As Lahdee reported here yesterday, the Arizona Secretary of State has verified enough signatures to force a recall of Senate President Russell Pearce, author of SB 1070 and a shitload of other bigoted, homophobic, and counter-productive measures. Here's the Arizona Republic's lead paragraph from Saturday:
Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, one of the state's most powerful and controversial politicians, appears certain to face what is believed to be the first recall election of a state legislator in Arizona history this November. Arizona Republic
That's right, it's our first state-level recall, which is saying a mouthful when you consider the long list of mind-numbing wackjobs whose flaccid butts have occupied Arizona's House, Senate, and Governor's seats. But Pearce is a disturbing stretch, even for the far-right, Mormon contingent of the legislature, which wields considerable clout. Years ago when Pearce was first elected to the House we used to laugh at the old coot from Mesa. He was so crazy no one would take him seriously, would they?
But then you fast-forward a few years and the friggin' President of the Senate is a guy who was Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputy for more than 20 years (Pearce created Tent City), smacked his wife around, was fired from one state job for forgery, forwarded lots of Neo-Nazi emails, and not only hung out with supremacists but in 2007 endorsed one for Mesa City Council, calling National Socialist leader JT Ready a "true patriot." Here's a recent video of Ready, who today can't understand why his buddy Russ has been distancing himself from the brownshirts. Heck, they used to hang out on the porch together and tell jokes about Blacks and Mexicans. Check especially 3:20-4:30 and then read a few comments if you dare:
Jt is a great guy, all these Jews in our office bringing in all these immigrants, and all these illegal beaners pouring in to this country need to be deported or executed.
14America88 1 week ago
After watching that, say this slowly and let it sink in: Russell Pearce, Senate President.
As the most powerful politician in the state this year, the racist peckerhead cashed in on his "capital," as Bush would triumphantly brag, introducing a heap of anti-immigrant, anti-education, anti-healthcare, anti-everything bills this past session. The blowhard also ran the Capitol grounds like his own fiefdom, creating a blacklist to keep protestors out and barring the public from his press conferences.
Pearce's blustering overreach was even too much for many conservatives. On one night in mid-March, five of his Mexican-hating bills went down in flames when his own party turned against him by a significant margin:
The state Senate voted down a package of birthright-citizenship bills, with Republicans split over the measures and Democrats opposed. Four other significant Senate immigration measures also failed. Those bills would have banned illegal immigrants from state universities, made it a crime for illegal immigrants to drive a vehicle in Arizona, required school districts to check the legal status of students, and required hospitals to check the legal status of patients. Arizona Republic
The tide had turned, and the next step was recall, which succeeded far more than many pundits predicted. Citizens for a Better Arizona (CBA), the group that led the 120-day petition drive, submitted more than 18,000 signatures when they only needed slightly more than 7,600, and eventually more than 10,000 were verified.
All along, the lunatic GOP and Tea Party websites said "massive voter fraud" was responsible for the recall's success. Nice try, but no. Pearce himself couldn't believe so many of his own constituents hated him that much, and he was telling any goober who would still listen to his delusions that the recall group was run and funded by "outside agitators." Words like "anarchists" and "socialists" peppered his spittle-laced comments about the recall organizers.
The fact is, CBA was largely managed by citizens from Pearce's district -- many of them pavement-pounding Republican volunteers who could no longer make excuses for the odious turd who represented them. Co-chair Chad Snow, for example, is a white Mormon lawyer who lives in District 18. To emphasize their local governance, CBA refused to accept corporate money and by far most of their donations came from Arizonans, not "outside" moneybags:
... Citizens for a Better Arizona had not accepted corporate funds and doesn't plan to. [Co-chair Randy Parraz] said the recall effort had raised more than $25,000 from individual and political-action committee donations, with more than 90 percent coming from Arizonans. Arizona Republic
Unlike Freedom Works and similar wingnut astroturf shams, CBA was the poster child of a grassroots campaign organized by local citizens who were fed up with the jackass's mismanagement of the state. Under GOP leadership, with Pearce at the helm, Arizona's economy has tanked, education is being dismantled, healthcare is a pipe dream for more and more citizens, and Arizona's reputation was flushed down the toilet.
Pearce's mean-spirted and bigoted policies fed his fundamentalist belief, which he learned at the feet of John Bircher Cleon Skousen, that only white Mormon men can save the republic. Even conservative Mormons from Pearce's district couldn't take any more, with one 5th-generation Republican elder writing to Governor Brewer that Mormons "clearly still have some knuckle dragging closet racists in the Church." It's hard to think of a better description of Pearce.
Yet at the same time Pearce was blaming outside agitators and Soros-like dollars for the recall's success, he was seeking support from -- you guessed it -- outside special interests:
Team America, a political-action committee headed by former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., sent an e-mail blast Friday soliciting corporate and private donations for Citizens Who Oppose the Pearce Recall. Arizona Republic
Tancredo's email shouted: "Because it is a recall effort corporate funds are welcome and contributions are unlimited!!" Got that? Pearce blamed CBA's accomplishments on outside influences, which wasn't true, but it's okay for him to seek "unlimited" corporate funds from beyond Arizona's borders.
Only problem: it's not okay, the state's Solicitor General said Friday:
One day before the historic announcement by the Arizona Secretary of State's Office that the Pearce recall will go before the voters of Legislative District 18, Arizona Solicitor General David Cole informed Pearce that recall committees cannot accept corporate or union contributions. New Times
What'll happen this November is anyone's guess, but clearly Pearce will have to do something he hasn't done in a while: hit the streets and meet his constituents, because he won't have "unlimited" corporate dollars to fund his lying political ads. It almost makes you want to move to District 18 and hope Pearce knocks on your door.