Today at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, Randy Parraz, one of the co-directors of Citizens for a Better Arizona (CBA), which spearheaded the successful recall of Senate President Russell Pearce, said his organization will now focus on removing the state's other two leading nativist twerps, Governor Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Randy Parraz, president of Citizens for a Better Arizona, said Monday he was not starting a petition drive -- at least not yet. Instead, the organization's web site is looking for 5,000 people who each will commit to get at least 100 signatures apiece. At that point, he said the group will proceed. The decision to adopt a wait-and-see attitude is crucial: It takes 432,021 valid signatures on petitions to even call an election. Verde Independent
CBA will gear up for a recall of Brewer, but not Arpaio, which makes sense. The Sheriff faces an election next year, which opponents can focus on, while Blank Slate Brewer could be dithering inanities until 2014. According to the Verde Independent article, she laughed when asked about the possibility of a recall -- just like Senator Pearce did, arrogantly bragging that he'd never lost an election in Mesa. Until November 8, 2011.
The Governor also claimed that most citizens don't want her to shift attention from prosecuting immigrants and instead tackle education and jobs. Wrong! A new ASU poll says that 78 percent of Arizonans favor a pathway to citizenship for undocumenteds. We're tired of the lies, name-calling, and fear-mongering. Put aside your Mexican scapegoating and Birther Bills and gay bashing and Planned Parenthood attacks, and get to fucking work at digging the state's economy out of the shit hole you've dug!
Stephen Lemons writes today in New Times that Brewer and Arpaio do not share Pearce's rabid racism, a belief born of his association with Mormon wingnut Cleon Skousen, the Birchers, and white supremacists. But Brewer and Arpaio have taken advantage of Pearce's SB 1070 for their own purposes, and now it's time to make them answer for it.
Unlike Pearce, they are not true believers. Arpaio and Brewer are opportunists, their fingers to the proverbial wind. And even their desiccated digits must feel some inkling that the breeze is beginning to blow in a different direction. New Times
Yep, that breeze is shifting. Last week Brewer received a thumping from the Arizona Supreme Court, which reinstalled Colleen Coyle Mathis, the chairwoman of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) who Brewer and the GOP-dominated legislature ousted. For what, Jan couldn't really say. Neither could the justices, who overturned her meddling in an agency that was established by voters precisely to keep politicians away from the redistricting process.
The Governor may still try to remove Mathis -- along with the two Democratic Commission members. Let's hope she does try. Even conservative pundits here said her last move smelled of partisan overreach, especially since the Commission had not even finished drawing its maps! That she's sticking her nose into voter-approved initiatives, like the AIRC and the medical marijuana law, doesn't sit well with the state's independent-minded voters.
For his part, media hog Sheriff Joe is using CBA's threat as a fundraising ploy, whining that "leftist agitators" are coming after him, just like they did his "dear friend" Senator Pearce. What else is new? The turd with a badge already has $6 million in his war chest as he prepares for a 2012 election, but a recent email blast says he needs more because "Battling this recall is going to be costly." Relax Joe, there won't be a recall. His election is just over a year away, so CBA and others can focus on defeating him then. Even better: perhaps the 3-year DOJ investigation into racial profiling or the Federal Grand Jury probe into abuse of powers will rid us of the blowhard before then. Most of his senior deputies are already gone for the same crimes.
Brewer and Arpaio, along with AG Tom Horne, are on the wrong side, casting their political lot with the extremists, to which Lemons at New Times responds, "What's necessary is to make it a very uncomfortable place for them to be."
Which is exactly what Citizens for a Better Arizona announced today. If you wanna camp out with the bigoted nutjobs, go ahead. But one Senator already tried that.