Arizona bulldog: Senator Russell Pearce has become the champion of strict immigration legislation in Arizona.

• Author: Bunk, Matt
• Position: A SPECIAL REPORT: IMMIGRATION AND THE STATES

At first, Russell Pearce was just another conservative state lawmaker from the suburbs east of Phoenix.

He was abrasive and committed to his beliefs. He preached small government and individual rights. His views were closely in line with the freedom-loving, don't-tread-on-me style of politicking that had been cornerstones of his Mesa-based legislative district long before he was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2001.

But when Pearce, a Republican, took a fire-and-brimstone approach to illegal immigration, he emerged as one of the most influential and divisive state lawmakers of his era.

Pearce, now Senate president, was an icon of the anti-illegal immigration movement even before Governor Jan Brewer signed his Senate Bill 1070 into law in April 2010. The law required local police to check the immigration status of individuals they had reason to suspect were in the country illegally, along with other provisions.

After that, Pearce became a fixture on national news programs where he was either praised as a patriot or vilified as a racist.

Pearce's legislation revived the national debate over immigration reform and mobilized lawmakers in six states, as of early January, to introduce similar legislation. It also has energized legislators in 14 states to pledge to introduce legislation this year to end the practice of granting citizenship to children born to illegal immigrant parents, a right under the 14th amendment.

SUCCESS ON IMMIGRATION

To get as far as he has, Pearce violated several customs that have ruled the Arizona Legislature for decades. Along the way, he flew in the face of the tenet that politics is the art of compromise.

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"Russell doesn't know where that middle ground is," says Senator Steve Gallardo, who served for years with Pearce in the Arizona House. "He's not one to play nice."

Before a statewide immigration measure passed in 2004, almost nobody in the Legislature believed, as Pearce did, that states should burden themselves with enforcing immigration laws, even though most lawmakers from both parties agreed the federal government had failed in its responsibilities to secure the border. Pearce had introduced four immigration-related bills that were shot down either by his fellow lawmakers or by then-Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat.

Instead of lowering his expectations and seeking compromise on immigration, however, Pearce dug in deeper and lashed out at those who opposed him...