Arizona Republican House Speaker Claims GOP Election System Overhaul Bill Tantamount to ‘Fascism’

This summer, Arizona House Speaker Russell "Rusty" Bowers testified before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 US Capitol breach. The GOP lawmaker claimed to the panel that he was pressured by then-US President Donald Trump to overturn Democrat Joe Biden Biden’s 2020 election win in Arizona.

Russell "Rusty" Bowers, the outgoing Republican Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, has lashed out at an unsuccessful GOP proposal that would have allowed the legislature to overturn election results in his state.

“The legislature, after the election, could dismiss the election. And I said, welcome to fascism,” Bowers told CNN on Sunday.

He also warned that it’s “very possible” that the election system overhaul bill may come back to life if election deniers win the November midterms.

Rusty Bowers, Arizona House Speaker, testifies during the fourth hearing on the January 6th investigation in the Cannon House Office Building on June 21, 2022 in Washington, DC

© AFP 2023 / KEVIN DIETSCH

“The possibility of that getting a governor signature would just be a disaster. I call it the possibility of going back into the dark ages in Arizona,” the 69-year-old said.

In February, Bowers assigned the legislation to each of the state House's 12 committees, “virtually eliminating the chances of the proposal being passed by the legislature,” according to reports.

He spoke to CNN after he yielded a Republican primary last month for his Arizona state Senate seat to his Donald Trump-backed challenger David Farnsworth, who said that he had "no doubt" that the 2020 election was stolen from the 45th president and that there was a “conspiracy headed up by the devil himself.”

This helped Farnsworth get support from Trump, who posted online at the time that “Bowers must be defeated.” The former POTUS dubbed Bowers “a RINO [Republican in Name Only] coward who participated against the Republican Party in the totally partisan unselect committee of political thugs and hacks the other day and disgraced himself, and he disgraced the state of Arizona.”

The developments came after Bowers testified in June before the January 6 House Select Committee on Trump's pressure campaign to get the legislature to reject the 2020 US presidential election results in Arizona. Bowers was slammed by Trump for his testimony, and the 69-year-old was formally censured by the Arizona Republican Party executive committee afterward.

The GOP lawmaker’s “Welcome to fascism” remarks echoed those made by President Joe Biden during a speech in Rockville, Maryland in late August, when he took aim at Trump’s political movement.

“It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something — it’s like semi-fascism,” POTUS argued. When later asked to elaborate on what he meant by speaking of semi­-fascism, Biden said, You know what I mean.”

January 6 House Panel to Resume Work

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 US Capitol breach is expected to start up its public hearings again later this month.

On January 6, 2021, a mob, including Trump supporters, breached the US Capitol in Washington D.C. in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the results of what the 45th president slammed as "the most corrupt election" in American history. Five people died during the unrest, and dozens more were injured, including at least 138 police officers.

Trump held a rally on 6 January outside the White House, where he made a pledge to his supporters that he would not allow the election to be "stolen" from him.

Using his now-suspended Twitter account, the 45th president later urged his supporters "to stay peaceful" and "go home", recording a video address on 7 January condemning the violence. Trump was impeached for an unprecedented second time over accusations of "incitement of insurrection," but was then acquitted in the Senate.