The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (MCBOS) is continuing its feud with Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap. Now the MCBOS appears to be targeting Heap’s Chief of Staff, Sam Stone, over political posts made from his personal X account. Both agencies are in litigation after the MCBOS took away much of Heap’s office, which a judge ordered them to return. Then they proceeded to set up ballot drop boxes despite Heap’s legal representation, America First Legal, warning them it would be committing felonies. Now the MCBOS appears to be colluding with a leftist rag to generate a hit piece on Stone.
The article accuses Stone — who doesn’t mention his official position on his personal X account — of posting on X during work hours. However, that doesn’t violate any law or policy. Maricopa County’s Code of Conduct says nothing about employees’ personal social media accounts. The closest thing it says related to Stone’s posting is, “While on-duty, Employees shall not engage in any activities or personal business which would cause them to neglect their duties.”
Stone told me that he made those posts during long meetings, conference calls, or other times when he was waiting around, such as standing in a long line. He told me he has ADHD, so occasionally posting on X during long meetings helps keep him alert. He is a valuable staffer at the office and works long hours, so he does the opposite of neglecting his duties.
His posts that the rag mentioned attacked Democrats for supporting evil regimes, criticized ASU for promoting DEI, and slammed Planet Fitness for allowing biological men in women’s locker rooms. Stone criticized the UN, blasted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani multiple times, ridiculed Minnesota, made fun of drug addicts in San Francisco, called to impeach judges blocking President Donald Trump’s firing of federal employees and more.
Stone told me he will never apologize for standing up against men competing in women’s sports, or as a Jew, for his opposition to Islamist expansion. He stands by his political opinions.
Sounds like standard political posts that people make every day on X. Stone didn’t threaten anyone; he didn’t doxx anyone. He makes some of the cleverest posts on X. I always enjoy reading them and reposting him. I believe the MCBOS is going after him with their comrades in the fake news because they find him a threat due to his catchy, persuasive posts, and know he won’t back down on assisting Heap’s fight to restore election integrity to the office.
The MCBOS is composed of a leftist Democrat, three RINOs pretending to be Republicans (it is impossible to get elected as a Democrat to that board in Maricopa County except in one gerrymandered district), and one lone conservative who disagrees with the rest of the board on the power grabs. The MCBOS has been under fire from the conservative base for stonewalling election integrity efforts since the 2020 election.
Heap was elected in 2024, defeating former Recorder Stephen Richer, who has now shown his true colors by working with Soros-affiliated outfits. Richer had become so unpopular (and he’d said he was going to vote for Joe Biden for president even though he was a Republican) that, although a third conservative candidate ran in the GOP primary, which could have split the conservative vote, allowing Richer to win, Heap still soundly beat both.
Now, Heap is fulfilling the election integrity platform he ran on. One major focus of the office in his first year was excising programs that were built under Democratic Recorder Adrian Fontes and continued under Richer, which were being used by left-wing third-party groups to help their partisan voter registration efforts. Heap also redesigned the signature verification system to eliminate the ability of workers to see the party of the individual whose signature is being verified.
Stone told me that he believes the MCBOS is coordinating with radical Left LUCHA and the Arabella/Soros networks to attack the office. Additionally, the MCBOS has targeted Recorder CIO Bryan Colby and Director of Voter Registration Janine Petty, accusing them and Stone of felonies. Those charges have been repeatedly and directly refuted by the court.
Under the 1968 Supreme Court case Pickering v. Board of Education, as well as later cases, employees retain rights to speak as private citizens on "matters of public concern," which include political opinions and policy debates. While government employees have some limitations that private employees do not, Stone, who previously served as chief of staff for conservative former Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, has not violated any of the county’s policies.
Stone told me he could have “rolled over for the insiders years ago and gotten rewarded with a cushy lifetime government job like many of the staffers for the prior BOS members did.” He said he’s been offered those jobs, but “I’ve never even considered taking the bait.” And since the MCBOS can’t buy him, they’re going in the other direction with the attacks.
Democratic politicians and staffers have posted far more radical political views on social media than Stone. Despite that, RINOs and government insiders have a long history of publishing hit pieces full of nothing but innuendoes and attacks on conservatives for posting their political views on social media, hoping something will stick in the barrage. Since Maricopa County employees are prohibited from discussing politics on their official social media accounts, the article about Stone deceitfully tries to blur the line between personal and official accounts to insinuate that Stone must have done something wrong. That’s about the only way the left can take down people on the Right: stretch the truth.
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