'I have no intention of being used as a distraction by the Democrats,' Pearce said. Pol resigns after birth control remark

Former Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce resigned from his post as vice chairman of the state’s Republican Party following recent controversial remarks about Medicaid, suggesting women be required to use birth control. However he pointed blame at media.

“Recently on my radio show there was a discussion about the abuses to our welfare system. I shared comments written by someone else and failed to attribute them to the author. This was a mistake. This mistake has been taken by the media and the left and used to hurt our Republican candidates,” Pearce said in a statement in which he announced his resignation, published by the Arizona GOP on Sunday.


He continued, “I do not want the progressive left and the media to try and take a misstatement from my show and use it to attack our candidates. I care about the Republican Party and its conservative platform too much to let them do that. … I will never back down from standing up for what I believe in, and I will continue to fight for the principles that our founding generation risked their lives for. But I have no intention of being used as a distraction by the Democrats.”

( Also on POLITICO: Would a GOP Senate be king of the world?)

Prior to his resignation, the executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party, D.J. Quinlan, slammed Pearce and the Republicans for Russell’s remarks, which Quinlan described as call for force sterilization.

“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,” Pearce said during a recent episode of his weekly talk radio show, according to Quinlan’s statement.

“For the first vice chair of the Arizona Republican Party to advocate for forced sterilization is unacceptable,” Quinlan said in a statement on Saturday. “The silence of [state] Republican leaders…is even worse.”

Russell said that his hosting of the radio program is “incompatible with what our party needs from its leadership team.”