At a recent Maricopa County Board of Supervisor’s meeting, a frustrated citizen with the motorcycle club “Riders for a Sovereign America” came to the podium to say that public officials in Arizona who speak out against illegal immigration are under attack.
"Please don’t be coerced into cooperating with these Berkeley, Saul Alinsky-trained community organizers," the motorcyclist pleaded. The crowd erupted in cheers.
The clapping was notable: Four years ago, some of those community organizers were arrested in a meeting just like this one for basically the same behavior. They were clapping and speaking out against Sheriff Arpaio’s immigration enforcement tactics, and then hauled out of the meeting for public disruption. The organizers won in court, but they never got what they really wanted: They never convinced the supervisors to reign in Arpaio and, ideally, call for his resignation.
Now, on the heels of the recall of Arpaio’s longtime ally Russell Pearce, they’re back, still under the direction of former union organizer Randy Parraz. This time though, they’re not talking about immigration -- at least not directly. Parraz framed the campaign against Pearce the same way. When he launched the recall effort, his top talking points were about "education" and Pearce's "unwillingness to fund organ transplants."
Later, Pearce’s involvement with the Fiesta Bowl scandal mattered as well. But the point Parraz tried to make was that Pearce’s constituents were the victims -- people with kids in schools that were being ignored or with health issues that weren’t getting funded. Similarly, Parraz’s campaign against Arpaio is centering on allegations of mishandled sex crime investigations and violence in his jails. The victims, Parraz says, are children and veterans. He’s not leading with immigrants.
Parraz said, "A lot of immigrant rights groups do that, and it limits their ability to break through and to really have a message that resonates with most Arizonans."
This is because trying to incite wide-ranging sympathy over alleged immigrant abuse-- in this state -- is what long-time Arizona reporter Dennis Welch calls a “tough sell.”
"I know in the case of maybe Joe Arpaio," Welch said, "If you say: Well, he’s being tough on immigrants in jail or something like that. Well, they’d say: 'They’re in jail and they’re here illegally. We like that.' "
Parraz agreed. "Because for most folks," he said, "A lot of immigrants don’t have standing in their community. They’re not very well respected unfortunately. That’s just the reality of the situation."
So for Parraz this meant making the argument that when these elected officials focused on immigration enforcement it came at the expense of other things -- schools in Mesa, sex crimes in El Mirage. It’s a case he’s planning on making at every level of politics in Arizona.
"When you take on someone like Russell Pearce, who is supposed to be one of the most powerful men in politics in Arizona," Parraz said, "When you take him down, you don’t go: 'Oh, let’s look at a state representative.' You go bigger. This was the president of the senate -- You don’t dream smaller. We see the top three people as Pearce, Arpaio and [Governor Jan] Brewer."
Arpaio faces two challengers this November, and Brewer isn’t up for re-election until 2014. But even with just Pearce as a trophy, Parraz has already made a name for himself. Welch says that Parraz is now one of the most powerful Democrats in the state -- a title that doesn’t exactly impress veteran Republican political consultants like Chuck Coughlin.
"That’s a pretty low bar," Coughlin said. "The hard thing in politics is actually effectuating positive change -- not taking out people who are problems."
Parraz doesn’t just want to take out Arpaio: He also wants to replace the county supervisors who control Arpaio’s budget. Recently Parraz’s wife and partner in the pearce recall, Lilia Alvarez, announced that she will be running for a seat on the board this November.