Colorado’s Buck among 8 Republicans who vote to remove McCarthy as speaker
(Colorado Newsline) One Colorado Republican voted in support of removing U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his role leading the chamber.
In a vote Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Ken Buck of Windsor voted to oust McCarthy from his speakership, as did all five Democratic members of Colorado’s House delegation. Reps. Lauren Boebert and Doug Lamborn, Colorado’s other two Republicans in the House, voted against removing McCarthy.
With a final tally of 216-210, McCarthy lost the vote and was removed from the speakership. Buck was among just eight Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy. No speaker has ever before been removed by the House.
The vote came after Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz offered a motion to remove the California Republican from the chamber’s top position Monday. Gaetz has been saying for weeks that if McCarthy worked with Democrats to pass a stopgap spending bill, that would be one reason to try to remove him from the speaker’s office.
Buck said on social media that McCarthy fell through on his commitments to pass spending bills “with real spending cuts” by working with Democrats to pass a continuing resolution that recently prevented a government shutdown.
“Kevin McCarthy has repeatedly broken his word both to the American people and to members of Congress,” Buck said in another post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
During a roll call on the so-called motion to vacate, Boebert, who is an ally of Gaetz and previous critic of McCarthy, said when called on to vote, “No, for now.” She said in a post on X that while she is also frustrated by McCarthy’s “broken promises, secret deals, and failed leadership,” now is not the time for “another Speaker fight.”
“My focus right now is on getting the federal government funded through 12 individual spending bills like we promised everyone in January, delivering on the priorities of the Third District, and moving forward on the Oversight and Accountability Committee’s impeachment inquiry,” Boebert said in her post.
Lamborn said in a statement that McCarthy’s removal will be seen as “an unfortunate episode in the history of the Republican Party in Congress.”
“Personal politics on the part of a few have interrupted important legislative work like passing appropriations bills to fund essential government functions while reducing wasteful spending,” Lamborn said. “I appreciate Rep. McCarthy’s work to secure our borders, reduce our debt, and battle the left’s extreme social agenda as Speaker of the House.”
U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a Thornton Democrat who voted in favor of ousting McCarthy, said in a statement that the former speaker has “wrought chaos on our nation’s Capitol” since the first day of the current Congress.
“He has spent the past nine months filling normally bipartisan packages with poison pills and letting a few extreme Members hijack our work in Congress,” Caraveo said. “In the West, we understand that a person’s word is their bond. I will not support a speaker whose word cannot be trusted. This body deserves better, the American people deserve better, and Colorado’s 8th District deserves better.”
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