A Republican congressional candidate has launched a recall effort against Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, saying he has nearly 500 volunteers collecting signatures and a 120-day window to force the embattled sheriff out of office or into a special election.
The New York Post reported that Daniel Butierez, who is running against Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva this November, confirmed he initiated the recall process last week.
He said he made the decision on Wednesday, secured his serial number for the recall on Thursday, and by Friday, police in Pima County "had a unanimous vote of no confidence" in Sheriff Nanos.
Representatives for Sheriff Nanos did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
Butierez did not mince words about why the recall is necessary. The Nancy Guthrie investigation, which Nanos leads, has become a flashpoint for public frustration in Pima County, compounded by allegations last week that the sheriff lied under oath about his employment history.
"He has been an embarrassment to Tucson and to Pima County with this Nancy Guthrie case."
That assessment, Butierez says, is not confined to one side of the aisle.
"Everyone's pretty disgusted, Democrats and Republicans."
When a sheriff loses the confidence of his own deputies and draws bipartisan contempt from the public he serves, the problem is not political. It is institutional.
Law enforcement credibility depends on the person at the top, and Nanos appears to have squandered whatever reservoir of trust he once held.
The recall requires signatures from 25% of total votes cast in the last sheriff's election in 2024, which equals roughly 120,000 signatures. Butierez said he plans to overshoot that number.
"I'm probably going to go for 135,000 signatures."
He currently has almost 500 volunteers working to collect those signatures and five notaries to process the paperwork. Once submitted, the Pima County Recorder has 60 days to verify them against voter registration records.
If the signatures hold up, Nanos will be notified and given five days to decide whether to resign or trigger a Special Recall Election.
That's a steep climb. Collecting 135,000 verified signatures in 120 days requires organizational discipline and sustained public anger. But Butierez seems confident the anger is there.
He noted that some potential supporters are "afraid of repercussions from Sheriff Nanos," which is itself a telling detail. When residents of a county fear retaliation for exercising their democratic rights against their own sheriff, that sheriff has already answered the question of whether he should remain in office.
Butierez emphasized the cross-party nature of the effort:
"This is a bipartisan effort. It's not like we're trying to get signatures from one party or the other."
He also recounted a conversation with Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, a Democrat, in which Romero allegedly told him his social media posts about city failures cause her phone to "blow up off the hook."
According to Butierez, Romero expressed willingness to work with him and even told him she thinks he can beat Grijalva, saying that her constituents across party lines appreciate his community involvement.
Take those recounted comments for what they are: one candidate's account of a private conversation. But even if only directionally accurate, they suggest the depth of frustration with local leadership in Pima County extends well beyond Republican voters.
When a Democratic mayor allegedly tells a Republican candidate that her own constituents love him, something has broken in the local political order.
Recall efforts are rare, difficult, and usually fail. They require not just anger but sustained, organized civic action over months. The fact that Butierez attracted nearly 500 volunteers almost immediately after launching the effort on social media suggests Nanos's problems are not manufactured outrage.
They are the product of accumulated failures that residents have watched in real time.
Butierez acknowledged that his own public profile as a congressional candidate gave him the standing to initiate the recall without fear:
"I decided I'd do it because I'm a congressional candidate, I'm already in the spotlight, and I don't see Nanos messing with me."
That sentence carries a quiet indictment. The implication is that ordinary citizens felt they could not safely challenge their own sheriff. A man running for Congress had to step in because private citizens feared the person sworn to protect them.
Butierez is preparing for a rematch with Grijalva, who won last September's special election with almost 69% of the vote. That's a steep deficit to overcome. But leading a high-profile recall effort against an unpopular sheriff is not a bad way to build name recognition and demonstrate organizational capacity ahead of November.
Whether the recall succeeds or not, Nanos now governs under a cloud that will not lift on its own. The allegations, the vote of no confidence, the silence from his own representatives when asked for comment: none of it projects the authority a county sheriff needs to function.
Pima County deserves better than a sheriff whose constituents have to be brave to hold him accountable.
