The happy news broke this week that not one, but two, petitions are circulating in Arizona District 18 to recall Senator Russell Pearce, the architect of SB 1070 and President of the Senate. The people circulating the petitions are not lefty groups; they're moderates and even Republicans who've had enough of the bullying and incompetence.
As New Times reports, one group is Arizonans for Better Government, which is spearheaded by Somos Republicans, an organization associated with the Hispanic GOP. The other is Citizens for a Better Arizona, led by Tucson activist Randy Parraz, who ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic Senate primary to challenge McCain. Why the two similar-named groups don't work together is beyond me, but they seem to be on good terms and each believes they will gather enough signatures to put the recall on the ballot.
Regardless of the odd parallel process, this is good news. For the few readers who may still be in the dark about why Pearce is subject to a recall, I started putting together a Letterman Top 10 List. But that number proved woefully insufficient, so I offer:
The Top 20 Reasons To Recall Senator Russell Pearce
- He's a bigot. Pearce can yammer all he wants about SB 1070 and his many other discriminatory pieces of legislation being about the "rule of law," whether it's his ethnic studies ban, the assault on Affirmative Action, or his English Only bill; but the reality is they all target a specific segment of the population based solely on ethnicity. Pearce is the walking embodiment of bigotry -- someone who would stigmatize, target, or otherwise limit the rights of individuals because of their race. And let's not forget the fine people and organizations he's worked with to research and craft his bills, many of which lean toward the racist end of the spectrum. For example, the chief author of SB 1070, and the organization Pearce gets most of his "facts" from, is the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The Southern Poverty Law Center labels FAIR a hate group because of its association with supremacists, eugenics supporters, Nazi sympathizers, and other nativist assholes.
- At minimum he's corrupt, perhaps worse. Pearce bounced around in state jobs until he became director of the Motor Vehicles Department in 1995, but in less than 4 years he was canned for falsifying records. The only reason he doesn't have a blotch on his record is that Transportation Department Director Mary Peters chose not to prosecute if he quit. Later, after Pearce was elected to the legislature, an investigation by the East Valley Tribune uncovered bills Pearce introduced that helped a friend's business. More recently, an NPR investigation found "a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry." Pearce denies the industry influence, even though 30 of 36 of the bill's co-sponsors received recent donations from prison lobbyists or companies.
- He's a homophobe. Name any piece of anti-LGBT legislation in Arizona, and I bet you'll find Russell Pearce's name attached to it. While in the House he introduced the "Parameters of Marriage" Amendment to the State Constitution, which defined marriage the way he likes it and denied benefits to same-sex couples. When it failed in the Senate, he and other Republicans took the argument to voters and pushed for the "Marriage Protection Amendment." The ballot proposition passed in 2008 and is now, thankfully, "protecting" my marriage from being destroyed by the gays.
- He's a hypocrite. The Senator brags about "the rule of law" and "a nation of laws," at the same time his son Joshua has had 31 documented run-ins with police, he's been arrested 10 times, his children are in foster homes, and he's currently in drug rehab. (And Pearce complains that illegal aliens cost taxpayers money!) How his son has not spent time in jail is anyone's guess, yet Pearce rants about how others should be held accountable for breaking the law.
- He's a meanie who hits people. Like his son, who is currently being investigated for child abuse, and has been arrested for domestic violence, Pearce is hot-headed. In his wife's divorce filing she said, "the husband, Russell Keith Pearce, is possessed of a violent temper, and has from time to time hit and shoved the wife, the last time being on February 3, when he grabbed the wife by the throat and threw her down.” Although the couple reconciled, her affidavit (pdf) paints a rosy picture. Nice guy.
- He's a religious zealot. Pearce is a proud follower of the Mormon fundamentalist Cleon Skousen, author of many crazy-ass books, including The 5000 Year Leap, which was recently reissued with a foreword by Glenn Beck. Skousen, who died in 2006, was a member of the John Birch Society and in his lectures, which Pearce attended, he preached that the Constitution is divinely inspired but is under attack from secularists and communists. Skousen believed the only people capable of saving democracy are white Mormon men. That is what's behind SB 1070. We're saving America here, brown people need not apply.
- He's an incompetent lawmaker. Arizona's economy, education system, and healthcare program are among the worst in the nation, near the bottom of the barrel in just about every significant indicator (like graduation rates). Russell Pearce is the President of the Senate, so he helped send us over the cliff. And on the first day of the new legislative session last week, rather than address our state's many problems, here are two things he considered top priorities: a) He said it's okay for lawmakers to carry weapons into the Capitol and legislative chambers; b) He brought forward 4 bills that will challenge the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. Yeah, that's what is really going to help Arizona out of its economic death spiral.
- He has no common sense. Listen, I'm not saying Pearce is a Nazi or Aryan Nation sympathizer, but if you received an email from a white supremacist group with links to a racist article, would you forward it to over 100 of your supporters? Yes, he did that. While Pearce later apologized, the email included a link to the Aryan group's website and an article titled "Who Rules America?" which condemns the media for promoting racial equality and presenting the Holocaust as fact.
- He's got some pretty unsavory friends. What brought Pearce to national attention a couple years ago were photos of him at white supremacist rallies, hanging with pals like J.T. Ready, who's a member of the National Socialist Movement. Later, the Senator spoke to a bunch of wingers and Brownshirts at a rally at the State Capitol, where Ready introduced Pearce as a true "statesman." I haven't seen so many "Sieg Heils" in a video since Leni Riefenstahl.
- He's heartless. Because the Arizona organ transplant story has been all over the national news, many people know Governor Brewer has refused to appropriate $1.5 million for the program, which would be matched by the Feds with $3.5 million. That $5 million would keep alive nearly 100 people who were promised transplants, but were then turned away due to budget cuts. Brewer has deservedly come off as a cruel SOB in the media, but many people didn't hear Pearce's response. The classy Senator, who now fancies himself an expert on transplants, told ABC News, "Most of those will die anyway," which of course is not true, as the American Society of Transplant Surgeons pointed out in a press release.
Whew, time for a beer, I'm only half-way there...
- He doesn't value education. The only way Arizona is going to dig itself out of this mess is with an educated citizenry, but as a leader of the Republican majority, which has dominated Arizona's legislature for as long as I can remember, Pearce has joined the fight to defund public education and privatize the entire system. We're the poster child for charter schools, having pioneered the concept in the '90s and now more than 25% of Arizona schools are private. Of the 4,000 charter schools in America, more than 500 are here, and that's led to some pretty nasty results: Arizona ranks 50th in dollars spent per pupil, 49th in teacher-student ratio, and 46th in graduation rate (59%). And then there's the lunatic bills Pearce keeps introducing that only get in the way of instruction: the ethnic studies ban and his bill that requires school districts to document every immigrant student. It's legislation that has nothing to do with education; it only serves to drive wedges between people and exacerbate hate. He's also led the budget attack on those "liberal" universities, cutting them to the bone (another $170 million this year), even though our university and community college systems are tremendous economic drivers and business recruitment tools.
- He's helped destroy the state's economy. This could be an entire diary, or two. In a nutshell, Pearce has led the fight to cut corporate taxes and regulations by sponsoring bills like the Tax Reduction Act and the Regulation Reduction for Business -- all in an attempt to create a growth-friendly climate. Unfortunately, it worked, but because of the tax cuts, revenues didn't keep pace with growth, and now the state finds itself in a financial shit hole where the only solution is either to raise taxes (which they won't) or cut services (which they've done with abandon). That's led to a vicious economic circle: crappy schools and a piss-poor quality of life don't make the state attractive to high-value employers, so we're losing good businesses and not recruiting others. The other monkeywrench Pearce threw into the economic engine was SB 1070, which led to boycotts from tourists and cities that refused to do business with Arizona. While the boycotts are largely over, the immediate result of SB 1070 was the loss of tens of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs. That's some expensive bigotry!
- He's brought back McCarthyism. If you don't agree with Senator Pearce or his pal Joe Apaio, they won't argue the merits of your opposition; instead they'll call you, “anti-American, anti-law, pro-illegal alien," which is language Pearce used to describe Arpaio's critics. The other Red Scare tactic Pearce has resurrected is turning everyone into a spy, enlisting us all as soldiers in his anti-immigrant war. The proposition he pushed through in 2004, called "Protect Arizona Now," makes it a crime for state employees not to report undocumented immigrants seeking benefits. His bill SB 1097 (pdf) requires teachers and administrators to report undocumented students in their classrooms, implanting the idea that discrimination is justifiable throughout the entire education system.
- He ignores constitutional rights. The Second Amendment is sacrosanct for Pearce; he's sponsored a lot of bills that have turned the state into the Wild West. Guns in bars? No problem. But other rights ... not so much. This is most obvious in his attempt to redefine the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, and several bills to do just that have just been introduced in the legislature. Unlike wingnuts elsewhere who are challenging the 14th Amendment, this is not new for Pearce; he's been on this hobby horse for years, with his talk of "anchor babies" and his opinion that the citizenship clause only applies to slaves. He knows he's on shaky ground legally, but that's not the point: he wants to make a public stand and drive this through to the Supreme Court, regardless of how much time or money it takes. He's also not a fan of the Fourth Amendment's search and seizure clause, which was revealed in an emailbetween immigration wacko Kris Kobach and Pearce, where they discuss changing the language of SB 1070 to allow police to "use violations of property codes (i.e., cars on blocks in the yards) or rental codes ... to initiate queries as well." Naturally, when it comes to a woman's right to choose, Pearce never saw a bill restricting that right that he did not welcome. He consistently earns a 0 rating from Planned Parenthood.
- He's erasing our heritage. Long before Pearce's ancestors showed up in the Southwest, this region was home to dozens of indigenous tribes, followed by Mexicans. When Tucson was the Territorial Capitol, it was a Hispanic community. As many Hispanics say, "We didn't cross the line, the line crossed us." Pearce, however, wants to rewrite history: he led the charge to pass an ethnic studies ban in public schools, claiming that teaching Indian or Mexican history is anti-Anglo. He says he did this to eliminate "radical" studies, but read the bill: it's written so broadly that any xenophobe could rid a school of any course that does not parrot the Great White Story. Another slice of Arizona's heritage is its land, from the Grand Canyon to the Sonoran Desert. Pearce is one of the most development-friendly members of the legislature, regardless of what the development does to the environment. He likely would have joined the businessmen who said T. Roosevelt was destroying the state's "free market" when he set aside the Grand Canyon as a National Monument in 1908. The Sierra Club consistently rates Pearce an F.
- He's a chickenhawk. Like his buddy Joe Arpaio, who served as a clerk in France during the Korean War, the Vietnam-era Pearce joined the National Guard and spent his entire tour in Arizona. I have no problem with people who used college deferments, medical excuses, the National Guard, or fled to Canada to avoid that stupid war. What I do have a problem with is lard-asses who never saw a day of conflict swaggering around with guns and chomping at the bit to send men and women into battle -- for no reason other than to get their macho jollies off.
- He fibs. Senator Pearce and just about every other anti-immigrant voice is good at pulling statistics and stories out of their backsides. Pearce, for example, has often said 67% of law officers killed were murdered by illegal aliens, but when pressed on that figure he can supply no source. He's also fond of saying that immigration costs Arizona taxpayers $2.7 billion annually, another figure that's made up. Many other dubious "facts" have been exposed, such as the "increased" crime along the border (not so, it's down), the "headless bodies" in the desert (not one was ever found), the County Sheriff who was attacked by drug runners (a fabrication and he was fired), or the rant that Obama is not "securing the borders," when he's sent more agents and resources there than any previous administration.
- He's made us less safe. Pearce has supported every NRA-inspired piece of legislation, such as bills that allow guns in bars and restaurants, bills that allow people without permits to carry concealed weapons, and legislation that exempts Arizona dealers from federal regulations (we've seen the result of that: more gun-running to Mexican cartels). Pearce has introduced legislation that funds vigilante forces on the border, and he's a hero to the Minutemen and J.T. Ready's desert goons. Rather than protect us, however, rather than keep Arizonans safe, they murdered a man and his 9-year-old daughter.
- He's a joke. Whenever I travel around the country, the first question someone usually asks is, "What the f*ck are you people doing down there?" Anyone who's paying attention knows of Joe Arpaio, Jan Brewer, and Russell Pearce; and as long as these three stooges are the state mascots, we're in serious doo-doo. Whether it's their hateful immigration policies, their cowboy swagger, or their stupid bills (like last year's Birther bill), they make Arizona look like a bunch of vicious doofuses. This can't be good, unless their goal is to attract a lot more vicious doofuses.
And the Number One reason to recall Senator Russell Pearce ...
- He's [fill in the blank]. Audience participation, add your own reason. Please, no comments about his dick or the fact he can't dance. Be civil.