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Despite the looming shadow of incoming president Donald Trump, 2016 had some bright spots for Arizona, politically speaking.

Paul Penzone, sheriff-elect of Maricopa County, revealed plans on December 20 for replacing the top leadership of the sheriff’s office with his own team.

In an interview with New Times, Joe Arpaio said one of his “failures” as Maricopa County sheriff was not being able to have a better relationship with the Latino community. His critics are not quick to forget or forgive.

The display cabinet behind the desk of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been cleaned out. The walls of his expansive office on the third floor of the sheriff’s space-agey headquarters at 550 West Jackson Street are bare; photographs and framed awards overlap on the floor, ready to be boxed…

Weeks before the election, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was making plans to resign from office if he were to be reelected — possibly depending on an appointment from Donald Trump or maybe because of his legal problems, New Times has learned. In an interview yesterday, Arpaio denied this. But a…

Latino activists are counting on the new sheriff in town, Paul Penzone, to make changes in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and improve relations with the Latino community.

At the Phoenix Hyatt Regency, amid the euphoria over Donald Trump’s victory Tuesday night, those who gathered for the state GOP’s watch party overlooked key losses to Democrats as if they were mere trifles, rather than the demise of some major Arizona power players. Perhaps this was due to the unexpectedness…

Here are five things to remember about Sheriff Joe Arpaio before you cast your vote on November 8, 2016.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has hired a D.C. firm to ask Judge G. Murray Snow to recuse himself based on a curious legal argument. Arpaio’s critics cry foul.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s latest campaign commercial offers the best evidence yet that his re-election effort may be foundering like that doomed fishing vessel in The Perfect Storm.  Recent polls have shown Arpaio trailing his Democratic challenger Paul Penzone, sometimes by difficult-to-believe margins — as much as 15 points according to an Arizona…

If recent polls are to be believed, Sheriff Joe Arpaio trails Democratic challenger Paul Penzone by double digits, signalling the end may be near for the 84 year-old GOP icon, who recently was charged with criminal contempt of court by the U.S. Department of Justice for his obstreperous behavior in…

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed Toughest Sheriff in America, is about to find out if he’s tough enough to weather a criminal charge and still win re-election. A misdemeanor charge of contempt appears inevitable after today’s hearing in federal court in Phoenix, when officials from the Arizona U.S…

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office has declined to prosecute Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s favorite deputy Brian Mackiewicz on allegations that Mackiewicz abused his overtime while working on the MCSO’s notorious Seattle investigation, which involved a 13-month probe of a kooky anti-Arpaio conspiracy theory that supposedly involved federal Judge G. Murray Snow…

Fans of tattooed faces and tear-streaked mascara will be disappointed to learn that Sheriff Joe Arpaio has canceled his controversial “Mugshot of the Day” series. Since April 2011, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office website feature had allowed the public to cast votes on the mugshots of people booked into the…

With polls showing Sheriff Joe Arpaio trailing in his head-to-head race with Democrat Paul Penzone, and with the first date in Arpaio’s criminal case in federal court scheduled for October 11, Arpaio’s campaign has gone negative against his rival, regurgitating a nasty, untrue accusation from their 2012 contest in a…

When Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is under oath, in a deposition or during a trial, he invariably describes his management style in Reaganesque terms, asserting that he delegates the responsibilities of his office to underlings. This allows Arpaio to pass the proverbial buck to subordinates, keeping the sheriff insulated,…

As a quadriplegic who relies on a wheelchair to get around, Phil Pangrazio doesn’t know whether to applaud or condemn a new advocacy group that is patrolling Phoenix parking lots, taking a measuring tape to their handicap-accessible spaces, and suing businesses that don’t comply with the standards outlined in the…

If you want a guaranteed spit-take, take a gulp of coffee while watching Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s first campaign commercial of the general election, which just began running on local TV stations. It opens with images of brown and black men in orange jumpsuits with a faceless narrator, explaining, “Some cities…

Maricopa Strong, a recently-formed independent expenditure committee with a Phoenix address, has been sending anti-Sheriff Joe Arpaio mailers to Republicans in Maricopa County over the last couple of weeks.  According to sources with knowledge of the committee, Maricopa Strong is the creation of BerlinRosen a liberal political consulting firm with…