Ken Buck Leaving Congress, Maybe Taking Lauren Boebert With Him

Mike Johnson’s House majority keeps on slipping, slipping ...

Republican House Rep. Ken Buck from Colorado announced last November that he’s not seeking reelection this year. He was your ordinary terrible Republican, and he couldn’t cope with his party’s extraordinary stupidity.

“I always have been disappointed with our inability in Congress to deal with major issues,” he told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “I’m also disappointed that the Republican Party continues to, you know, rely on this lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and rely on the January 6th narrative, and the political prisoners from January 6th, and other things. If we’re going to solve difficult problems, we’ve got to deal with some very unpleasant truths, or lies, and make sure we project to the public what the truth is.”

Obviously, the situation has not improved, so Buck is peacing out completely with 10 months left in his term. He delivered his resignation on Tuesday, effective at the end of next week. He’s not ill or anything. He’s just sick of all these dummies.

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“This place just keeps going downhill,” he said, “and I don’t need to spend my time here. We’ve taken impeachment and we’ve made it a social media issue as opposed to a constitutional concept.”

Buck is currently within the majority and serves on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but these aren’t good times for Buck. He can only leave his cares behind once he’s left the MAGA mad House for good.

“It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress” Buck said. “And having talked to former members, it’s the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, always on top of everything like a boss, confessed that he “was surprised by Ken’s announcement. I’m looking forward to talking with him about that.”

However, Buck said, “Mike Johnson’s ability to talk me into staying here is going to be about as successful as his ability to talk me into unconstitutional impeachments.”

That was some spectacular shade-casting at Johnson, who narrowly managed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (after failing once). Buck was a solid “no” both times, and he’s hardly a fan of Mayorkas: He once compared him to Benedict Arnold over his handling of border security. However, he still didn’t believe Mayorkas committed an actual impeachable offense.

Buck announced his resignation on the same day the House Judiciary Committee interrogated Special Counsel Robert Hur about his investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents. This backfired spectacularly on Republicans, who are desperate to sling mud at Biden that might actually stick considering their Hunter Biden impeachment inquiry is going nowhere fast.

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So, how screwed is Lauren Boebert?

Buck’s abrupt departure reduces the House GOP majority to just 218 Republicans against 213 Democrats. Johnson, who can barely count as it is, has only two votes to spare when passing legislation along party lines when everyone’s in attendance. Buck’s seat in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District will remain vacant until at least June 25 when Gov. Jared Polis plans to call a special election. Polis said this will “minimize taxpayer cost” because the state already has a primary scheduled for that day.

This obviously inconveniences noted theatre lover Lauren Boebert, who’d packed up her nonsense in an old carpet bag and jumped into the 4th District race. She’d barely won reelection in her current district and probably thought it was easier to hold Buck’s seat in a more safely Republican district. Of course, thinking isn’t Boebert’s strong suit and rarely goes well for her.

Boebert would have to resign her seat to run in the special election, which she refuses to do. “I’m not leaving my constituents in the 3rd District,” she said. Her declaration would carry more weight if she wasn’t actively working to leave her constituents in the 3rd District.

“Ken Buck’s announcement yesterday was a gift to the Uniparty,” she said, hurling out words in a roughly sentence shape. “The establishment concocted a swampy backroom deal to try to rig an election I’m winning by 25 points.”

Hey, that’s almost true! A recent poll showed that Boebert is the favorite in the Republican primary with 32 percent support, and just 19 percent of voters back the other nine candidates combined. However, that leaves 49 percent of voters who are undecided, and a whopping 67 percent of voters polled said they wouldn’t even consider voting for her. This means she’s currently at her ceiling.

“[Boebert] is the favorite, but vulnerable,” political strategist Doug Kaplan told Courthouse News. “Whatever the margins are, it’s irrelevant, because it’s early and her unfavorables are very high.”

The Colorado Democratic and Republican parties will select their nominees for the special election. You can probably tell from all her protesting too much that the lady didn’t think she’d get the nod, so this is a transparent face-saving effort. She had briefly considered resigning her seat by May 14 so the state could hold special elections for both districts.

“That’s the rules,” she said. “It is so convoluted. So many variables, so many different options, so many different directions that this could go.”

The problem for Boebert is that the special election nominee’s name will appear twice on the same ballot, as the Republican nominee will likely be one of Boebert’s primary opponents. That makes it much easier for the special election nominee to consolidate most of the undecided support. Boebert has only the most opportunistic ties to her new district, and she’ll have to convince voters who picked one Republican in the special election to also back her in the primary. Most voters will probably just stick with the same candidate to replace Buck. Even Boebert probably realizes this, which is why she’s in full whine over Buck’s resignation.

“Forcing an unnecessary special election on the same day as the primary election will confuse voters,” she said — in fairness, though, Boebert is good representative of the “easily confused” electorate. She added that the special election will “result in a lame duck congressman on day one, and leave the 4th District with no representation for more than three months. The 4th District deserves better.” 

The special election winner is only a “lame duck” if they don’t win the primary. Boebert is sort of arguing against herself there. She is correct that the 4th District deserves much better than her, and that’s probably what Colorado Republicans believe, as well.

Former Republican House Rep. Adam Kinzinger posted on social media: “By resigning early, Ken Buck is giving an advantage to anyone but Lauren Boebert. She cannot run in the special election since she already occupies a seat, so another person will be elected to serve out the term, and it won’t be Lauren. Smart.”

There’s no conclusive proof that Boebert was deliberately Bucked, but the congressman certainly isn’t a fan. He posted a video after the 2022 State of the Union that featured a visibly uncomfortable Republican Byron Donalds “stuck in the middle” of Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Clowns to the left of him. Jokers to the right …. well, you know how the song goes.

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