Buck Helps Shuck McCarthy

Six out of eight Colorado Representatives vote to remove House Speaker

Brandon Coon, Faculty Adviser • October 3, 2023

On Tuesday afternoon, Kevin McCarthy became the first House Speaker removed from his position by Congress. While the removal came down to a tight 216-210 vote, the majority of Colorado’s House members voted to remove the Republican speaker… including Republican Ken Buck. This historic vote came after McCarthy pushed Congress to pass a continuing resolution on Saturday to avert a government shutdown until Nov. 14

For the first time in its history, the US House of Representatives has voted to remove a Speaker of the House. Tuesday afternoon, the House voted 216-210 to dismiss Kevin McCarthy (R-CA 20) from his role as the House Speaker for the 118th Congress. The vote for McCarthy’s removal came from his own party after McCarthy pushed through a bipartisan resolution to prevent a government shutdown on Saturday, September 30.

McCarthy was removed by a margin of six votes. Coincidentally, six of Coloado’s eight House Representatives voted to remove McCarthy. Every Democrat in the US House voted to remove McCarthy, which included Colorado’s five members: Diana DeGette (D-CO 1), Joe Neguse (D-CO 2), Jason Crow (D-CO 6), Brittany Petersen (D-CO 7), and Frederick’s District Representative Yadera Caraveo (D-CO 8). Ken Buck (R-CO 4), who voted against the passage of Saturday’s government funding resolution, joined these Democrats in voting to oust McCarthy. While she also voted against Saturday’s resolution, Lauren Bobert (R-CO 3) voted to keep McCarthy, as did staunch McCarthy ally Doug Lamborn (R-CO 5).

Buck joined seven other members of the House Freedom Caucus to vote to remove McCarthy, which tipped the vote out of McCarthy’s favor. The House Freedom Caucus is an association of around three dozen House Republicans who act as the most conservative voice of the conservative party. Given the slim five-seat majority the Republicans have over the Democrats in the House, the Freedom Caucus has voted as a bloc to prevent legislation that doesn’t appeal to their far-right sensibilities from passing.

The Freedom Caucus has been at the center of the recent fights over government funding legislation: while Democrats are pushing for increased spending for Ukraine aid, disaster relief, and domestic programs and party-line Republicans like McCarthy are pushing for only a slight increase in Ukrainian aid and cuts to domestic spending, The Freedom Caucus has pushed some more extreme demands: they want no further aid to Ukraine, renewed funding for the expansion of the southern border wall, cutting over 50% of the Department of Education’s budget, and an end to access to abortion services for members of the military stationed in states banning abortion. One condition to passing any funding bill was already provided by McCarthy: an official inquiry into whether the House has enough evidence to impeach President Joe Biden.

This wasn’t McCarthy’s first fight with the Freedom Caucus: Freedom Caucus members blocked McCarthy’s nomination for House Speaker in January, resulting in a record 15 votes to be held until McCarthy had satisfied enough members to get at least 51% of the House vote. One of the ways McCarthy brought the Freedom Caucus to his side was by changing the rules around removing the Speaker of the House: instead of needing the majority of either party to call for a motion to vacate the speakership, a motion to vacate could be made by a single representative.

This became McCarthy’s undoing, as Freedom Caucus member Matt Gaetz (R-FL 1) moved to hold a vote to vacate the speaker’s position yesterday. Gaetz, Buck, and six other Freedom Caucus members joined all 208 Democrats in removing McCarthy. According to CPR, Buck voted to oust the Speaker because “the House has been dysfunctional for nine months” and McCarthy had “broken too many promises.” Buck’s fellow Coloradan and Freedom Caucus member Lauren Boebert surprised many pundits when, instead of joining Gaetz and Buck, voted “no… for now.”

Two questions loom after today’s vote. The first is a practical concern: who will take McCarthy’s place? Given the 15 rounds it took to elect McCarthy in the first place, getting a new member over the 218 vote threshold seems like no easy feat. For now, Patrick McHenry (R-NC 10) is the interim speaker, so unlike the Speaker voting at the start of the year when nothing could be done until a Speaker was named, Congress can still get its legislative work done with McHenry in charge.

This leads to the more pressing question, especially for Coloradans: with the new change in congressional leadership, can we avoid a government shutdown on November 14? Doug Lamborn, the Colorado representative who voted to keep McCarthy unequivocally, doesn’t seem hopeful: he released a statement saying in part, “Personal politics on the part of a few have interrupted important legislative work like passing appropriations bills to fund essential government functions [ . . . ] We cannot allow personal politics to distract us from this work. Recommending this motion without an acceptable alternative is unproductive.”

About the Contributor

Brandon Coon, Staff Adviser

Mr. Brandon Coon has been the adviser of the Frederick Lantern for the past seven years. In his fourteen years in the classroom (ten of which have been at Frederick High), he has taught subjects as diverse as AP Literature, literacy, drama, tech theatre, world history, yearbook, study skills, and computer science. Mr. Coon also sponsors Frederick's chapter of the Quill and Scroll International Society for High School Journalists and the Frederick Film Society. He has a Bachelor's degree in English from the University of Northern Colorado and is a member of Sigma Tau Delta.