The Re-Branded "Oath-Keepers": Some Back-Stories About Rusty Bowers
Intro: But while Bowers said the efforts by Giuliani and other Trump backers have been hurtful, he does not levy any criticism on Trump directly and would support him if he were on the ballot.
Look who's now calling the plays in the close contest to pass the budget in The Arizona State House.
After a two-week time-out, let's get a replay of the action from Bowie Fischer House GOP leaders plan to put their state spending plan and tax-cut package up for a vote Monday.
It's unlikely, though, that they currently have the votes — a fact they acknowledge. But the strategy appears to be: Get everyone on record and then figure out where to go from there...
Arizona House GOP Leaders To Force Vote On $12.8 Billion Budget
By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services
Published: Friday, June 4, 2021 - 6:22pm
Updated: Friday, June 4, 2021 - 6:54pm
. . .But at some point, Bowers said, the plan needs to be put up for a vote to see if there are the necessary 31 House Republicans willing to adopt it. That could occur on Monday — Bowers issued a notice for all representatives to return to the House at 9 a.m. Monday.
"I'm hoping that it isn't a 'Hail Mary,' he said. "But if it is, it is."
. . .Bowers agreed that the best move at this point is just to push ahead. An up or down vote would identify who isn't going to go along, putting the onus on them to bring an offer to leadership, he said.
Reaching a consensus among Republican lawmakers has not just been a struggle in the House.
"As of right now we still do not have the needed 16 votes,'' said Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott). "We are still working with the members.''
More >> The main provision would alter current law, which imposes a 2.59% rate on taxable income of up to $53,000 for married couples, with increasing rates up to 4.5% on amounts above $318,000. That would be replaced by a single 2.5% rate on all taxable income.
Lawmakers cannot repeal the 3.5% tax rate voters approved in November on incomes above $500,000 to help fund education. But the plan calls for blunting the effect by having an absolute 4.5% cap on all income taxes
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These Republicans Resisted Trump’s Attempt To Steal The Election. They’d Vote For Him Again.
As GOP election deniers prepare to test American democracy again, the few Republicans who thwarted Trump's 2020 lies still won't fully break with him.
[Rusty Bowers, Arizona state House speaker, and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia secretary of state, testified on Tuesday about Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Bowers has said he'd vote for Trump again, and Raffensperger has refused to rule it out.]
Rusty Bowers, the Republican speaker of the Arizona state House of Representatives, on Tuesday detailed his efforts to thwart former President Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election in stirring testimony to a select congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Bowers told the committee that Trump and his lawyers failed to produce any evidence of fraud, and that they asked him to ignore the law and overturn the election anyway. He became emotional, at times, as he described the barrage of violent threats he and his family have faced
“If he is the nominee, if he was up against Biden, I’d vote for him again,” Bowers told The Associated Press. “Simply because what he did the first time, before COVID, was so good for the county. In my view it was great.”
Bowers was among a small group of Republican elected officials who broke with Trump and refused to go along with the plot to overturn the 2020 election. Now, he is the latest among them to suggest that he would still support Trump in a future contest, even as the former president and his Republican allies intensify their efforts to undermine American democracy.
Bowers was one of five recipients of this year’s John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award for his refusal to consider overturning the 2020 election results despite pressure from Trump and his supporters.
But while Bowers said the efforts by Giuliani and other Trump backers have been hurtful, he does not levy any criticism on Trump directly and would support him if he were on the ballot.
“If he is the nominee, if he was up against Biden, I’d vote for him again,” Bowers said. “Simply because what he did the first time, before COVID, was so good for the county. In my view it was great.”
Arizona Republican calls push to overturn 2020 ‘juvenile’
PHOENIX (AP) — Calls from top advisers to former President Donald Trump to help overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss were an unsupported, unwise and “juvenile” effort that attacked a bedrock principal of American democracy, Arizona’s House speaker said Monday.
Bowers spoke to The Associated Press after he arrived in Washington on Monday afternoon. He will be questioned about a phone call he got from Trump and attorney Rudy Giuliani in the weeks after the November 2020 election where Giuliani floated a proposal to replace Arizona’s Biden electors by having the state’s Legislature instead choose those committed to voting for Trump.
He revealed a second call from Trump on Monday, saying the president phoned again on Dec. 4, 2020, but did not pressure him. He said Trump mainly made small talk, asking about his family and the upcoming holidays.
“But then he said, ‘I want to call you to tell you that I remember what you said the first time.’” Bowers said. “And I’m presuming it was about when I told him I wouldn’t. That I supported him, I walked for him, I campaigned with him. But I wouldn’t do anything illegal for him.”
Bowers said efforts by Trump’s backers have harmed the nation, undercut trust in elections and the right of people to vote their conscience.
“I just think it is horrendous. It’s terrible,” Bowers said. “The result of throwing the pebble in the pond, the reverberations across the pond, have, I think, been very destructive.”
January 6 hearings: state officials testify on Trump pressure to discredit election
‘Pressuring public servants into betraying their oaths was a fundamental part of the playbook,’ says Adam Schiff
'The numbers don't lie': Georgia officials debunk Donald Trump's election fraud claim – video
Joan E Greve Tue 21 Jun 2022 16.59 EDTFirst published on Tue 21 Jun 2022 12.06 EDT
‘Pressuring public servants into betraying their oaths was a fundamental part of the playbook,’ says Adam Schiff
State election officials testified before the January 6 committee on Tuesday, recounting how Donald Trump and his allies pressured them to overturn the results of the 2020 US presidential election in the weeks leading up to the deadly Capitol attack.
Trump continued his efforts even after members of his own party repeatedly told him that reversing the election results would violate state laws and the US constitution, the officials testified.
As a result of Trump’s persistence, election officials and poll workers were subjected to violent, hateful and at times racist threats from the former president’s supporters.
The hearing came days after the panel heard about Trump’s pressure campaign on his vice-president, Mike Pence, to interfere with the congressional certification of the results. . .
Rusty Bowers, the Republican speaker of the Arizona house, was among those testifying at the Tuesday hearing. Less than an hour before the start of the hearing, Trump released a statement mocking Bowers as a “RINO”, meaning Republican in name only, and claiming that Bowers had said the election in Arizona was rigged.
Testifying before the committee, Bowers acknowledged that he spoke to Trump in the days after the election, but he denied ever claiming his state’s results were tainted by fraud. “Anywhere, anyone, anytime who said that I said the election was rigged – that would not be true,” Bowers said.
Instead, Bowers repeatedly pressed Trump and his lawyers to present valid evidence of widespread fraud in Arizona’s results. According to Bowers, Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s campaign attorneys, told him: “We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence.”
Despite his failure to present any evidence to substantiate his baseless claims, Trump heavily leaned on Bowers to send a fake slate of Republican electors to Congress, as part of a larger effort to overturn the election results. Bowers said he told Trump, “You’re asking me to do something against my oath, and I will not break my oath.”
Look who's now calling the plays in the close contest to pass the budget in The Arizona State House.
After a two-week time-out, let's get a replay of the action from Bowie Fischer House GOP leaders plan to put their state spending plan and tax-cut package up for a vote Monday.
It's unlikely, though, that they currently have the votes — a fact they acknowledge. But the strategy appears to be: Get everyone on record and then figure out where to go from there...
Arizona House GOP Leaders To Force Vote On $12.8 Billion Budget
By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services
Published: Friday, June 4, 2021 - 6:22pm
Updated: Friday, June 4, 2021 - 6:54pm
. . .But at some point, Bowers said, the plan needs to be put up for a vote to see if there are the necessary 31 House Republicans willing to adopt it. That could occur on Monday — Bowers issued a notice for all representatives to return to the House at 9 a.m. Monday.
"I'm hoping that it isn't a 'Hail Mary,' he said. "But if it is, it is."
. . .Bowers agreed that the best move at this point is just to push ahead. An up or down vote would identify who isn't going to go along, putting the onus on them to bring an offer to leadership, he said.
Reaching a consensus among Republican lawmakers has not just been a struggle in the House.
"As of right now we still do not have the needed 16 votes,'' said Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott). "We are still working with the members.''
More >> The main provision would alter current law, which imposes a 2.59% rate on taxable income of up to $53,000 for married couples, with increasing rates up to 4.5% on amounts above $318,000. That would be replaced by a single 2.5% rate on all taxable income.
Lawmakers cannot repeal the 3.5% tax rate voters approved in November on incomes above $500,000 to help fund education. But the plan calls for blunting the effect by having an absolute 4.5% cap on all income taxes
It's true we don't know what we don't know, but judging by actions taken for whatever stated reasons, who knows why, and considering the fact that water is the most precious commodity here in the desert, it is more than suspicious and certainly deserving more scrutiny - Once again any reasonable person might ask why is the long time Speaker of The Arizona State House R-Mesa, now introducing a bill to "immunize" and to provide legal protection for those who didn't know they were breaking the law: those who drill into underground streams to tap into water they aren't entitled to.
Hard-to-believe it not? . . . Governor Ducey signed the bill into law on Thursday. That news is from Howie Fischer published in the credible and reliableArizona Capitol Times. It removed criminal penalties from previously existing laws - why now? Any reasonable person might ask . . . that is if the public knows about it. And, once again, we witness more crazy politics here in Arizona.
". . . The legislation was pushed by House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa. He argued that those who drill wells don’t – and can’t – know whether they’ve actually tapped into a subsurface flow. And that water, like surface water, is allocated not based on who owns the land but on different laws about who has the right to use it. Bowers said the state is still trying to determine who has the rights to certain surface and subsurface waters. He said some of the water rights at issue actually could turn out to belong to tribes. Bowers said there’s no reason to subject well drillers to criminal liability if it turns out that what they’re pumping “contains one molecule of subflow.”
That includes Bowers himself who said he drilled a new well two years ago. . . " Legislation to immunize well owners becomes law by Howie Fischer 07 June 2019 A new law signed Thursday by Gov. Doug Ducey is designed to provide legal protections to those who drill wells into underground streams they are not legally entitled to tap. The measure repeals existing laws that make it a crime when a well owner “uses water to which another is entitled.” That law, until now, has subjected violators to up to four months in jail and a $750 fine. Now, that criminal penalty will be available only when someone knew they were breaking the law. . . Read more > https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2019/06/07/legislation-to-immunize-well-owners-becomes-law/
05 December 2018
What Is It That Conservative Mesa Mormon Republicans Just Don't Get About Equal Rights-Under-The-Law??
Despite his decades-long record of opposing LGBTQ rights, Republicans selected Mesa state Rep. Russell “Rusty” Bowers (R) to be their new Speaker of the House. __________________________________________________________ Bowers is in his second stint in state government: > he originally served in the state House from 1993 to 1997, > then served in the state Senate from 1997 to 2001 (where he served as Majority Leader). > After an unsuccessful 2010 Congressional campaign, he was elected to return to the state House in 2014. Over that time, one thing has been constant: he does not believe LGBTQ people deserve equal treatment under the law _______________________________________________________________ Blogger Note: Here in Mesa it appears that action on a proposed Anti-Discrimination Ordinance was put 'on the back-burner' during the first elected-term for Mayor John Giles after he stated publicly "It's the right thing to do". Unlike the mayors in Arizona's two larger cities Phoenix and Tucson and Flagstaff, Giles has chosen instead not to exercise the necessary leadership skills to guarantee equal rights in employment or in public accommodations for everyone. He says he is 'waiting for guidance' from the State.That guidance he wants could be handed down by the Arizona Supreme Court in January: Gay Wedding Invitation Card Lawsuit Heads To Arizona Supreme Court
Arizona’s new state House Speaker doesn’t believe LGBTQ people are equal under the law
Rep. Russell "Rusty" Bowers (R) led the charge for discrimination in the Copper State as early as 1994 and doesn't appear to have evolved. by Josh Israel 29 Nov 2018 08:00am in THINK PROGRESS
Though the midterm blue wave in Arizona helped Democrats pick up a U.S. Senate seat, one U.S. House seat, three other statewide offices, and three seats in the House of Representatives, Republicans still held the slimmest possible majority in that body, holding 31 seats to the Democrats’ 29.
Arizona’s highest court is set to decide whether a Phoenix law aimed at prohibiting businesses from discriminating against LGBTQ people violates the state’s constitution. The case centers on a Phoenix business that argues designing wedding invitations for same sex weddings goes against their religious beliefs. KJZZ’s Will Stone has been covering this story and joined The Show to talk about it.
His bigotry was on display as early as his first term in the legislature. In 1994, angry that Phoenix passed a 1992 ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation for city employees and large city contractors, Bowers authored a proposed amendment to Arizona’s state constitution to prohibit localities from adopting gay rights laws. His reasoning: he believed homosexual behavior to be bad for society. “When a public entity endorses a behavior (through ordinances), it is very dangerous,” he said at the time. “It legitimizes it.” Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar Colorado ban as a clear violation of the constitution’s equal protection clause. . . . In 2001, Bowers helped to initially torpedo nondiscrimination protections for gay Arizonans who work for the state government, arguing that “Tolerance does not require abandoning one’s standards or one’s opinions on political or public choices, especially policy choices… Tolerance is a way of reacting to diversity, not a command to insulate it from examination.” Days later, when the senate reconsidered and passed the bill, he decried it as “an anarchy of values.” Such protections, he predicted, would “be extremely disruptive of employment in this state.” Later that same year, Bowers also vociferously opposed a repeal of the state’s unconstitutional sodomy ban and laws that prohibited sex not intended to produce children. “We have a culture war here,” he proclaimed, terming the bill a “direct attack on the family.” “It’s because people don’t exercise more self-discipline that more laws are required,” he added. Though times have changed and public opinion has enormously shifted in favor of recognizing basic rights for LGBTQ people, it does not appear that Bowers has evolved, even during his 13 years away from government. He signed onto a 2018 amicus briefurging the state Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling that a business that makes wedding invitations must provide equal accommodations to same-sex couples under Phoenix’s public accommodation laws. The brief asks the state’s highest court to examine “whether public accommodation laws can force speakers to convey messages contrary to their faith” — a request the court granted last week.And as he ran for re-election, he completed a candidate questionnaire for the notoriously anti-LGBTQ Center for Arizona Policy. Not only did he tell them that he opposes adding sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression to the state’s existing nondiscrimination law, he also vowed to support“[p]rotecting a parent’s right to seek professional counseling for their minor child with same-sex attraction or gender identity issues to help them reach their desired outcome,” endorsing the harmful and ineffective practice of forcing LGBTQ kids to endure conversion therapy. This scam practice is banned in 14 states and the District of Columbia because of the damage it can cause. ThinkProgress reached out to Bowers to ask whether his view on any of these issues has changed; he did not respond. While Bowers has apparently stood still, Arizona has made progress. > The state just elected the first openly bisexual woman to be a United States Senator. > The Republican mayor of Bowers’ hometown, Mesa, endorsed a proposed statewide employment nondiscrimination law for LGBTQ Arizonans last year, and the measure has bipartisan support in the legislature.
And a poll in February by ONE Community found 77.8 percent of likely Arizona voters — and 62.3 person of self-identified conservatives — backed employment protections for gay and transgender people.
Will politicians set Arizona's future aflame with some bone-headed idea or a brazenly unconstitutional scheme?
That's the opening question from a New Times local reporter starting off a new news story with some strong words.
Unlike some "contributing writers" writing stories for The East Valley Tribune and The Arizona Republic, Flaherty pours the fuel on the new legislative session, starting with the water fight. He's got credentials and bravado.
What Fresh Hell Awaits During Arizona's New Legislative Session?
Once again it's Mesa conservative Mormon Republican Rusty Bowers in the picture > New legislators from Mesa represent LD 18, LD 16 and LD 24 Over all these issues is the narrow Republican margin of control in the House. The Republicans lost seats in the House, reducing their margin from 35 during the last session to just 31. This 31-29 split between Republicans and Democrats means that one GOP dissenting voice can make life difficult for the majority.
Despite their efforts in several competitive districts, Democrats were unable to claw back the State Senate, so the 54th Legislature will be a continuation of last year's 17-13 Senate split. . .
First of all, let's take a look at two recent updates - one on the state level and one on the federal level + related content
ARIZONA February 2, 2021
Mesa lawmaker opposes anti-discrimination bill
By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services
State lawmakers from both parties are seeking to enact new laws that would nullify last year’s Arizona Supreme Court ruling allowing business owners to cite their “sincerely held religious beliefs’’ to refuse to serve gays.
But a Mesa lawmaker is among those blocking it.The proposals from Sen. Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix, and Rep. Daniel Hernandez, D-Tucson, would expand existing laws that now prohibit discrimination in public accommodation based on race, religion, sex, age, disability or national origin.
Both SB 1321 and HB 2716 would add sexual orientation and gender identification to the list. . .
The potentially more far-reaching part of the plan would alter the current existing laws that now generally make it illegal for government to “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion’’ even if that burden results from laws that apply to everyone else.
To that end, they are proposing new language to say that if a business is open to the public, it has to provide services to all customers, regardless of whether they run counter to the owners’ beliefs.
Both measures face an uphill fight. Neither Senate President Karen Fann nor House Speaker Rusty Bowers of Mesa has agreed to allow either bill to be heard. . .
> Fann said she’s been trying to keep all legislation dealing with gay rights, on both sides of the issue, off the agenda.
> Bowers said he sees no need to expand existing anti-discrimination laws to cover sexual orientation and gender.
And he was particularly adamant about not overturning the Brush & Nib decision.
“I think that my right of freedom of religion and religious beliefs and expression is at least equal to anybody else’s,’’ Bowers said. . ________________________________________________________________________________
WASHINGTON D.C. February 12, 2021
Historic Decision: Enforcing Fair Housing Act to Prohibit Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Direct from HUD Press Office Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 8:47 AM
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING: HUD’s Directive to Enforce the Fair Housing Act to Prohibit Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Bowers has been serving terms in the Arizona State House for more than a few years in both chambers. He has been representing District 25 since January 5, 2015. Before that he was a member of the Arizona Senate from 1997-2001 and before that, the Arizona House of Representatives from 1993–1997. As the current Speaker of The House, where Republicans have a slim majority of one, Bowers expresses certain issues in public.
Some of those views and opinions are the subject of posts on this blog that readers here can view by using the Search box.
In the last week he's made news headlines for saying he supports more traditional sex education classes in public schools. Some of the presentations he looked at were more graphic than he expected from his perspective of "traditional family values". Surprisingly he got personal on that topic
In of a review of a new tentative curriculum at a meeting in Gilbert, all the visuals and illustrations were way too much.
Way too many details . . .
They simply were not the way he found about sex.
That's a very unusual and un-solicited statement made in public about a very private thing.
Nobody asked.
Since he went there, let's Go There! We, the public, have been finding out a lot things about sex - and sex practices - of our elected representatives inside the Arizona State House.
The top Republican in the Arizona House of Representatives appears to be attempting to break a legislative logjam by introducing a measure to increase the statute of limitations for victims of childhood sexual crimes that several GOP senators have said is key if leaders want them to vote on the budget. . .
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona lawmakers are looking at expanding exemptions from children's vaccine requirements as public health officials in the ...
Last year, the geniuses of Arizona's political world suggested we ban masks at protests, criminalize panhandling, and bar college students from voting. That's to ...
The Arizona Legislature, a notorious cauldron of bad ideas, will reconvene on Monday, January 14. What fresh hell awaits? Next week marks the beginning of ...
“There is a huge amount of frustration that our bills are not getting heard,” said state Rep. Kirsten Engel (D-LD10). “Republicans are not having their bills heard either. We have a speaker of the house who has the control, but he is a bottleneck. We’re going to have a session where we won’t have a lot of action on house priorities.”
She was referring to doddering Rep. Rusty Bowers (R-LD25) who has failed to give most of the 1,800 bills a first reading, and has been causing delays by assigning bills to be reviewed by two committees.
Old man Rusty Bowers is a bottleneck in the Legislature. . .
BACKGROUND
Back in April 2016 when Pierce decided not to run again for his State Senate position, The Arizona Daily Independent had a different story about that 'pipeline' Senator Steve Pierce Will Leave Bitter Legacy It seemed to many Arizona Legislature watchers that the only time State Senator Steve Pierce smiled was when he was thwarting efforts on behalf of the small business owners by his fellow lawmakers. Pierce, who will reportedly not seek re-election to his Legislative District 1 Senate seat, leaves behind a bitter legacy marked by favors for the wealthy and disregard for everyday people. Pierce has served the powers-that-be since 2009. Pierce could be counted on to do the bidding of the corporate members of the chambers of commerce, and reject nearly any attempt to protect children, and families unless it would ultimately benefit the wealthy, as has the Medicaid expansion he and former Governor Jan Brewer pushed in 2012. Pierce served as Whip, President pro-tem and Senate President. Senate President Pierce was deposed from that position in 2012 and replaced Sen. Andy Biggs, a Medicaid expansion opponent, by his fellow lawmakers. In his removal from the presidency, lawmakers argued that Pierce had to go during the Republican Primary races in which he poured money into certain primary races to strengthen his grasp on his own power and to the detriment of the Republican Party in the General Election. Power Shift In Arizona Senate Forces Pierce Out . . . Andy Biggs, of Gilbert was voted in when senators-elect met yesterday in a private room at the Phoenix Children’s Museum. . . One legislator said, “You know, Andy got caught up in Pierce’s scandal. Pierce is a nasty piece of work
Let Arizona Republic reporter Dustin Gardiner tell you all about that!
House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, has repeatedly canceled final votes on ... "If anything, it's highlighting the fact that the Arizona Legislature is as partisan ...
PHOENIX — A poorly handled presidential primary election and a hotly contested U.S. Senate race have kicked off a bitter battle over voting rights in an increasingly competitive state.
Republicans who control the state legislature have introduced a handful of measures to tighten election rules they say are routinely exploited, with the goal of streamlining procedures across Arizona’s 15 counties.
Democrats say the measures amount to a last-minute attempt by Republicans to keep the state in the GOP column ahead of the 2020 elections after four Democrats won statewide offices in the 2018 midterms.
PHOENIX — HB 2476, legislation that aimed to eliminate current state laws regarding water forfeiture, was withdrawn by House Speaker Rusty Bowers last ...
It's true we don't know what we don't know, but judging by actions taken for whatever stated reasons, who knows why, and considering the fact that water is the most precious commodity here in the desert, it is more than suspicious and certainly deserving more scrutiny - Once again any reasonable person might ask why is the long time Speaker of The Arizona State House R-Mesa, now introducing a bill to "immunize" and to provide legal protection for those who didn't know they were breaking the law: those who drill into underground streams to tap into water they aren't entitled to. 
Hard-to-believe it not? . . . Governor Ducey signed the bill into law on Thursday. That news is from Howie Fischer published in the credible and reliable Arizona Capitol Times. It removed criminal penalties from previously existing laws - why now? Any reasonable person might ask . . . that is if the public knows about it. And, once again, we witness more crazy politics here in Arizona. 
Despite his decades-long record of opposing LGBTQ rights, Republicans selected Mesa state Rep. Russell “Rusty” Bowers (R) to be their new Speaker of the House.
His bigotry was on display as early as his first term in the legislature. In 1994, angry that Phoenix passed a 1992 ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation for city employees and large city contractors, Bowers authored a proposed amendment to Arizona’s state constitution to prohibit localities from adopting gay rights laws. 
Back in April 2016 when Pierce decided not to run again for his State Senate position, The Arizona Daily Independent had a different story about that 'pipeline'
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