With one sparse 23-word sentence, the Arizona Supreme Court fired the starter's pistol this week on a mad political dash that could cost Mesa's most powerful politician his job.

Candidates have 54 days, beginning this morning, to convince voters that Senate President Russell Pearce should either be tossed out of office or be returned to Arizona's Capitol to continue fighting for his signature issues of immigration enforcement, gun rights and frugal budgeting.

It is believed to be the first recall of a Senate president anywhere in the country and the first of an Arizona lawmaker in nearly 100 years of statehood.

Although it is the voters of Mesa's District 18 who will decide, the race has drawn unusual national interest given Pearce's stature as one of the country's foremost and most outspoken opponents of illegal immigration.

It appears the battle will be waged in the trenches, in cyberspace and at the doors of thousands of Mesa residents as campaign volunteers take to the streets.

The candidates, all Republicans:

-�Pearce, who at age 64 has been on the public payroll all his adult life and in the Legislature since 2001. He first served in the House before ascending to the Senate in 2009 and becoming Senate president for the 2011 session.

-�Jerry Lewis, 55, a charter-school administrator who said he was talked into opposing Pearce by fellow District 18 conservatives concerned about Pearce's priorities and leadership style.

-�Olivia Cortes, who has provided The Republic with no information about her background or reasons for running. She is widely believed to be a Pearce ally whose intent is to split the anti-Pearce vote. Asked directly about that allegation, Cortes evaded the question but did not specifically deny it in an e-mail to The Republic.

The recall campaign began early this year with a petition drive mounted by a group called Citizens for a Better Arizona. The group is led by Chad Snow, a Republican and lawyer from Peoria, and Randy Parraz, a Scottsdale Democrat who is a veteran community organizer and ran last year for U.S. Senate.

Despite its outside leadership, the group's message that Pearce no longer represents the interests of District 18 residents resonated to the extent that election officials certified 10,365 signatures on recall petitions, far more than the 7,756 needed.

A Pearce ally, Franklin Bruce Ross of Mesa, challenged those signatures in court, saying that if the election were to go forward, "irreparable harm will result to the petitioner and all qualified electors of legislative District 18."

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Hugh Hegyi last month rejected all eight claims in Ross' petition. Hegyi said he was reluctant to overturn nearly a century of precedent in which Arizona courts have given wide latitude to people seeking to recall office holders.

The state Supreme Court upheld that ruling this week in a terse order, promising to issue an opinion on the matter later.

Now, the matter heads to the voters.

Ed Phillips, a former TV weather forecaster and state legislator who serves as a spokesman for Pearce, said door-to-door campaigning is under way but declined to reveal much about strategy.

"I would imagine that it would be a fairly traditional campaign," Phillips said.

W. Dea Montague, a Mesa lawyer and one of Lewis' campaign chairmen, said the Lewis effort will be multidimensional.

"We plan to make a heavy move into social media this week, as well as traditional things," Montague said. The campaign is deploying 2,000 small yard signs and planned to post street-corner signs this week.

Montague said Lewis can't afford 4-by-8-foot signs like those that have sprung up for Pearce but thinks "the smaller signs might bring more understanding of our message than a lot of the big ones."

Pancake breakfasts, door-to-door work and meet-and-greets also will be part of Lewis' campaign, Montague said.

"We still believe that 10,000 conversations from neighbor to neighbor and friend to friend are going to be what carries our campaign," he said.

Having to run for his political life in a recall election caps a dismal year for Pearce.

Only last year, he reached a pinnacle with enactment of Senate Bill 1070, which he sponsored and touted as the toughest state immigration law in the country. That moment lost its luster when a federal judge blocked enforcement of its core provisions, pending further review.

Within months of that setback, Pearce was almost denied election as a state party committeeman by dissident District 18 Republicans.

His grip in the Legislature slipped as well. This year, a majority of Republican senators voted against at least one of five new immigration-related bills Pearce was pushing, and all five were defeated. One would have challenged traditional interpretations of the 14th Amendment, which awards U.S. citizenship to all persons born here.

Last spring, Pearce emerged as one of the biggest beneficiaries of trips, tickets and others benefits handed out to Arizona politicians by the Fiesta Bowl in a scandal that ended John Junker's long tenure as the bowl's chief executive.

The state Attorney General's Office is continuing to conduct a criminal investigation of bowl officials and others associated with the organization. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office, meanwhile, is investigating elected officials who may have improperly received benefits from the Fiesta Bowl.