Steering column disassembly question

Trying to break this thing down to get it cleaned up and painted.

The FSM says to bend the plastic backup switch "operating lever" and that it can't be re-used. So, either this is something I can go buy a replacement for and just haven't seen before, or is there a trick to get it out without ruining it? Or replace it with something else? I'm not ready to break it off just yet until I'm sure what comes next, and without pulling it off I don't know how it attaches, so obviously I can't figure it out for myself at this point :)

Anybody know?