A bid to force Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos from office collapsed Tuesday when no supervisor seconded the motion, leaving the embattled lawman in place even as the board voted to refer perjury allegations against him to the Arizona Attorney General for investigation.
The split outcome captures the strange political limbo surrounding Nanos: too controversial to defend, yet too entrenched to dislodge through a board vote alone. The perjury referral, the recall drive, and the still-unsolved disappearance of Nancy Guthrie now form three separate pressure tracks, each capable of ending his tenure on its own timeline.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors took up the question of whether to vacate Nanos' office during a meeting that drew intense public attention. Fox News reported that the motion failed because it was never seconded, a procedural dead end that kept the question from reaching a formal vote. The board did, however, refer allegations that Nanos lied under oath to the state's top prosecutor.
Those allegations center on a 2024 lawsuit in which Nanos is accused of testifying falsely about whether he had ever been suspended during his law enforcement career. The New York Post reported that the perjury question has dogged Nanos for months and is now tied to broader scrutiny of discrepancies in his employment history, including his departure from the El Paso Police Department.
Supervisor Rex Scott did not hide his frustration with the sheriff's leadership, even as the removal effort stalled.
"My chief concern with what's been going on within the sheriff's department is that our elected sheriff has taken no discernible efforts to repair relationships and trust within our largest department."
Scott's remarks point to a rift that extends well beyond one missing-person case. Deputies have already cast a no-confidence vote against Nanos, and internal morale problems have surfaced repeatedly in public forums over the past several months.
Nancy Guthrie, the mother of NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie, was apparently abducted from her Tucson-area home. The case has now stretched beyond 100 days with few public breakthroughs, turning what began as a local crime story into a national flashpoint over police competence.
Nanos himself acknowledged missteps early in the investigation. He told reporters that his department returned Guthrie's home to the family too soon before authorities resecured the scene, a decision he later conceded was likely a mistake. That error became a rallying point for critics who questioned whether the sheriff's office was equipped to handle a high-profile abduction case.
AP News reported that Nanos also drew fire for attending a University of Arizona basketball game while Nancy Guthrie was still missing. The optics reinforced a growing public perception that the sheriff was not treating the case with appropriate urgency.
Nanos offered a candid, if unflattering, self-assessment in one exchange with reporters.
"I'm not used to everyone hanging onto my every word and then holding me accountable for what I say."
That quote circulated widely and did little to reassure families in Pima County that their top law enforcement official understood the gravity of the moment. The firing of the lead detective in the Guthrie disappearance only deepened the sense of chaos inside the investigation.
Supervisor Matt Heinz has been among the most vocal critics pushing for the FBI or another federal agency to assume control of the Guthrie investigation. His assessment was blunt.
"It's ridiculous. Almost every other jurisdiction would have done so by now."
Heinz's frustration reflects a bipartisan sentiment in Pima County that local leadership has fumbled the case badly enough to warrant outside intervention. Retired U.S. Marshal Tom Morrissey offered a law enforcement perspective on why the investigation's public stumbles carry operational consequences.
"The perpetrator or perpetrators are watching what law enforcement is doing up close and personal, and it does impact their ability to avoid being discovered or arrested."
Morrissey's warning underscores a point that critics have pressed for weeks: every misstep, every premature disclosure, and every public feud between agencies gives whoever took Nancy Guthrie more room to evade capture. Allegations that investigators downplayed a possible Mexico connection to avoid triggering federal jurisdiction have only sharpened the debate over whether Nanos' department can handle this case alone.
Investigators have not publicly confirmed whether they have identified a suspect, and no arrests have been announced. As of the three-month mark, DNA evidence and retail records were described as active investigative threads, but the sheriff's office has released little about where those threads lead.
Even with the supervisors' removal bid dead, Nanos faces a separate political threat. Republican congressional candidate Daniel Butierez launched a formal recall campaign, tying it directly to the Guthrie case and to what he described as a pattern of leadership failure.
Butierez called Nanos "an embarrassment to Tucson and to Pima County with this Nancy Guthrie case." He described the disappearance investigation as "just the straw that broke the camel's back," pointing to earlier no-confidence sentiment among deputies and questions about Nanos' resume as evidence that the problems run deeper than one case.
Under Arizona law, recall organizers would need roughly 122,230 valid signatures within 120 days to force a special election. The Washington Examiner reported that Butierez said he hopes to collect them within 60 days, an ambitious timeline that would require sustained grassroots energy in a county where Democrats hold a registration advantage.
Newsmax reported that the recall push has drawn bipartisan support, with critics from both parties linking the Guthrie investigation to broader concerns about departmental leadership. The no-confidence sentiment among rank-and-file deputies has given the recall effort a credibility boost that purely partisan campaigns rarely enjoy.
Nanos now faces pressure from three distinct directions. The perjury referral to the Attorney General could produce criminal exposure if investigators determine he lied under oath in 2024. The recall effort, if it gathers enough signatures, would put his job before voters months ahead of any normal election cycle. And the Guthrie investigation itself remains an open wound, with public anger building steadily since the earliest weeks of Nancy Guthrie's disappearance.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether the AG's office has accepted the perjury referral or set a timeline for review. The recall clock, meanwhile, is already running.
Nanos remains in office. Nancy Guthrie remains missing. And the question hanging over Pima County is whether any of the institutions responsible for accountability will move faster than the ones responsible for finding her.
