For weeks reporters and curious policy wonks have been trying to figure out who Olivia Cortes is. She's one of three candidates on the ballot for the November 8 recall election of Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce. In addition to Pearce, the author of SB 1070 and reams of other anti-immigrantion, anti-women, anti-healthcare, and anti-education policies, the other leading candidate is Republican Jerry Lewis. Lewis is a respected school administrator, Mormon leader, and longtime resident of District 18 in Mesa, so when he declared every other person who had expressed interest in challenging Pearce withdrew from the race and threw their support behind Lewis.
Everyone but Olivia Cortes, a retired single mother who has no political experience. Almost immediately, skeptics floated the idea that Cortes is a sham candidate, a dishonest ploy by the Pearce team to siphon votes from Jerry Lewis. Given Pearce's staunch anti-Hispanic and anti-women policies, having a Latina name on the ballot may steal just enough votes from Jerry Lewis to hand the election to Pearce.
What helped give the sham accusation legs is that Cortes refused to meet with the media, and she declined to schedule public events. Reporters visited her apartment and called her regularly, trying to get some idea of who she is and what her political platform is. Just yesterday she finally agreed to a short interview with Channel 15, but of course you learn next to nothing about Cortes there. Nor does she explain why a person running for public office would shun media exposure and refuse to meet with the public. I'm no political consultant, but that seems bass-ackward.
During this sorry saga, more than a few eyebrows were raised when it was discovered that it was Pearce's supporters who gathered signatures to put Cortes's name on the November ballot. Signature collectors included members of Pearce's campaign team, such as Daniel Grimm; Mesa Tea Party activist Greg Western; and even two of the Senator's own nieces! Their father, Lester Pearce, is a judge and one of his brother's cheerleaders, which raises some ethical and legal issues. Greg Western, a Pearce ally and chair of the East Valley Tea Party Committee, even dropped off Cortes's signatures at the Secretary of State's Office! Curiouser and curiouser.
As I posted the other day, when a Mesa resident filed a lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of Cortes's candidacy, someone wrote a press release under her name and sent it to the Sonoran Alliance, a local rightwing website, accusing skeptics of racism. Got that? The people who want to defeat the state's #1 bigot, Russell Pearce, are the racists! Who wrote the press release is anyone's guess.
Today, then, a trial began before Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Edward Burke to determine whether or not Olivia Cortes's name should remain on the ballot. What complicates the matter is that the ballots are printed and some overseas ballots for early voting have already been distributed. Still, Ms. Cortes did not help her case during testimony this morning. Catch some of the claptrap over the squiggle.
For starters, Olivia Cortes said she is a legitimate candidate and not a shill for the Pearce campaign. She lists herself as campaign committee chair and treasurer, but she doesn't know who is helping her. Now that's a sure sign of leadership.
During her testimony, Cortes said she is paying for her campaign but admitted she hasn't yet spent any money. She said she does not know who paid professional circulators to collect the signatures to get her on the ballot. She said she also does not know who paid for the signs with her name on it that were put up around West Mesa. She doesn't know who created her Web site. Arizona Republic
You can see that website here, where there's a picture of the candidate, some information about her, and a few homilies about God and patriotism -- supposedly her platform. But she doesn't know who created the website nor, presumably, does she know where the donations are going that are solicited there. Nor does she seem to be curious as to why Russell Pearce's supporters are helping her.
What we know about the paid signature gatherers is that they want Cortes on the ballot in order to "dilute" the anti-Pearce vote and swing the election his way. We know this because they admitted as much to reporters, and today lawyer Tom Ryan, who filed the suit against Cortes, asked one of the paid petition solicitors that very question on the stand:
Ryan did get Suzanne Dreher, who was hired to circulate nominating petitions for Cortes, to admit that she urged Pearce supporters to sign. More to the point, she told them that getting Cortes on the ballot ultimately would help Pearce by diluting the vote against him. East Valley Tribune
Pearce ally Daniel Grimm also said he gathered signatures for Cortes even as he was campaigning for Russell Pearce. According to the East Valley Tribune story, "he saw no conflict." Gulp. Grimm was also asked about his role in the Cortes campaign last week on video, but had "no comment."
Yesterday, Channel 12's Brahm Resnik reported that he had unearthed an email from Constantine Querard that was sent to other Republicans. Querard is a powerful kingmaker and well-known GOP operative who is also a longtime Pearce ally. His email asked fellow GOPers:
"I need to find a couple of people to be candidates for the Pearce recall. Know any patriots who are team players?"
When asked by Resnik in this video whether he was seeking candidates who could serve as plants in order to dilute the anti-Pearce vote, Querard says he was looking for Democrats! Oh, that's rich. I'm sure he knows a lot of Dems who would be "team players" for Pearce. Resnik's story also says it was Tea Party chair Doug Western who recruited Cortes.
Of course Olivia Cortes has every right to put her name before voters; that's not the concern here. The issue is whether she was put up specifically as a diversionary candidate, and given every other trick that Pearce's lackeys have tried in order to stall or postpone the recall election, it's not unlikely they'd stoop to this level. But this is not just a dishonest ploy, it's illegal:
Ryan cites Arizona Revised Statute 16-1006, which makes it unlawful for a person "knowingly by . . . any corrupt means, either directly or directly . . . to defraud an elector by deceiving and causing him to vote for a different person for an office or for a different measure than he intended or desired to vote for." New Times
Things should get even more interesting soon. This afternoon East Valley Tea Party chair Greg Western will take the stand, under oath. Olivia Cortes, meanwhile, has agreed to hold a press conference on Monday, and she will then join a candidates' forum Tuesday. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: This morning Stephen Lemons at New Times has an article about the afternoon's testimony, which lays bare the East Valley Tea Party's central role in getting Cortes to run. Worth a read!