Mark Lamb decided to run for sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona, after his pest control business failed and a police officer friend gave him a ride-along. “I had this deep burning desire to run for sheriff. I knew it was the Lord speaking to me and telling me I had a path,” Lamb said, as recorded in The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy, a new book from investigative journalist and attorney Jessica Pishko.
Surprisingly, many states don’t require candidates for sheriff to know anything about law enforcement or to have any particular training for a job that allows them to make arrests, oversee arsenals, and run jails. Though some dismiss America’s right-wing sheriffs as rogues (or nuts) with limited impact, extremists like Lamb locally and collectively wield increasing amounts of influence and power that threaten our country, writes Pishko.
In her 500-page volume, out September 17, Pishko details how a group of mostly white male sheriffs, like Lamb, have created a far-right conservative movement that promotes sheriffs as chosen by God to carry out the power of posse comitatus—meaning the power to assemble armed militias of their fellow citizens through a process known as “hew and cry” for just about any mission they may choose, including tackling supposedly widespread voter fraud, a border invasion, or a kiddie porn ring, among other popular conspiracy theories.
