Rusty Bowers would not bend
When Rudy came a callin’
Arizona’s Speaker of the House
Could smell a rat was roamin’
Donald Trump lost fair and square
But said election stolen
Donny liked the White House perks
Didn’t care who was fairly chosen
In two meetings with AZ lawmakers
Rudy made his pitch
Ella Jennison was by his side
Trump phoned in to spout a bit
Just decertify AZ electors
Get new ones to vote our way
We’re all good Republicans, aren’t we Rusty?
You must want Trump to stay
But Rusty Bowers is a man of God
He’s old school, like my Daddy
Tell him to betray his oath
He’ll show you the door, quick and gladly
Unprecedented and illegal
Rusty told them to their face
He would not betray his oath
He is a man of faith
And the Arizona Speaker of the House
Published a memo the next day
Said Rudy had some theories, but no evidence
Joe Biden fairly won the day
Next came death threats and MAGA mobs
Harassing Rusty and his kin
Deranged Trump cultists love their guns
To fortify their sins
But tide is turning now
As more truth comes to light
Trump’s evil acts of desperation
A craven fascist blight
Some Republicans are shifting now
To show they weren’t that bad
Now that walls are closing in
On tattered Trumpist flags
History tends to clarify
As more truth comes more to light
For Mango Mussolini supporters
Forever is their blight
Rusty Bowers would not bend
Stood tall that crucial day
Would not support Trump’s false claims
He called a spade a spade
Hey Rusty, democracy says thanks!
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Who is Rusty Bowers? The conservative Republican has a history of bucking his party’s extremists
By Fredreka Schouten, CNN, Updated 7:55 PM ET, Tue June 21, 202
(CNN) Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers delivered emotional testimony Tuesday about his resolve in the face of enormous pressure to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, vaulting the conservative Republican into the spotlight and the center of the national reckoning over the events of January 6, 2021.
Back in Arizona, Bowers long has been known as a maverick willing to buck the increasingly extreme elements of his own party — sometimes with wry dismissals or a sly brand of showmanship.
Earlier this year, for instance, rather than just sitting on a bill that would have given the state legislature the power to toss out future election results, Bowers used an obscure procedural maneuver to kill it: He assigned it to 12 committees at once.
At the time, Arizona journalist Jeremy Duda described Bowers’ takedown as “killing the bill, chopping it up, setting the pieces on fire, then digging up the ashes and throwing them into the ocean.”
In a column earlier this year, Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts called the 69-year-old Bowers one of the “few Republicans at the (state) Capitol who declined to give in to the collective psychosis that has infected some of the baser portions of his political base.”
Bowers’ testimony before the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol demonstrated his inclination to follow his own moral compass, as he described resisting time after time a pressure campaign from former President Donald Trump, Trump’s then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other Republicans to remove electors for Joe Biden.
The requests, he told lawmakers on Tuesday, violated not just his oath as legislator but one of his “most basic foundational beliefs.”
Bowers, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said it was an article of faith for him that the US Constitution is “divinely inspired” and not easily cast aside.
Bowers supported Trump’s candidacy but he added: “I do not want to be a winner by cheating.”
Bowers, a professional artist, has paid a high price for his resistance. The Patriot Party of Arizona launched a drive to recall him last year because, among other things, he refused to back a controversial “audit” of votes by the Cyber Ninjas firm in Maricopa County, Arizona. At one point, Bower joked to The Arizona Republic about potentially inspecting the papers used in the recall drive for bamboo — a reference to an outlandish conspiracy theory that ballots from China were stuffed into the state’s election system.
The recall effort failed.
Bowers and his family also endured repeated protests outside his home east of Phoenix, including from people who called the father of seven a corrupt politician and a pedophile, he recounted Tuesday. At one point, he said, an armed man showed up and appeared to threaten his neighbor.
Tears formed in his eyes Tuesday as he described the impact of the harassment on his wife, Donetta, and his then-gravely ill daughter. His daughter died in January 2021.
Bowers is term-limited in the House and earlier this year announced a bid for the state Senate.
Bowers and another witness at Tuesday’s hearing, former Fulton County, Georgia, election worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, received John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage awards this year.
Waipahu Bob 