What’s Good for Jan Brewer and Russell Pearce Is Bad for Arizona

November 18 2010

By Clarissa Martinez De Castro

Shameless demagoguery on the issue of immigration was part of the arsenal that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and State Senator Russell Pearce deployed in their election campaigns this year. Their brand of politics aims to push all the buttons of a public legitimately frustrated with federal inaction, even if it falls woefully short of delivering actual solutions. Brewer became the face of SB 1070—the law sponsored by Pearce that makes one-third of Arizonans suspects in their own communities and empowers every law enforcement agent within the state to demand their papers—with lurid and completely fictional accounts of headless bodies in the Arizona desert. And Pearce’s “friendshipsâ€