Key Points:

• Heap is accused of violating open meeting law

• Gallardo says recorder lied about him in a text to other supervisors

• Heap sued supervisors over shared services agreement 

A member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has requested the state’s attorney to investigate Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap for alleged public corruption.

Steve Gallardo, the only Democrat on the board, sent a letter to Attorney General Kris Mayes on Aug. 6 officially requesting an investigation into the Recorder’s Office after a July 30 Votebeat article reported that Heap tried to lobby members of the board via text messages for more election responsibilities through a shared services agreement between the board and Recorder’s Office. 

The request from Gallardo comes after he released a statement disputing a text message where Heap told other Republican members of the board that he convinced Gallardo to support his shared services agreement proposal through “backchanneling and arm twisting.”

“Justin Heap is lying about me, and going forward, he better keep my name out of his lying mouth,” Gallardo said in his statement. 

In his letter to Mayes, Gallardo also accused Heap of violating the state’s open meeting law since Heap had reportedly discussed the shared services agreement with three other supervisors outside of one of the board’s public meetings. 

The Arizona Ombudsman clarifies that text messages are a form of electronic communications and can violate open meeting laws if legal action is proposed within the messages. State law says a one-way electronic communication by one member of a public body that is sent to a quorum of the members of a public body and that proposes legal action qualifies as a meeting.

Gallardo accused Heap of trying to skirt Arizona’s open meeting law by trying to arrange a board vote in a “secret plot” instead of an open, public meeting. 

“The integrity of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has been called into question by Mr. Heap’s words,” Gallardo wrote to Mayes. “If this request for an investigation is considered self-reporting, so be it. The public has a right to know the facts and the truth where their elected Maricopa County Recorder, Justin Heap, colluded with me to bring favor to his issue.”

The Recorder’s Office did not respond to a request for comment from the Arizona Capitol Times.

The allegation that Heap tried to lobby the board is the latest development of a growing tension between the board and the Recorder’s Office. 

In May, the board blocked Heap from automatically mailing ballots to voters who aren’t on the Active Early Voting List for the 7th Congressional District special election, but approved other provisions of the plan created by Heap’s office and the county Elections Department.

Heap also fought the board over a shared services agreement that the previous recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, had made with the board late in 2024, which Heap said has stripped him of significant election responsibilities while shrinking his budget and staff.

“The people of Maricopa County deserve better than the appalling behavior and gaslighting from the Board of Supervisors that has taken place thus far in this process,” Heap said in a May 15 statement. 

Heap then filed a lawsuit against the board on June 12 over the shared services agreement negotiation and alleged the board was stripping the legal authority afforded to a county recorder under Arizona law.

The board’s leaders called the lawsuit “absurd”. They argued America First Legal didn’t have authorization to file the lawsuit from Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell. Mitchell then file​​d a lawsuit against Heap’s office, alleging a violation of state law. 

Both lawsuits are still active in Maricopa County Superior Court. 

“He is totally unfit to be able to run that Recorder’s Office,” Gallardo said in a July 30 interview with the Arizona Capitol Times. “Ever since he has stepped into that office, it has been nothing but chaos. It is too important of an office to have someone so unhinged like him. He really needs to step away and just go on his merry way.”