Push to recall Tucson lawmaker falls short

A bid to force a recall election of first-term Tucson Republican Sen. Justine Wadsack has failed.

“Ultimately we ran out of time to collect the number of signatures we needed to trigger recall,” organizer Rolande Baker said Tuesday.

Baker needed to get at least 30,981 valid signatures of registered voters within the district by the close of business on Tuesday. She declined to say how many she collected in the four-month window allowed in state law and will not be submitting any completed petitions to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Still, Baker said the effort was a success to the extent it drew public attention to the senator’s “increasingly erratic and extreme behavior in response to valid criticism from her constituents and the citizens of Arizona.”

Wadsack told Capitol Media Services the outcome of the drive is no surprise.

“The voters of LD 17 don’t want me recalled,” she said.

“They want me reelected,” Wadsack continued. “And that’s why not a single signature was turned in.”

Wadsack went on to say she has more signatures on her petitions to qualify for the 2024 ballot than foes were able to gather for the recall. But Wadsack, like recall organizers, refused to share the numbers.

The failed petition drive legally immunizes Wadsack from further recall efforts through the end of her two-year term at the end of 2024. But it comes as efforts already are underway to unseat her in the election that year.

“It is now up to LD 17 to make sure Justine Wadsack is voted out in November of 2024,” Baker told Capitol Media Services.

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Vince Leach, who had been the senator from that district until Wadsack defeated him in the 2022 primary election, already has filed paperwork to try to reclaim his seat.

Democrat Amy Fitch also has put her name in the running.

The district that stretches across northern Pima County and southern Pinal County leans Republican, with 67,267 registered GOP voters at last count compared with 51,041 Democrats.

There are, however, nearly 54,000 voters who have registered as politically independent.

Recalls are often not successful, at least in part because of the number of signatures required to even call an election. It translates out to 25% of the people who turned out in the prior election.

The last legislator successfully removed from office was Senate President Russell Pearce in 2011. That, however, followed his sponsorship of SB 1070 and other far-reaching and controversial legislation to have the state get involved with finding and deporting those not in the country legally.

Foes of Gov. Evan Mecham gathered more than 300,000 signatures in 1988 to force a recall election. But he was impeached and removed from office by the Legislature before a vote could occur.

Even if a recall election against Wadsack had been called, the earliest it could have been held is March 2024 — or possibly as late as May 2024.

And there’s also the fact that a successful recall petition drive would only have scheduled an election, with Wadsack’s name automatically on the ballot against whoever else sought to run against her. And if none of those foes could outpoll her, she would get to keep her job.