Mike Johnson Completely Blindsided by Resignation in His Own Party
House Speaker Mike Johnson had no idea Representative Ken Buck is quitting, as the GOP is in complete shambles.
Representative Ken Buck took to social media to announce his near-immediate leave from Congress, resigning so fast that even his party leaders were caught off guard by the decision.
“Today, I am announcing that I will depart Congress at the end of next week,” Buck said in a statement on Tuesday. “I look forward to staying involved in our political process, as well as spending more time in Colorado with my family.”
The less-than-two-weeks notice took practically everybody by surprise, including (or maybe especially) House Speaker Mike Johnson.
“I was surprised by Ken’s announcement,” Johnson told a crush of reporters inside the Capitol building. “I look forward to talking to him about that.”
“I didn’t know,” he added.
Buck's reason for leaving seems stupid to me (paraphrasing) "I believe our election system is broken so I want to join a group to fix it".
Dude, you're in the legislature!! Introduce legislation changing it!
Man is also a member of the party responsible for the dysfunction, don't forget that.
Freedom Caucus member as well
lmao, the dude was the dysfunction!
The dysfunction was coming from inside the House the whole time!
In a week he will have freedom from congress!
Exactly. This may just open the door for yet another idiot, making things worse for all of us. They need to fix gerrymandering.
Good news, 4 states will have new, fairer maps this upcoming election cycle.
I mean, this is darkly foreshadowing to me. I don't understand how he could have more subversive influence outside of Congress than in, but I'm sure something is fucky.
My guess is that he sees a massive loss for the GOP coming up and figured it was smarted to leave now then get crushed in the landslide.
Of course, it could be something completely outside politics, but I know how I'd bet.
He already announced a while back he wasn’t running for re-election, but who knows maybe he just didn’t see the point to keep going.
A quick search tells me that a Congressional seat can remain vacant for up to six months because there has to be an election. The Governor of a State appoints a new Senator if the current one resigns. It's nine months until November. I don't know what his plan was, but he's created quite the pickle for the rest of the local power structure.
Governor called a special election to coincide with the date of the primary in June. So the parties will pick two candidates and then CO-4 will pick a house rep for 6 months and then another election for a full term in November. The real question is if it means bobo the clown will leave her current seat to run which would mean two special elections. But first the party has to nominate her
Silly me. I assumed it was a Super Tuesday state that had already had their primary.
To me, it sounds like the one who resigned is doing some real fancy footwork behind the scenes. If he'd already said he was stepping down he almost certainly had a successor in mind.
If you enjoy pure nut cutting politics, may I introduce you to Washington reporter turned crime novelist Ross Thomas. "The Fools In Town Are On Our Side" is about a disgraced CIA operative who is hire to make a small Southern city so corrupt that "even the pimps will vote for reform."
"The Porkchoppers" is about a Nixon Era union election. It has characters ranging from Mafia hit men to sleazy political operators to White House consultants.
Are you a bot lol. Colorado is weird but it votes for president primary during Super Tuesday but other positions have their primary in June. I do think Ken buck resigned to make it as inconvenient as possible for boebert. The party gets to pick the candidate for the primary, and she has to resign to run. They could manipulate her into resigning and not pick her to run lol I do feel like he is intentionally trying to sabotage her
I'd like to chat with some Rocky Mountain State political junkies about the whole Bobo vs. Buck deal.
Even if I were a hard core Tea Party MAGoo I'd be ashamed of Bobo's antics, and would want her out.
In general totally agree. That particular quote is odd however. Probably there to pique interest with folks just as it did me.
Edit I'm a fucking idiot guy.i replied to wrote "(paraphrasing)"
Or Hell, even just voting with the Democrats would help.
While I agree, the nutters out there would have started death threats daily. I don't blame him for not wanting that treatment.
But maybe congress could be in a position to change that.
Except he's part of the reason people feel safe to make death threats.
He is running from the consequences of his actions.
He was elected by that system! They're as dumb as a pocket full of lint.
less useful, though. Lint can be used as a firestarter.
Well, they are doing a pretty good job burning down their own house.
“Only you can prevent wildfires. Vote Democrat”
Considering climate-change-induced drought, that's not even metaphorical.
Are you insinuating that Ken Buck is inflammable?
Being inflammable would give him at least one use.
Inflammable means flammable? What a country!
not necessarily. it specifically means easily set on fire.
This guy is useless, which means he sucks as a fuel source (to difficult to set on fire, too little energy returns), but is flammable enough that he can't be used as a fire resistant material, either.
Or you can make it into paper.