Arizona Legislature ‘cannot and will not’ overturn election, Republican House speaker says
Republican Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives Rusty Bowers said Friday that pleas from some GOP lawmakers to overturn the results of the state’s presidential election are illegal and “cannot and will not” happen.
Republican state Reps. Mark Finchem and Kelly Townsend spent much of the day imploring their fellow legislators on social media to overturn the election results in favor of President Donald Trump.
Bowers said such action would be both illegal and inappropriate.
“As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the results of the presidential election,” Bowers said in a prepared statement. “I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him. But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.”
He noted that such an action would violate the oath lawmakers took to uphold the U.S. and Arizona Constitutions, along with, “the basic principles of republican government and the rule of law if we attempted to nullify the people’s vote based on unsupported theories of fraud. Under the laws that we wrote and voted upon, Arizona voters choose who wins, and our system requires that their choice be respected.” [Continue reading…]