Why Ken Buck’s exit 'says more about the state of his party than his positions': analysis

Just days after Republicans elected U.S. Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA) to the House speakership, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who has served Colorado's 4th Congressional District for almost a decade, announced Wednesday that he would not seek re-election.

Ahead of Johnson's appointment, Buck mentioned in several interviews that he preferred to elect a speaker who would say that President Joe Biden unequivocally won the 2020 presidential race against former President Donald Trump. However, ex-speaker candidates, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Steve Scalise (R-LA), and Johnson — are all election deniers.

In a Wednesday blog post, The Rachel Maddow Show producer Steve Benen highlights the reason why Buck's retirement from his seat "matters."

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He writes the Colorado congressman's "willingness to stick to some of his principles effectively ended his career, which says more about the state of his party than his positions."

Benen notes, "As a Washington Post analysis noted in July, Buck questioned the merits of GOP impeachment-related efforts" against Biden, "backed the FBI in the midst of a Republican offensive against federal law enforcement, and took Donald Trump's indictments seriously when his party did the opposite."

The MaddowBlog editor adds that Buck's opposition has been unacceptable to many of his Republican colleagues, noting that some GOP "insiders began working weeks ago on recruiting a primary challenger to take on Buck, and members such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene [R-GA] said she wanted Buck to be removed from the House Judiciary Committee and the conference's whip team."

He emphasizes, "When it comes to the positions the Colorado Republican took that outraged his far-right colleagues, it's important to keep in mind that everything he's said has been true. But Buck's GOP critics haven't said that they caught him lying; they've said that they caught him rejecting Republican talking points — which in their eyes, is vastly worse than lying."

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