This editorial appeared in the October 29 edition of The Sierra Vista Herald, the only daily newspaper in Cochise County, Arizona. Crosby is one of three county supervisors, two Republican, one Democrat, in a county where Republicans hold a little over half of the registered voter total. Following the mid-term elections in 2022, the two Republicans, Crosby and Peggy Judd, threw an absolute fit over the vote counts from the county, even though the majority of the votes were Republican. Following the Maga ignorance, they shrieked and threw fits over the machines used to count ballots, in spite of the fact that all of the evidence and auditing that was done showed there was no problem.
Their insistence on hand-counting ballots, and on not certifying the election results until that could be accomplished almost led to not certifying something like 55,000 votes from the county. That would have led to at least two Republicans who were elected, one to state office, one to Congress, not being elected, along with the disenfranchisement of every voter in the county.
Crosby's and Judd's public statements and continued insistent on not believing facts staring them in the face made them and the county a laughing stock nationwide. But, far worse than that, it cost the county the services of a long-term election supervisor known for accuracy, efficiency and honesty, and a lawsuit over the work atmosphere the two supervisors had created leading to her resignation, which the county had to settle. In addition to that, Crosby's continued insistence on not certifying the ballots, even when ordered by the court, led to additional lawsuits which has cost taxpayers into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Both Crosby and Judd have proved that they are incapable of the public office they hold by staring the evidence of their folly right in the face and continuing to make comments that call their competence into question. In this case, justice is coming. The evidence is overwhelming, he's admitted to most of it and his refusal to certify in defiance of the state's supreme court is on the record. At the very least, he and Judd will be ousted, and possibly imprisoned, that's how serious their crimes were.
But people like this are in counties and precincts and states everywhere. They are mindless automatons, incapable of rational thought or clear judgment, following the party loyalty line. And they are going to do everything they can to keep votes from being counted, because they know that the politicians they support can't win on the strength of ballots alone.
OUR VIEW: The Cult of Tom Crosby
Sierra Vista Herald, October 29, 2023
The megalomania that has defined Tom Crosby’s tenure on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors ascended to the rarefied air of messianic delusion this week. In response to a criminal grand jury subpoena sent to him — a sealed state document that Crosby, himself, leaked — the District 1 Supervisor told Herald/Review reporter Terri Jo Neff that he {span}is “praying for (Arizona Attorney General) Kris Mayes every day and I encourage others to do so as well.”
This passive aggressive facetiousness demeans the very sanctity of prayer itself and is a brand of arrogance that never ends well for a movement’s leader or his followers.
Crosby, who survived a recall attempt earlier this year and has a primary challenger awaiting him next year, campaigned on the always appealing rhetoric of cutting government spending, eliminating bureaucracy and standing up to the liberal policies of state and federal authorities who are always “threatening our very way of life.”
After sufficiently organizing and mesmerizing his followers, Crosby has proceeded to make a mockery of the trust we held in local elections; he has spit on the highly regarded reputation of the legal profession, denied his constituents — especially those of lesser financial means — the funding to improve health care, pursued meaningless disputes that have cost Cochise County taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, and openly violated the sanctity of public transparency to benefit his agenda and assure its adoption.
Nonetheless, his arrogance has been bolstered. Responding to an action from Mayes, the highest-ranked law enforcement officer in all of Arizona, Crosby urged his followers to pity and pray for this wayward soul, all the while denying the authority her office holds over investigating his repeated disregard toward even the basics of open meeting laws.
The potential crimes the state is investigating Crosby for may go beyond open meeting law violations. In the fall of 2022, Crosby and fellow supervisor Peggy Judd were hellbent on making Cochise County the laughingstock of the nation by refusing to do their duty and certify the county’s election results. They also got hit with a lawsuit for ordering a hand count audit of all cast ballots, even though County Attorney Brian McIntyre told the board such an action was patently illegal.
This resulted in the BOS retaining private legal counsel with an initial payment due of $10,000.
Mysteriously, that item disappeared from the board’s agenda as a private party ended up picking up the tab instead, with no public naming of the source. This is yet another violation of the public trust and yet another example of Crosby’s certainty that the laws we all live by don’t apply to him.
He’s about to find out that they do.
Such arrogance, even if believed in sincerely, never ends well. Eventually the hubris leads both the exalted and the loyalists onto a path of failed martyrdom and shame.
History will repeat itself, sooner than later, we hope, and this dark period in Cochise County will only be remembered for its passionate idiocy.
The Sierra Vista Herald-Review, October 29, 2023
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