Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers Wins Profiles In Courage Award

PHOENIX, AZ —Arizona House Speaker Russell "Rusty" Bowers recently was named one of five winners of the 2022 Profiles In Courage Award, which is presented by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum to people who have had the courage to protect and defend democracy in the U.S. and abroad.

According to the Kennedy Library, Bowers, a pro-Trump Republican from Mesa, earned the award for resisting "intense pressure from (Donald) Trump and Rudy Giuliani" and refusing "to go along with an illegal scheme to replace Arizona's legal slate of electors with a false slate of electors who would elect Trump (in 2020)."

Bowers, according to the library, also acted to protect the integrity of Arizona elections in Jan. 2022 by stopping a Republican-sponsored bill that would have allowed the legislature to overturn the results of an election.

For his "decision of conscience," Bowers endured persistent harassment and intimidation tactics from Trump supporters, and he later survived an attempt to recall him from the legislature, according to the Kennedy Library.

"As a conservative Republican, I don't like the results of the presidential election," Bowers said. "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."

Joining Bowers as 2022 Profiles in Courage honorees are: Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, Liz Cheney, Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan secretary of state and Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, an Elections Department employee in Fulton County, Georgia.

According to the Kennedy Library, the award —which is a sterling silver lantern —is presented each May at a ceremony at the library in Boston. The ceremony coincides with the celebration of President Kennedy's May 29 birthday.

The Profiles in Courage Award was created in 1989 by members of the Kennedy family "to recognize and celebrate the quality of political courage that he admired most."

Past winners of the award, include: Barack Obama, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, John McCain, Gabrielle Giffords, Kofi Annan and John Lewis.