So in a desperate move to once again cheat Arizona voters, Russell Pearce sued to say Arizona’s recall provision didn’t apply to him. The high court set him straight, noting that in 1910, Arizona risked statehood–a dream it had had for 50 years–to include the recall of all elected officials and judges in its constitution.
President William Howard Taft rejected Arizona’s constitution, demanding the recall provision be removed, and Arizona obliged like an obedient child. But did it?
To understand what folks in Arizona Territory were really thinking, we need to remember a defiant poem printed in the Florence Blade-Tribune in November of 1911. That’s three months BEFORE Taft would sign the Statehood bill on Feb. 14, 1912.
It’s called “Ode to Billy Taft.” And it goes like this:
“We will tolerate your gall
And surrender our recall
Till safe within the statehood stall,
Billy Taft, Billy Taft
“They we’ll fairly drive you daft
With the ring of our horse laugh
Billy Taft, Billy Taft
“As we joyously reinstall
By the vote of one and all
that ever-glorious recall
Billy Taft, Billy Taft.”
And that’s exactly what they did, reinstating the recall in the first electiion of statehood in November of 1912.
Who would have thought that 100 years later, we’d get to have another horse laugh that advanced the Great State of Arizona–this time when the voters recalled Russell Pearce.