AZ Republican Party Boots House Speaker Rusty Bowers For Failing To Big Lie Hard Enough

Last night, the Republican Party of Arizona voted to un-person Rusty Bowers, the current speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, as punishment for refusing to go along with then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to steal the state’s 11 electoral votes, which Bowers testified about publicly before the House January 6 Select Committee last month.

“The @AZGOP Executive Committee formally censured Rusty Bowers tonight— he is no longer a Republican in good standing & we call on Republicans to replace him at the ballot box in the August primary,” tweeted state party chair Kelli “Chemtrail” Ward last night.

The AZ Gippers are also spitting mad that Bowers refused to back a bill forcing students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and even participated in “one of the most horrific attacks on the Republican Party Platform plank on religious liberty” by sponsoring a bipartisan bill to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. We have now reached the phase where the Revolution devours its own.

In his public testimony, Bowers described an aggressive pressure campaign by Rudy Giuliani and US House Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona to convince him to convene a legislative hearing to investigate their bogus fraud allegations — allegations which had already been rejected by multiple courts.

Even Giuliani conceded that there was no evidence to substantiate the claims.

“In my recollection,” Bowers testified, “he said, ‘We have lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence.’”

Bowers, a devout Mormon, wouldn’t do it, even with Rudy calling every bloody day to see if maybe he’d changed his mind.

“It is a tenet of my faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired, that this is my most basic foundational belief,” he told the committee. “And so for me to do that because somebody just asked me to, is foreign to my very being; I will not do it.”

And for his troubles, Bowers faced months of protestors, many of whom were armed, standing outside his house and shouting that he was “a pedophile and a pervert and a corrupt politician,” through “blaring loudspeakers.” All the while, his daughter Kacey Rae Bowers was dying, eventually passing away on January 28, 2021.

Republicans up in arms about poor Justice Kegstand are oddly unperturbed about demonstrations in this politician’s neighborhood.

The Republican primary in Arizona is August 2, and Bowers seems unlikely to hold his seat, despite serving in the state Legislature for 17 years. He’s become yet another figure facing a Republican opponent who endorses the Big Lie and has the former president’s backing, in Trump’s attempt to use state elections to take revenge on Republicans who dare to cross him.

“It’s so hostile,” Bowers told NBC News on Monday, before the state Republican Party moved to boot him. “If I pull this off, it’s going to be a miracle.”

And while Your Wonkette is not generally in the business of wishing Republicans good luck with their elections, in this case, we might make an exception.

[NBC / CBS]

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