He is now former (it's so nice to write that) Arizona Senator Russell Pearce, after having lost the November 8 recall election in District 18 to Republican challenger Jerry Lewis, a political neophyte who had never held office. Reports surfaced this week that Pearce outspent his opponent 3:1, with Lewis raising $85,000 to Pearce's $250,000. Even with that vast difference in resources, Lewis whipped the Senate President and author of SB 1070 by 12 points.
This truly was a race where the dollars were not as important as the candidates.
Lewis raised the bulk of his donations from District 18; more than 70 percent of his cash dribbled in from the community in small donations -- a true grassroots operation. Pearce, on the other hand, received less than 10 percent of campaign contributions from his own district, and a good deal of his support came from out of state. While Pearce regularly bellyached that the recall organizers were backed by "liberal outside special-interest groups," it was really his campaign that colluded with Tom Tancredo's "Team America" to solicit nationally from anti-immigrant extremists.
Pearce also accepted huge PAC donations, while Lewis did not. The largest contribution to Pearce's campaign was $21,140 from the American Federation for Children, a PAC that represents charter schools. They recently gave Russell Pearce an "education" award, mostly for his assaults on public schools. This year, while Pearce presided over the Senate, the legislature cut another $150 million from K-12. I imagine AFC gave a similar award to Wisconsin's Scott Walker. Pearce's second largest donation, $5,520, came from the Home Builders Association of Arizona. It should come as no surprise that Pearce never saw a sprawling development he didn't like or an environmental regulation he did not want to repeal.
But the 3:1 cash advantage did not help the Senator, mostly because he ran a campaign that was so blatantly steeped in lies and deception that his tactics became the story, rather than immigration or other red-meat topics he historically ran on. The public and the media regularly asked why his pinheaded supporters ran dishonest "news" stories, why his campaign signs included so many outright lies (Mesa forced him to remove them), why his team set up a fake "Jerry Lewis" Twitter account to smear their opponent, why they made deceptive robocalls, and, most of all, why Pearce's goons recruited and funded a sham candidate named Olivia Cortes!
On top of this, Pearce's toady lawyers spent the entire campaign in court, which received more press than any issue. First they appealed to a district judge and then the Arizona Supreme Court to overturn the recall process, arguing that petition signers didn't really know it was a Russell Pearce recall form, even though every page shouted RECALL PEARCE! Both courts naturally tossed the feeble-ass appeals. Then Pearce and his lawyers were forced to explain their recruitment of Olivia Cortes in court. Until then, some Pearce supporters probably thought the sham candidacy was a conspiracy theory cooked up by liberals or Jerry Lewis's team to smear the Senator. The hearing clearly demonstrated that Pearce's brainiacs funded a diversionary candidate with a Hispanic name, who they thought would steal anti-Pearce votes from Lewis.
... the court finds that Cortes was "recruited" to run by [Pearce ally Greg] Western, at the behest of Pearce supporters, to divert votes from Lewis for Pearce's benefit. New Times
Coffin, meet nail. Pearce could've had twice as much money on hand, and he still could not have dug himself out from under that huge pile of dickheaded deception.
So, Russell Pearce was Senate President, he had won six straight races in Mesa's very conservative District 18, he was often described in the press as "the most powerful elected official in Arizona," he was supported by Governor Brewer, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and powerful lobbyists, and he had a 3:1 war chest advantage. And he still lost. Big.
Now some of Pearce's supporters, as well as other GOP nitwits looking out for their own hides, don't believe the advantages the incumbent Pearce had were sufficient. According to a story today in the Arizona Capitol Times (login required):
Still shaken from the successful recall of Senate President Russell Pearce, some lawmakers are seeking to make it more difficult for voters to oust politicians from office. One Pearce ally plans to sponsor legislation that would require recall organizers to obtain signatures from a majority of registered voters in a district...
Well, Arizona was already the first state to file suit against the Voting Rights Act, and like other Goobervilles we're piling on more voter ID requirements in order to suppress youth and minority participation because, you know, Democrats are busing Mexicans across the border to vote illegally. Seriously, they said that.
So we might as well make another constitutionally-protected provision, the recall, more difficult too, by requiring something no other state does: the signatures must represent a majority of registered voters. If that bill comes before this goonball legislature, it will likely pass and 16-Second Brewer will sign it, although I don't see this POS getting passed the courts.
Still, it's another example of how screwed up this state is, and how the entrenched wingers, like cornered rats, will do everything they can to hold onto their evaporating power. Remember, Arizona gave the nation Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who, as a young lawyer in Phoenix, would hang out at polling places and demand eligibility credentials from questionable voters. Natch, "questionable" = brown or black.
Our legacy lives on.