Pearce has his name attached to more than 100 pieces of legislation this session, but the ones that inspire the most passion are those that deal, at least tangentially, with illegal immigration.
For years, Pearce has been a staunch anti-illegal immigration advocate. But this year, he's got a little more motivation, although he doesn't discuss it during legislative testimony, or in interviews with reporters or on his numerous radio or television appearances. He didn't even bring it up until I specifically asked him about it.
It's almost
as if Pearce does not want to politicize the
fact that his son, a Maricopa County Sheriff's
Office deputy, was shot on duty by a Mexican man
who was in this country illegally.
"(That) really verified what I'm trying to do
down here," Pearce said, as we spoke in the
empty House of Representatives hearing room,
following his apparently futile haggling with
Rep. Steve Yarbrough.
It was an eerie confluence of circumstance. This
high-profile foe of illegal immigration having
his son shot by an "illegal," as he calls them.
"You couldn't have scripted it any better," he
said.
"And the way I found out," he continued.
Pearce was in Washington, D.C., giving a speech
about illegal immigration at the Brookings
Institution when he got the message to call
home. His wife, he knew, "wouldn't be calling if
it wasn't important. It had to do with the
children." Pearce excused himself from the
podium and found a phone.
Sean Pearce, an 11-year veteran, was serving a
search warrant Dec. 16 at a Mesa trailer home. A
man hiding behind a Christmas tree fired when
Pearce entered the room. The Sheriff's Office
says Jorge Luis Guerra Vargas, a 22-year-old
undocumented immigrant, was the shooter.
"It must be kept in perspective," Pearce said.
"I've tried to avoid being unfair about this
whole thing."
For someone that his numerous critics have
pegged as a radical extremist, Pearce smiles an
awful lot. He was born in Mesa, one of 13 kids,
but somehow acquired that easygoing Midwestern
drawl that an airline pilot has when he tells
you to fasten your seatbelt.
But he gets intense talking about immigration.
His brown eyes squint to a point. His broad
shoulders tighten. I asked him about the bill
that was before the committee, one that, on its
face, is designed to prevent judicial activism.
Efforts to stop judges from legislating from the
bench have sprung up in other states as well,
most notably over the issue of same-sex
marriage. But that's not Pearce's concern. He
mentioned a court decision that might force the
state to spend more on bilingual education. "We
voted out bilingual education. It smacks in the
face of the intention of the voters."
Pearce stood leaning on the hearing table, his
hands palm down. His right hand spoke of another
intense time in his life.
The ring finger on that hand ends at the first
knuckle. The rest was shot off in Guadalupe in
1977 during a struggle between Pearce, then a
sheriff's deputy, and three Latino teenagers.
Pearce had taken beer away from the youths, when
one of them unleashed a Doberman pinscher on
him. Pearce repelled that attack with a bonk
from his flashlight. Then, as he tried to arrest
the teen that owned the dog, the other two
attacked him, with one grabbing his gun. After
realizing his finger was missing, Pearce got in
his car and chased after the fleeing suspects.
Pearce, though, said that shooting did not make
him anti-Latino or anti-Mexican. "Those were bad
guys," he said. If anything, it made him more
passionate about locking up criminals and gang
members, no matter the race.
Pearce rose through the ranks of the Sheriff's
Office and was then appointed to head the
Governor's Office of Highway Safety and the
state's Motor Vehicle Division. While at the MVD,
he pushed a bill that required proof of
citizenship to get a driver's license. He was
fired from that post in 1999 after an
investigation found he and two others tampered
with the driving record of a drunken-driving
suspect so she could avoid having her license
suspended. But voters in Mesa elected him to the
Legislature the next year.
Since then, he has introduced a flurry of
legislation that could charitably be called
hostile to undocumented immigrants living in
Arizona. He was one of the most vocal supporters
of Protect Arizona Now, the ballot measure that
aimed to scrub undocumented immigrants off the
welfare and voter rolls.
Pearce said he couldn't pinpoint when he became
staunchly against illegal immigration. But he
said his missing finger has nothing to do with
it and he is not anti-Mexican.
His daughter is dating a Mexican fellow and one
of his friends is Mexican. Although, Pearce
said, he's not very close with "Gus," the
Mexican man he met while working construction
when they were both teenagers.
"He couldn't speak English, so me and the other
workers made fun of him," he said.
"But back then, they would come to work and go
home. Now, they come and stay, plus they don't
assimilate."
Pearce said it's impossible to make
generalizations about groups of people, "but if
you're illegal, you're illegal."
"You certainly have some good people," Pearce
said. But he went on to catalogue a list of
ills: "The acts of violence, the impacts to the
welfare system, the impacts to the health care
system. . . . It's what's destroying America."
Pearce's secretary entered the hearing room. He
had a committee to chair, and it was ready to
start. Pearce gathered up his documents and
excused himself. He is one of the leaders of the
statehouse and his time this session is more in
demand. Since his son's shooting, so are the
demands on himself.
Reach Ruelas at (602) 444-8473 or
richard.ruelas@arizonarepublic.com.