The tough get going

CITIZENS for a Better Arizona, a group in Mesa, near Phoenix, this week submitted more than 18,000 signatures to recall their district's state senator, Russell Pearce. That is more signatures than the votes Mr Pearce won last November when he was re-elected, and far more than the 7,756 necessary for a recall—forcing him to defend himself in a special election—even allowing for some invalid ones. This is much more than a local sideshow: Mr Pearce is not just a member of the state Senate but its president. His recall would be the first of a Senate president in American history.

The symbolism may go even further, for Mr Pearce has become something of an embodiment of right-wing politics. A Republican and a Mormon from a city, Mesa, that has lots of both, he shot to fame last year after sponsoring SB1070, a state law that would, among other things, require local cops to enforce federal immigration laws whenever they suspect an individual of being in the country illegally (which, critics argue, would force them to go after people who look Mexican). A federal court has blocked most of the law, pending a decision by the Supreme Court this year.

But Mr Pearce's efforts have ranged far beyond SB1070. He was also one of the sponsors of another law against illegal aliens, upheld by the Supreme Court on May 26th, which allows the state to revoke the business licences of companies that employ undocumented workers. He has also tried to keep illegals out of emergency rooms, schools and universities. Aside from illegals, he also wants to balance the state budget by cutting health care for old and disabled people, to let faculty carry concealed weapons on university campuses, and to privatise state parks and airport security checks. He wants Arizona to have the right to nullify federal laws (which his opponents call “secession”). And so forth.

The effort to recall Mr Pearce grew out of a sense that this is all too much. Increasingly, Arizonans are fed up with national notoriety. In southern Arizona, some are talking about forming their own state to show dissent. In Mesa, a group called East Valley Patriots for American Values is trying to import from Utah a “compact”, or pledge, to deal humanely with illegal immigrants. Those now trying to recall Mr Pearce include Democrats and Republicans, Mormons and others, says Randy Parraz, one of the campaign's organisers.

Their chosen mechanism, the recall, is largely a peculiarity of “direct democracy” in the American West. Critics ask why voters need to recall somebody they can simply vote out of office in the next regular election. A successful recall would indeed simply force an earlier election—either this November or next March, depending on how quickly the signatures are verified. Mr Pearce would presumably run in that election, against an opponent who has yet to step forward, and might win. However all this turns out, says Mr Parraz, voters in Mesa “want to make a statement.” They have certainly done that.