affairs investigative, or other issues in the department.”
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos at a press conference last month about the Guthrie case.
Pima County Supervisor Matt Heinz, who has been gunning for Nanos for a while now, placed the item on the agenda after the Arizona Republic detailed discrepancies in Nanos’ work history while he was with the El Paso Police Department — information he used when applying to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
Nanos addressed the issue on the Bill Buckmaster Show on Friday, telling Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller and Buckmaster that PCSD conducted a background check and spoke with his former supervisor, who gave him a glowing review — despite records showing he had been disciplined multiple times and resigned in lieu of termination in 1982.
He acknowledged mistakes early in his career, but urged people to weigh his record over the past four decades of public service in Pima County.
Nanos said he has tried to reach out to Heinz multiple times, but told the hosts that the supervisor has not responded.
Heinz told us that his break with Nanos dates back to an internal investigation into a reported sexual assault involving a deputy at a holiday party — a case Heinz said warranted deeper scrutiny.
What followed, Heinz said, was a heated confrontation that ended with Heinz blocking the sheriff on his personal cell phone— a small detail that underscores just how far the relationship had deteriorated.
Heinz added that the sheriff had other ways to reach him — and that Nanos has not reached out to him or his staff in years.
The only communication Heinz says he wants now is Nanos’ resignation.
Nanos is also drawing fire for his role in the investigation into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie more than 50 days ago.
When it comes to the Guthrie case, the Pima County sheriff says he is willing to absorb the criticism to shield his staff.
“I’m glad they throw rocks at me, not my team. Just do it, that’s okay,” Nanos said on Buckmaster's show. “I told them, 'I’ll be your bad guy, I’ll be your villain.’ Boy, they took that literally.”
Roughly a year before former Sheriff Clarence Dupnik retired in 2015, he put Nanos in the second highest ranking job inside the Pima County Sheriff Department.
But Nanos is also facing additional political pressure this week.
The Pima County Democratic Party is expected to discuss him at its next executive committee meeting. Party Chair Eric Robbins told us that some Democrats have concerns about the recent allegations involving the elected sheriff.
And the Pima County Deputy’s Organization — which has long been critical of Nanos — unanimously voted to urge him to step down. The group represents roughly 300 deputies within the department.
“Sheriff Nanos should resign immediately to restore trust, accountability, and operational effectiveness to the Pima County Sheriff's Department,” the organization announced on Monday.
Nanos may also be under investigation by the Attorney General’s Office, though the agency does not comment on ongoing investigations, including whether one exists.
Several months ago, the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted to refer the sexual assault investigation back to the Attorney General’s Office.
So what’s next? We’ll find out at today’s meeting, where the supervisors could opt to do anything from forcing him to answer their questions or be removed from office — or they simply could do nothing and let the recall efforts continue to play out.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors is meeting on an “off” week today, after pushing their meeting back a full week to certify the RTA Next election results.
Besides the executive session to talk about the sheriff, here are the top five things we are keeping an eye on:
How the County will spend its $20.8 million check from the Project Blue developers. Since the last time supervisors pondered that question, they came up with several changes, including dedicating roughly $1 million to revamp their public records system. (Yay!) Roughly $10 million will go to fixing up county buildings and addressing a backlog of deferred maintenance.
This is how the County wants to spend its Project Blue pocket money.
The Supervisors are also being asked to back a plan to hire six more judges for the Pima County Superior Court because the wheels of justice are moving too slowly and the number of judges is below a federal standard. The state would pay for half of the costs associated with the new judges and Democrats wouldn’t mind seeing Gov. Katie Hobbs appoint six new Democrats to the bench.
Things are not looking good for the Tucson Baseball League, either. The Tucson Baseball Team (yep, that’s their official name) is still facing persistent issues with getting visas for the Mexican baseball team. The board will get an update as the team plans to play in Hermosillo this year, and they’ll talk about the likelihood that the Iranian FIFA soccer team will practice in Tucson.
Supervisors are being asked to dig into the general fund reserve to the tune of $875,000, after FEMA refused to reimburse the county for housing asylum seekers. $329,000 was deemed unallowable because Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona didn’t adhere to procurement standards, likely a reference to “laundry-gate.”
The County will also issue a proclamation celebrating “Everybody Needs a Rock Day” to honor the late, award-winning author Byrd Baylor. “Everybody Needs a Rock” is the name of one of her books, but the day is being used to honor “rocks” in the Tucson community. (Note: We messed up Baylor’s gender when we sent out the newsletter. Luckily, she has a lot of fans who read the Agenda and they let us know about our mistake.)
(Local) quality control: A bill making its way through the Arizona Senate with bipartisan support would strip away most requirements cities put on home design, like fencing, materials or colors, Cecilia Chan reports for the Gilbert Sun News. SB1431 from Republican Sen. Shawnna Bolick aims to make new housing more affordable, and it wouldn’t apply to historic homes. Nick Ponder of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns says states like Texas and Florida passed laws that preempted local control and the quality of housing suffered.
“There’s a difference between cheap and affordable,” Ponder said.
Doubling down on the border wall: The Trump administration is ramping up the construction of more border wall, including near Quitobaquito Springs on Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, per the Washington Post. Those plans include building a second layer of wall along 62 miles of Arizona’s border with Mexico, which opponents of the wall say would create a dangerous “no man’s land” and further cut off migratory routes for creatures like jaguars. At the same time, taxes on contractors working on the wall helped boost sales tax revenue in Santa Cruz County by 24%, Alessandra De Zubeldia reports for the Nogales International.
Complex compassion: The revelations of sexual abuse by César Chávez have been “painful, disorienting and unsettling,” Katlyn Monje, the director of the Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault, wrote in an op-ed in the Tucson Sentinel. She applauded the swift action by local officials who publicly stated they believe the victims of Chávez’s abuse.
“For survivors, seeing others come forward — even years or decades later — can be both validating and painful. It can affirm what so many already know: silence is often a necessary survival strategy, not a sign of consent, weakness or fabrication. Survivors may delay disclosure for countless reasons, including fear, shame, loyalty to a movement or family, or concern that telling the truth will cause harm to others. Those reasons deserve understanding, not suspicion,” Monje writes.
Rate hikes incoming: Tucson officials are poised to increase water rates every year for the next four years, along with various other rates and fees related to planning and transportation, the Arizona Daily Star’s Charles Borla reports. The Tucson City Council signed off on a notice of intent last week to raise rates in July, at the beginning of the city’s fiscal year. City officials expect to bring in $5.2 million annually from the new rates.
It’s times like these when you can really appreciate businesses that don’t raise their prices (cough, cough).
Busy as bees: The most recent edition of the Herald/Review’s “Sunday Roundtable” — which is getting really good — shines a light on the big issues in Cochise County, including plans for data centers and a new solar project that people in Phoenix knew about, but the county supervisors didn’t, Matt Hickman reports.
“You could start with 1,000 acres of open desert east of Sierra Vista, where the state is preparing to auction off a long-term lease for a solar generation facility, and before long you’d find yourself talking about data centers, politics in Benson, a shortage of attorneys, and the uncomfortable reality that sometimes the system simply doesn’t have the resources to do what everyone agrees should be done,” Hickman writes.
After the César Chávez statue near Five Points was vandalized last week, the City of Tucson moved quickly — hauling the sculpture away under the banner of “safety.”
His name, though, still hangs over the intersection on a massive arch, and it remains etched into the Sixth Avenue Bridge nearby — one of many memorials across the city that haven’t been scrubbed away.
Yet.
What happened at Five Points may be just the start — the first visible step in what could become a wider effort, backed by heavy equipment and political decisions to strip the civil rights leader’s name from parks, buildings, bridges — and yes, arches — in the weeks ahead.
1 An odd footnote to the Lang saga: Before voters weighed in, the Pima County Board of Supervisors tried to use the same little-known state statute that Maricopa County supervisors recently considered using to remove Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap.