In the wake of the Biden impeachment inquiry, Congressional House Republican crazies have outspokenly questioned Congressman Ken Buck’s allegiance and are searching for a candidate to mount a primary challenge against him.

Buck, for his part, earned their wrath because he would rather focus on issues that matter to voters in his district like inflation, southern border security, and crime, rather than embrace and evangelize their fantasy political sideshow.

Strike one: Buck, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, doesn’t believe the House has produced any evidence that Biden profited off his son’s foreign deals and has called the timeline for an impeachment inquiry absurd as he has seen no evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor. Buck is a former elected District Attorney of Weld County and Chief of the Criminal Division of the United States Attorney’s Office, but that is not a detail true believers respect — they only value blind allegiance. Buck is refusing to get in the party line on this issue telling an editor with the Daily Beast that “it’s crazy” to assume Democrats will help Republicans with critical spending bills that need to be passed in the coming days if the impeachment inquiry goes forward.

Strike two: In December of 2020, Buck, along with 125 of his other Republican colleagues signed onto an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, which the Supreme Court declined to hear on the basis that Texas lacked standing to challenge the results of another state.  Buck, however, voted to certify the 2020 election results and was not one of the 147 House Republicans who objected.

Strike three: In a 4-page letter Buck eviscerated the inane claims made by El Paso County Republican Party Vice Chairman Todd Watkins that the January 6th defendants have been grossly mistreated and abused by our legal system.  Watkins’ letter refers to America as a “despotic, tyrannical, banana republic”. Buck’s detailed point-by-point response, correctly notes that Watkins’ letter “makes a number of factually incorrect claims, and then proceeds to overstate the threat to our Republic based on these false claims.”

If the Republican party continues to put extreme candidates on the ballot who are out of step with Colorado values and priorities, they will continue to lose traction in this state and will lose seats like his to moderate Democratic candidates. In 2024, a Trump-led Republican party will trigger another Colorado avalanche that will wipe out what’s left of the Colorado Republican party if they don’t begin to push back and find stronger mainstream candidates that are focused on issues that matter and not bird-brained conspiracy theories that are devoid of facts.

But it turns out that speaking the truth and having integrity — even if you are one of its most conservative members — is a dangerous place to be in the Republican Party today as they will not hesitate to eat their own if they don’t participate in their Kabuki theater.

Just ask Former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney. Like Cheney, Colorado Congressman Ken Buck has an impeccable conservative record.

Cheney, once the third-ranking Republican in the House and highest-ranking woman in GOP leadership, was stripped of her leadership position because of her stance on the Capitol riot, her vote to impeach Trump and her opposition to Trump’s Big Lie about the outcome of the 2020 election. She was then challenged in a Republican primary and lost her seat.

Buck is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, an ultra-conservative group of Republican members of Congress.  His voting record authenticates his core conservative values. The Conservative Political Action Committee’s rankings for conservative voting records gave him the 2022 Award for Conservative Excellence for a 90% or higher ranking. Heritage Action for America, which fights for conservative policies in Washington DC, gave Buck a 99% lifetime score. And, he wasn’t anti-Trump. Buck voted with President Trump’s position 87% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.

But like Cheney, Buck now faces retaliation for following his constitutional oath.

There are now widespread media reports that there is a serious effort to find a suitably extreme Republican candidate to mount a primary challenge against Buck. And, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claims there is an “unbelievable” level of frustration with Buck amongst the House Republican conference. and she doesn’t think he should serve on the Judiciary panel or the GOP whip’s team.

However, Colorado, is not Wyoming and the play won’t work. Colorado Democrats will not pass up a chance to take this seat if Republicans replace Buck and nominate an off-putting, far-right fringe candidate.

Colorado once a Republican stronghold and then a true purple state, is now a deep blue state. Every statewide elected office is held by a Democrat. Democrats have a supermajority in the state House of Representatives, 46-19, and a majority in the Senate, 23-12. Five of the eight congressional districts are controlled by Democrats. Of the three Republican districts, Rep. Lauren Boebert barely beat newcomer Democrat Adam Frisch by 546 votes in a plus 9 district in large part because of her unbridled support for Trump. It’s not far-fetched to see how the Republicans could lose this seat too.

Conservatives like Ken Buck are critical to making our two-party system viable. His speaking out reflects common values like integrity, honesty and the courage to call out falsehoods when they are plainly visible. That’s the Colorado way.

Doug Friednash grew up in Denver and is a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck. He is the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.