Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

The Republic | azcentral.com

Pearce is a former state lawmaker and Senate president.

He was ousted from office after a 2011 recall effort.

Pearce hosts a conservative radio show.

Former state Sen. Russell Pearce, who has recently served as the Arizona Republican Party's first vice chair, resigned his post late Sunday over remarks he made about requiring women on public assistance to use contraception.

The Republican Party announced his resignation around 11 p.m. Sunday -- hours after GOP candidates expressed their displeasure with his remarks and a day after the Arizona Democratic Party Executive Director DJ Quinlan noted Pearce's comments in a news release and pressed his party's candidates to denounce them.

Quinlan's statement, issued Saturday, highlighted remarks Pearce made on his talk-radio program on KKNT 960 AM. According to the statement, Pearce talked about changes he would make to the state's public assistance programs and was quoted in the Democratic Party's news release as saying: "You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I'd do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations…Then we'll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job."

In his statement, Pearce wrote that during a recent radio show there "was a discussion about the abuses to our welfare system" and he "shared comments written by someone else and failed to attribute them to the author."

"This was a mistake," Pearce stated. "This mistake has been taken by the media and the left and used to hurt our Republican candidates."

He wrote he does not want Democrats and reporters "to try and take a misstatement from my show and use it to attack our candidates."

He issued his resignation to party Chairman Robert Graham, he wrote, because he recognizes "that hosting a radio show and the nature of the debates that we have had and will continue to have are incompatible with what our Party needs from its leadership team."

Pearce did not return a call from The Arizona Republic seeking comment on his remarks.

Prior to Pearce's resignation, Graham did not respond to a request for comment about the former vice chair's remarks.

Arizona's Republican nominees for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, as well as Congressional candidates, repudiated Pearce's remarks earlier Sunday.

The denunciations came after Quinlan, in his Saturday news release, wrote the "silence" of GOP leaders and candidates on Pearce's remarks "indicates that they have made a cynical calculation that Russell Pearce and his brand of politics appeals to the most extreme elements of their electoral base."

Quinlan asked, "How can we expect (Republican gubernatorial nominee) Doug Ducey to lead this state if he can't even stand up to the most extreme elements of his party?"

A comment posted to Ducey's Twitter account Sunday evening read, "I couldn't disagree more with Russell Pearce's deplorable comments. They have no place in our discourse."

Hours earlier, GOP attorney general nominee Mark Brnovich issued a stronger statement, saying Pearce's remarks "are unrepresentative of the Republican Party I know."

"The notion that government would force sterilization upon anyone is counter to everything I believe about individual liberty and contrary to the founding principles of a free nation," Brnovich's statement said. "Comments that demean the plight of the poor, including women in the dual role of mother and economic provider, are not conservative; they're cruel. And I reject them."

Several other Republican candidates also criticized Pearce's comments by late Sunday evening, including Congressional candidate Martha McSally and Michele Reagan.

"Russell Pearce's ignorant, hateful comments are insulting to women everywhere," McSally posted on her Twitter account. "He needs to resign or be removed from office immediately."

Reagan called for Pearce to resign on her Twitter post: "The obnoxious comments made by Russell Pearce were both disgusting and offensive. Let it be known, he is NOT the voice of my GOP. #Resign!"

Pearce, best known for his role in passing the state's hard-line immigration law Senate Bill 1070, served as Arizona Senate president before he was recalled in 2011.

The radio station's website says he hosts The Russell Pearce Show from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturdays.The show offers "a mix of commentary, opinion, and the busiest caller lines anywhere in Arizona," the website says, adding "Senator Russell Pearce offers listeners and callers alike a no holds barred take on federal, state, and local politics without reservation. He's the John Wayne of the airwaves, the Chuck Norris of the talk radio circuit."