The most polite way to say it is that state Senate President Russell Pearce, facing a November 8 recall election in Legislative District 18, struggles mightily with the truth. In fact, he seems to struggle with it anytime he's in front of a camera or a microphone.
Dennis Gilman
Pearce, bogged down in a morass of deception, deflection, half-truths, and misstatements of fact.
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Most recently, he had a bad time of it on KTAR (92.3 FM) during Jay Lawrence's show. Lawrence is a bit of a softy, and Pearce is his pal, so he didn't exactly go after the Mesa Republican with a claw hammer. But his listeners did, to the extent they were allowed.
In fact, listening to Pearce tout his alleged achievements in public life, I couldn't keep myself from calling in. I was specifically interested in his characterization of his tenure as head of the Arizona Department of Transportation's Motor Vehicle Division as one in which great strides were made on behalf of the public.
So before I was cut off, I queried the senator about his four years as MVD honcho in the '90s, and asked, "Weren't you fired as the head of MVD for corruption, and wasn't your son, Justin, convicted of handing out fake driver's licenses?"
Pearce interrupted the first part of my question with an absolute, "No." After I finished, Pearce went on to make it seem as if the entire controversy way back when was over his son's wrongdoing.
"I was never connected to [Justin's crime]," he explained. "In fact, the attorney general realized that I had nothing to do with it."
Justin, then 20, was allowed to resign, and later took a plea deal. To the press, he admitted that he had changed the ages on the licenses of four pals so they could "buy beer."
At that time, Pearce had several family members at the MVD, including one other son.
But the flap over Justin was not the reason Pearce was canned as MVD director. And, yes, he was fired in August 1999 by then-ADOT Director Mary Peters, a Republican, who later went on to serve in President George W. Bush's administration as Secretary of Transportation.
Why was Pearce removed? Because, according to press accounts, he and two other MVD officials had been found to have altered a Tucson woman's driving record so that she would not face a one-year suspension of her license due to two DUIs she recently had received.
Apparently, the change was made at the request of a state legislator and then-member of the House Transportation Committee.
When one of the other MVD officials suggested that he and Pearce had been cleared of wrongdoing, Peters told the Arizona Republic, "There's a big difference between being cleared and choosing not to file criminal charges."
It's understandable that Pearce would want to downplay getting kicked to the curb like this, by a fellow Republican, no less.
But his problems with truth-telling extend to numerous other issues.
Take the Fiesta Bowl scandal. Another caller to Lawrence's show asked Pearce about the nearly $40,000 in free football tickets and trips he allegedly took from the Fiesta Bowl. These included trips to Chicago and Boston to watch some pigskin get chucked around. His wife accompanied him on two of his trips. A son on at least one other.
Yet Pearce remains defiant on the matter.
"I never took a penny from the Fiesta Bowl," Pearce responded to the caller. "They've never done a fundraiser for me. I've never called them about doing a fundraiser. I have had no personal benefit from the Fiesta Bowl at all."
And yet Pearce received campaign contributions from ex-Fiesta Bowl CEO John Junker, Junker's wife, Susan, as well as from Fiesta Bowl execs Anthony Aguilar, Jay Fields, and others.
You don't have to believe me. Look at Pearce's 2010 campaign-finance reports. As for the trips, they're detailed in the Fiesta Bowl's own report on the scandal.
Pearce also exclaimed that Arizona's economy is "growing" and took credit for Arizona's budget being "in the black" for the first time in recent memory.
Now keep in mind that during the supposed reign of government excess that Pearce lays at the door of former Governor Janet Napolitano, Pearce was head of the state House Appropriations Committee. If past budgets were out of whack, he deserves a fair share of the blame. He also bears some responsibility for a 66 percent rise in general-fund spending during the time he was Appropriations Chair in the House.
True, the Arizona Legislature's Joint Legislative Budget Committee recently reported an unexpected rise in revenue that has knocked out a $332 million shortfall that was being carried over to 2012.
But that had nothing to do with anything Pearce did or didn't do.
"The primary reason for the revenue overage is the unexpectedly high 18.5 increase in individual income taxes," the JLBC noted. "Given the lack of job and wage growth, this spurt may have been caused by higher capital gains and the loss of mortgage interest deductions."
Why has there been a loss of mortgage-interest deductions? The "downturn in the state's real estate market" and a "decline in mortgage interest."
The JLBC's July report further states: "The [fiscal year] 2011 rebound appears to be more a reflection of onetime factors than a rapidly expanding economy. It may still take two to four years before the state replaces the jobs lost in the recession and substantially reduces its 'underwater' mortgages.'"
