Allies of Phoenix mayor battle recall effort

It’s a political oddity: A TV commercial extolling the public safety record of a sitting mayor, except the spot isn’t explicitly soliciting votes and the politician isn’t scheduled to appear on this year’s ballot.

The commercial in question promotes Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, and it appears to be an attempt to head off a recall effort against him by advocates of tougher immigration enforcement.

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Gordon, who has faced criticism for the immigration policies of the police department, said he wasn’t responsible for the commercial and that a political committee had the ad produced.

“I am just grateful that there are good messages going out, especially at a time when you have some extremists trying to stop the city progress, trying to stop myself from continuing to go forward as a mayor,” said Gordon, who won a second term to lead the nation’s fifth-largest city last year with 77 percent of the vote.

Anna Gaines, a retired teacher who is leading the recall effort, said her group officially launched its recall effort because illegal immigrants are committing crimes in Phoenix and Gordon isn’t doing enough to address the problem.

“We have to remove him before he causes any more damage to this city,” said Gaines, a native Mexican who came to the United States legally and became a U.S. citizen.

Her group needs to collect petition signatures from nearly 24,000 of Phoenix’s 521,000 registered voters by Aug. 28.

If enough valid signatures are gathered, Gordon could either resign or let voters decide whether to oust him.

Efforts to force recall elections against local politicians often fail.

Gaines, whose group is aiming to collect 75,000 signatures, declined to say how many voters her volunteers have signed up thus far.

Calls to the leaders of political committees supporting Gordon weren’t immediately returned Thursday.

Gordon, whose tenure has focused heavily on downtown development and public transportation efforts, was faulted last year for a long-standing policy that ordered police officers to hold off on asking questions about people’s citizenship, except for people suspected of committing a serious felony.

The policy has since been changed to let officers ask all criminal suspects about their immigration status.

Gaines said the change in the police department policy was made because advocates like herself pushed for it.

Gordon has touted the police department’s large number of arrests of criminal immigrants and efforts to disrupt smuggling networks.

He has also expressed frustration with the federal government’s efforts to confront illegal immigration.

Located more than 150 miles from the border, Phoenix is the busiest immigrant hub in the United States because its neighborhoods make it easy for smugglers to hide their operations and because it offers plenty of transportation routes for sending customers to other regions.

The mayor went on the offensive during the spring in criticizing Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration and crime sweeps in two predominantly Hispanic areas of Phoenix. Gordon has asked for a federal investigation of Arpaio in connection with possible civil rights violations.

James Svara, a professor at Arizona State University’s School of Public Affairs who studies local governments, said the aim of the TV commercial could be to remind voters of Gordon’s record before they are approached by recall organizers.

“It makes it harder to find those people who may want to sign the petition,” said Svara, who hadn’t seen the ad.

Although the recall effort’s signature threshold isn’t terribly high in a city the size of Phoenix, recall organizers will have to approach a lot of people in their attempt to try to sink the popular mayor, Svara said.

The success of the petition-gathering could hinge on whether recall organizers rely on volunteers to sign up supporters or pursue the more effective approach of paying professionals to line up voters, Svara said.

The recall effort against Gordon is an all-volunteer campaign with no paid signature-gathers, Gaines said.

The volunteers include members of the Minuteman movement and other groups seeking tougher immigration policies.