Recall campaign Against Sheriff Arpaio Fails

The campaign by Respect Arizona to trigger a recall election against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Apaio failed on Thursday. Campaign organizers, led by Randy Parraz and Lilia Alvarez, said they didn’t feel confident they had the 335,000 valid voters signatures required by 5 p.m., the deadline for filing the signatures at the county elections office.

The campaign was given a late push by the recent court finding that the 80-year-old sheriff and his deputies were guilty of racial profiling against Latinos in Maricopa County. Until the court finding, Arpaio had denied allegations that his deputies racial profiled Latinos in traffic patrols focusing on undocumented immigrants.  

“I wish from the bottom of my heart that this ruling would have come out a month earlier. Had this ruling come out a month earlier, who knows how many signatures we would have gotten,” Democratic state Rep. Martin Quezada of Avondale told the Associated Press.

The recall campaign galvanized hundreds of Latino and non-Latino volunteers to collect signatures after campaign financing to pay signature collectors ran out. While the recall may have failed in its bid to oust the sheriff,  the campaign keep the heat and spotlight on the six-term sheriff’s failure to protect the public against other crimes such as child abuse while the sheriff and his deputies made immigration raids and round-ups his department’s top priority. The sheriff directed his financial and personnel resources to this anti-immigrant campaign.

In addition, Respect Arizona leaders keep the issue of $25 million in lawsuits paid by the county because of lawsuits against abuse and deaths in the sheriff’s jails in the public’s eye.  

However, the campaign’s organizers and state Democratic legislators are calling on Arpaio to resign because of the court’s finding of systematic racial profiling against Latinos. Other reasons they say he should resign include his office’s failure to investigate more than 400 sex crimes.

Respect Arizona say they will continue to press the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on the sheriff’s lawsuits and racial profiling reforms.