The main sponsor of Senate Bill 1070, Arizona’s “show me your papers” law, the former Senate president became the face of a socially conservative brand of politics that was synonymous with Arizona during the early 21st century. || Judicial Watch
By Andrew Oxford, Mary Jo Pitzl & Daniel Gonzalez || The Arizona Republic
A sheriff’s deputy turned state lawmaker who was the architect of one of Arizona’s most concerted modern-day crackdowns on undocumented immigrants died Thursday. Russell Pearce was 75.
He died at a Mesa hospital, according to his sister, Kathy Pearce. A family statement said Pearce had fallen ill earlier in the week.
The main sponsor of Senate Bill 1070, Arizona’s “show me your papers” law, the former Senate president became the face of a socially conservative brand of politics that was synonymous with Arizona during the early 21st century. That distinction also led to his ouster from office, and he was the first state lawmaker recalled in Arizona’s history.
At the same time that America elected its first Black president, Pearce pushed for stricter laws on immigration, marriage and more, standing athwart the country’s course and seeking to cast the United States ― or at least Arizona ― in the image of his sliver of the East Valley.
Pearce certainly won his share of battles as a politician, but whether he ultimately won the war over Arizona is likely to remain the subject of fierce debate among activists and historians long after his death. His anti-immigrant policies proved a popular export, the rhetoric that accompanied Senate Bill 1070 echoing years later throughout the GOP in the era of former President Donald Trump.
