The architect of the employer sanctions law said he is sorry for saying on multiple occasions that the law would only apply to employees hired after the law goes into effect, but makes no apologies for what he truly intended the law to be.
“I have to apologize for misleading them,” said Rep. Russell Pearce, R-18. “But people have to look at this logically: Why would you allow somebody to continue to break the law≠ The purpose was simply not to be retroactive.”
And that last word is the sticking point for lawmakers and business owners alike, many of whom said they understood Pearce’s statements that the law would not be “retroactive” to mean the sanctions would only be applied to businesses for workers hired after Jan. 1, when the law goes into effect.
The public record supports their interpretation, as Pearce told different news agencies the law wouldn’t affect previously hired employees.
“But if you’re talking specifically about House Bill 2779 — about going after the license of a business — that only applies to those hired after January 1st,” Pearce said Nov. 17 on KTAR’s “The Jay Lawrence Show.”
And after attorneys for a coalition of business groups told a federal judge Nov. 14 they believed the law could apply to the state’s entire work force, not just new hires, Pearce told ~The Arizona Republic~ the intent of the law was to make the penalties effective on employees hired after Jan. 1. Those hired before that, he told the state’s largest paper, are subject to federal prosecution.
But Pearce has since told the Associated Press, in a story published Dec. 14, that the law will indeed be applied to all employees, not just those hired after the law becomes effective in January.
And he said his apparent about-face isn’t as much a reversal as it is a clarification of what he meant all along.
“I wrote it, so I know the intent,” he said. “I said ‘hired,’ but I meant ‘hired or employed after January 1.’”
The law isn’t “retroactive,” Pearce says, because it prohibits county attorneys from prosecuting businesses for hiring illegal immigrants that are no longer employed when the law goes into effect. Those still on the payroll in January, though, are being employed illegally, he said.
Pearce freely admits he had “ignored” the issue of retroactivity until recently and insists the misstatements were unintentional. He said he apologized to KTAR host Jay Lawrence on the air during a later show for incorrectly stating how the law will affect businesses.
The statements, though, go beyond merely what was published in the media. Mitch Laird, a Phoenix attorney who owns dozens of Burger King restaurants across the state, said he and four other franchisees were assured by both Pearce and House Speaker Jim Weiers that the law would not affect current employees.
“Both of them repeatedly assured us the law did not apply retroactively to anyone hired before January 1st,” Laird said.
Despite the guarantee, Laird said he and the other restaurateurs told the lawmakers their interpretation of the law — which says business cannot “employ” illegal immigrants after Jan. 1, not merely “hire” them — indicated businesses could lose their licenses because of the immigration status of current employees.
“Mr. Pearce sat there, looked us in the eye, and said, ‘That’s just absolutely false. That isn’t what it says, that’s not what it meant and you don’t have to worry about that,’ he said. For him to then flip is just shocking. The dishonesty — it’s tough to get my arms around the integrity of that statement.”
Even Weiers, who was a vocal supporter of the employer sanctions measure last session, didn’t believe the law could be applied to employees already on the payroll when the calendar turns to January, a spokesman said.
“During the debate [of the law], it was talked about as prospective, not retroactive,” House Republican spokesman Barrett Marson said. “That was [Weiers’] assumption, moving forward with the law.”
Marson said the issue of retroactivity might be among the changes to the employer sanctions law proposed when the legislative session begins in January.
Gov. Janet Napolitano said she thought the law was aimed at new hires.
“I think the intent was to apply to new hires, but the language is ambiguous on that score,” she said Dec. 12.
Sen. Bob Burns, R-9, helped guide the sanctions proposal through the Senate earlier this year. He said the law clearly prohibits employing illegal immigrants, not just hiring them, and he doesn’t understand how businesses could think the law only applies to those hired after January.
“I don’t know what their thought process is, why they decided this is what they interpreted the law to be,” he said.
Although Pearce said there was no malice in his “misstatements,” others aren’t so sure the contradicting statements were accidental. Jason LeVecke, who owns dozens of Carl’s Jr. and Pizza Patrón restaurants, said the law “unquestionably applies” to all workers — and that legislators and Napolitano knew that when they approved it.
“The only way to get the public to swallow this was by lying to them,” he said. “Politicians have been down there blatantly lying.”
LeVecke also said elected officials who say they thought otherwise are merely trying to garner support from businesses upset with the law.
“The way that these politicians are saving face with these employers is saying, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that. The way I read it, it meant anybody that you hired after…’ That is not at all the case,” he said. “If the goal is to get 600,000 people to self-deport, why would you only apply it to new hires after January 1≠”
Pearce agreed.
“The law would have almost no purpose if we excused everybody and forgave them for continuing to break the law,” he said. “That would be outrageous and inappropriate.”
The reason businesses are upset with him, Pearce said, isn’t because they suddenly discovered their existing workforces don’t exempt them from punishment. Rather, it’s because they dislike the idea of not being able to hire cheap foreign labor and maximize their profits, even though by doing so they already violate federal law.
Pearce vowed Arizona won’t be a part of the immigration problem any longer because the new law will put an end to the enticement that has drawn the unauthorized workers here. He said he doesn’t feel bad that businesses will suffer the consequences.
“I’m not apologizing to anybody for enforcing the law,” he said.