By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media via Arizona Daily Star
Newly elected House Speaker Rusty Bowers inherits a chamber where he can’t afford to alienate a single Republican.
Bowers, chosen Wednesday by fellow Republicans to run the House for the next two years, finds the edge of the majority party clipped from 35-25 for the last two years to 31-29 after Tuesday’s election as Democrats apparently have picked up four seats. And what makes that significant is it takes 31 votes for final approval of any measure.
What that does, Bowers acknowledged, is empower any individual Republican with the ability to hold out their vote on priorities of the GOP leadership until the measure is altered to address his or her concerns.
