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In reversal, Colorado’s Ken Buck backs new House Speaker Mike Johnson despite election denial [1]
['Lindsey Toomer', 'More From Author', '- October']
Date: 2023-11
U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana was elected Speaker of the House on Wednesday thanks in part to a major reversal by Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, a former holdout who cast his vote for Johnson despite his previous stance against electing a speaker who denies that the 2020 election was won fairly by President Joe Biden.
Buck, a Windsor Republican, was one of eight members of the House GOP caucus to vote to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Oct. 3. As Republicans struggled to elect a successor in recent weeks, Buck voted against Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s candidacy for speaker because of his history of election denial.
He also said he wouldn’t support House Majority Leader Steve Scalise for similar reasons, explaining in an MSNBC interview that neither candidate would “unequivocally and publicly state that the 2020 presidential election was not stolen.”
“There’s no way we win the majority if the message we send to the American people is that we believe the election was stolen and we believe that Jan. 6 was okay,” Buck told CNN last week.
But Buck on Wednesday joined 219 other House Republicans to elect Johnson, who is serving just his fourth two-year term in Congress, as the new House Speaker. Reps. Lauren Boebert of Silt and Doug Lamborn of Colorado Springs also backed Johnson, while all of Colorado’s House Democrats cast their votes for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
Johnson led more than 100 House Republicans in an amicus brief supporting a Texas lawsuit that sought to invalidate 2020 election results in four swing states, and later voted against their certification. He falsely claimed that the election was “rigged,” and helped spread a debunked conspiracy theory relating to Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems that prosecutors and a special congressional panel have alleged played a central role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
Buck’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a Tuesday night appearance on CNN, Buck said he thinks Johnson’s vote against the certification of the 2020 election was a mistake, but sought to draw a distinction between Johnson’s record and what he characterized as Jordan’s more active involvement in the events leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“I think people make mistakes and still could be really good speakers,” Buck said. “We’re at a point now where we need to move forward and make sure the government stays open, that we fund Israel, we fund Ukraine, we fund the border efforts, and that’s going to take a human being in that speaker position. Not a perfect human being, but a Mike Johnson who has done his very best to move issues forward and is a really good person.”
After casting his vote in support of Johnson on Wednesday, Buck told CNN that he had not heard Johnson acknowledge that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, as he had previously demanded of Jordan and Scalise.
“I have not gotten that promise from Mike,” Buck said. “I hope he comes around to that point.”
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[1] Url:
https://coloradonewsline.com/briefs/in-reversal-colorados-ken-buck-backs-new-house-speaker-mike-johnson-despite-election-denial/
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