Sack Wadsack? Recall effort targets drag-hating, book-banning state senator

Editor's note: This article was updated on May 30 to correctly reflect that Sen. Justine Wadsack is the target of a recall effort.


Few have attempted to recall a state senator in Arizona. Even fewer have been successful. But a grassroots movement in Tucson seeks to do just that.

Sen. Justine Wadsack, a Republican, was sworn in on Jan. 9 after winning her seat by fewer than 2,800 votes. Since then, she has penned bills attacking unsheltered people, LGBTQ people, drag queens and children. That’s why the Tucson-based group, Sack Wadsack, filed paperwork to remove her from office with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office on May 8.

With its logo depicting Wadsack’s iconic blunt bangs, black-tinted brows and vibrant lipstick, Sack Wadsack began collecting the needed 30,981 signatures — one-fourth of the total votes cast in November's election — on May 9.

The bipartisan group has until Sept. 5 to collect signatures in Legislative District 17, a majority Republican district in northeast Tucson that’s home to more than 230,000 people.

No easy task

The feat of recalling an Arizona state senator has been attempted three times before. It's been successful once — in 2011 when voters recalled Sen. Russell Pearce after he authored anti-immigrant legislation and then advocated for eugenics and sterilizing poor women.

Christina Rodriguez, a spokesperson for Sack Wadsack, said the effort will be successful given Wadsack's legislative track record of attacking people like Pearce more than a decade ago. However, Arizona doesn’t require a reason to petition for a recall.

“The things she’s doing harm us as Arizonans,” Rodriguez said. “The bills she’s passing are affecting Arizona as a whole. She’s not trying to hurt people in Tucson only; she’s looking to hurt people across the state.

“People in Phoenix should care,” she added.

‘She’s ignoring voters’

In a letter to the editor published in the Arizona Daily Star on March 31, Tucson resident Jim McWilliams argued that Wadsack “is an ignorant person, but don't the ignoramuses of Arizona deserve some political representation, too?”

Sack Wadsack, which was founded on Feb. 15, however, believes the senator crossed the line of ignorance and has violated her oath of office after claiming on Twitter that she would only serve those who voted for her.

“She’s ignoring voters in her own district,” Rodriguez said. “Whether or not you see eye-to-eye, and despite how divided we are in politics right now, you are not a senator for your political party only.”

Sack Wadsack cites four bills sponsored by Wadsack as the reason for the recall.

• SB 1435 would end the requirement for Arizona attorneys to be members of the State Bar of Arizona. Instead, the responsibility of licensing the state's attorneys would fall under the purview of the Supreme Court.
  
  
• SB 1700 would ban books in schools that are sexual in nature, books that “promote gender fluidity or gender pronouns” and books that “promote the grooming of children into normalizing pedophilia.”
  
  
• SB 1698 would make it a felony for parents to take their children to a drag show, and parents who opt to take their children to a show would become registered sex offenders.
  
  
• SB 1413 would require Arizona cities to tear down homeless encampments and charge the people living there with criminal trespassing.

The House passed SB 1698 and SB 1413 on Monday and sent them to the Senate. If the bills make it to Gov. Katie Hobbs, the Democrat is expected to add them to her historic — and growing — list of vetoes. SB 1700 passed the Senate on March 20 and is awaiting a final vote in the House.

“(Wadsack) is amplifying hysteria about drag performances,” said Tina Kilcullen, who filed the petition to recall Wadsack with the Arizona Secretary of State's office. “She’s not going to stop writing these draconian bills.”

Both Wadsack and one of her staffers declined to comment for this story.

‘Too extreme for Arizona’

If Sack Wadsack can collect the needed signatures by Sept. 5, the group has 10 days to file recall petition sheets with the Pima County Recorder’s Office. Then, Wadsack would be given five days to decide whether or not to resign. If she doesn’t, the government would organize a recall election to be held during the next available election date.

Sack Wadsack doesn’t have financial backing, but it has a large team of door-to-door volunteers and has scheduled events all summer.

“Sen. Wadsack is too extreme for Arizona,” the group wrote in a May 1 letter to the state, announcing their intention to petition for a recall vote. “She has made it clear she is more interested in being a ‘culture warrior’ legislating moral panic than listening to her constituents’ needs.”

Will Wadsack be the second state senator recalled from office? Only time will tell.