Rep. Ken Buck’s Sudden Retirement Yet Another Setback for a Reeling GOP House Leadership

Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on Mar 14, 2024

Buck knows. As a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, he might be viewed as a member of a favored class in the Trump era. Yet he is better known for his frequent breaks from his party, notably on headline-grabbing issues raised by the Trump-loyal MAGA wing.

He has criticized his fellow Republicans for echoing Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. He has had the temerity to express doubts about Republican claims to have found evidence that President Joe Biden committed an impeachable offense. He was one of three House Republicans to vote against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, citing the lack of evidence against him.

In other words, he actually let the lack of facts get in the way of going along with what fellow partisans thought was a good story — or a good party line.

As a result, despite his many years of service, including staff work in the 1980s with then-Rep. Dick Cheney on the committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair, there were not a lot of tears shed in GOP circles about his early retirement. There are, however, worries among the House GOP leadership about how to navigate their ever-shrinking and already narrow majority as they try to run the chamber.

Buck’s departure will leave a House in which Republicans will outnumber Democrats 218-213, which means House Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose only two votes to pass legislation along party lines. That increasingly is forcing Johnson to turn to Democrats to move must-pass legislation like the bill that recently kept the federal government from closing down.

Back home in Colorado, Buck’s departure creates a vacancy in his 4th Congressional District seat. His sudden retirement throws a wrench into Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert’s plans to run for election next term not in her own 3rd District but in Buck’s 4th. The open seat means that the district on June 25 now must elect a representative to complete Buck’s term while district Republican voters simultaneously vote in the primary for his successor.

The highly controversial Boebert, whose antics wore on her 3rd District constituents to the point where she thought it a better idea to run in the 4th, criticized Buck’s abrupt retirement as a “swampy backroom deal” but said she would run in the 4th District primary all the same while continuing to serve the 3rd District. Got that?

If nothing else, if Buck manages to end Boebert’s congressional career, that will be a true final act of service to the American people.

Yes, as Ken Buck might say, congressional politics aren’t what they used to be. But they never cease to be surprising.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)