- Former Colorado Congressman Ken Buck said many conservatives are compromising their values over populism.
- “For the very same people who were Tea Party patriots, the Constitution is a thing of the past,” he told WaPo.
- Buck resigned from the House in March, months before the end of his term.
Ken Buck was well known for his conservatism during his nearly 10 years in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But the former Colorado congressman recently told The Washington Post that some of his fellow conservatives have long shifted their focus from cutting government spending to defending former President Donald Trump from criticism. He said he became more partisan in the process.
“I think the wave of populism has eroded the conservative values that I had when I came here,” the former lawmaker told the newspaper. “Right now we’re impeaching people like it’s some kind of carnival, and the Constitution is just a thing of the past for the very same people who were Tea Party patriots 10 or 12 years ago.”
In February, Buck was one of only three House Republicans to refuse to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who has been at odds with Republican leaders over the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
According to Axios, just before he left Congress last month, the House Freedom Caucus voted to remove Buck from membership for “absenteeism.”
In an interview with the Post, Buck also emphasized that seeking ideologically pure legislation is hurting the Republican Party’s ability to secure victories for conservatives and that it is necessary to succeed on Capitol Hill. “We need consensus,” he added.
