Key Points:

• Parents of disabled children have formed a group to recall four GOP lawmakers

• There’s only been one successful recall of a sitting state legislator in Arizona

• Recall efforts face significant hurdles collecting signatures and finding candidate replacements

Jerry Lewis wasn’t considering any involvement in politics when he was recruited to run against former Sen. Russell Pearce in the 2011 recall election.

However, those who recruited Lewis viewed him as the perfect moderate Republican candidate to oust Pearce, the author of the controversial SB1070 immigration bill whose values were considered, by some, too extreme for the state.

Lewis eventually won the election, the first and only successful recall of a sitting state legislator in Arizona.

A number of groups have attempted recall drives against state lawmakers throughout the years, but many have fallen short because they didn’t collect enough signatures or faced other legal and technical issues.

More recently, a group of parents of children with disabilities launched an effort last month to recall lawmakers in the state House of Representatives who were accused of blocking attempts to fund the Division of Developmental Disabilities after the program faced a budget shortfall.

The Legislature passed a bipartisan bill to fund the agency, but that hasn’t stopped the parents, who formed Reclaim Our Arizona Representation (ROAR), from targeting four Republicans — House Speaker Steve Montenegro and Reps. Matt Gress, Michael Carbone and David Livingston.

The group needs to gather at least 34,399 signatures from registered voters for Gress, 27,381 for Montenegro, 21,747 for Carbone and 26,342 for Livingston by Aug. 15.

Recall attempts can prove challenging due to several factors, but the success of the 2011 campaign hinged on the fact that Pearce hailed from a smaller legislative district. Lewis also proved to be a popular, more moderate conservative candidate, said Tyler Montague, president of the Arizona Public Integrity Alliance, who helped recruit Lewis to run against Pearce.

“It takes a ton of organizational work just to get the recall, but then, you got to get tons of money together and a great candidate and go win an election,” Montague said in an interview last month.

A group called Citizens for a Better Arizona led the recall drive at the time, collecting more than enough signatures for a special election.

Citizens for a Better Arizona needed to collect 7,756 signatures for the recall, but submitted more than 18,000 signatures, with the Maricopa County Recorder finding more than 10,000 of the signatures to be valid, according to a 2011 Arizona Capitol Times story.

Those involved in the recall effort then had to find a suitable candidate to run against Pearce, which led to the recruitment of Lewis, who served two years in the Senate.

Lewis was initially reluctant to get involved but became motivated after the passage of SB1070 and what he described as the inhuman treatment of undocumented immigrants.

“I was very much concerned about how we were treating our Latino brothers and sisters,” Lewis said. “And whereas I’m all for the rule of law, I think that the rule of law was being circumvented on both sides, and we were dividing families, and we were affecting people that were U.S. citizens in an adverse way.”

Lewis said he believed the state and the country needed to figure out a better way to handle immigration issues at the time.

“According to … my humanitarian feelings towards my Hispanic brothers and sisters, I felt … that I needed to stand up for them, because no one else was,” he said.

Lewis credited Randy Parraz, one of the leaders of Citizens for a Better Arizona, for helming the effort that led to him winning the election. But there was also a significant grassroots movement by many people who worked to spread awareness, including people Lewis didn’t meet until after the election, he said.

“There were several others working with (Parraz), different groups that were assisting, that did a lot of grassroots work, a lot of door knocking, a lot of phone conversations, a lot of standing in public places, just doing everything they could to get the word out,” he said.

The size and scope of that recall campaign created an opportunity to accomplish a feat that’s been hard to duplicate since then.

Recall attempts are generally daunting due to issues such as meeting the legal requirements for collecting the signatures and securing enough volunteers to contribute to the effort, or paying workers to collect the signatures. Recalls are also likely to face legal challenges from the targeted legislators.

And once groups meet the signature requirements, they would have to find the right candidate to unseat the incumbent lawmaker. 

“It’s really extremely difficult. There’s a reason why there have been very few successful recalls,” Montague said.

The leaders and volunteers of ROAR appear undeterred, and have hosted events, met with community leaders and legislative district groups, and hosted “signature slams” in the districts of the targeted lawmakers.

“There’s a David-and-Goliath spirit to this,” said Jim Fuller, the group’s field director, in a press release statement. “We may not have big money or political backing, but we’ve got people. We’ve got parents. And we’ve got a purpose. We’ve been fighting for our loved ones since the day they were born. They picked the wrong ones.”