Ken Buck is being evicted from his main Colorado office. The landlord is a major GOP donor.
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Buck, a GOP congressman from Colorado, said the eviction is because he refuses to support Ohio Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan’s bid to become House speaker
Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., is followed by reporters as he arrives to the Republican caucus meeting at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
U.S. Rep. Ken Buck is being evicted from his main Colorado office, where his landlord is a company run by a major GOP donor. The Republican congressman says the eviction is happening because he refuses to support Ohio Republican Jim Jordan’s bid to become House speaker.
“I’ve been evicted from my office in Colorado — I have a notice of eviction — because the landlord is mad with my voting record on this speaker issue,” Buck, a Windsor Republican, told NBC News on Thursday.
Buck’s main Colorado office is in Windsor’s Water Valley subdivision adjacent to the Pelican Lakes Resort and Golf Club. The building where the office is located is owned by Pelican Point Business Park LLC, whose registered agent is developer Martin Lind, according to property and business records.
Lind developed Water Valley and owns the Colorado Eagles minor league hockey team in Loveland. The state’s campaign finance database and Federal Election Commission records show he is a prolific GOP donor.
Neither Lind nor a spokesperson for Water Valley returned an email Thursday evening seeking comment on the eviction. Reached by phone on Friday morning, Lind told a Colorado Sun reporter “I don’t talk to the press” before hanging up.
Lind followed up in a text message: “We simply don’t discuss our private client’s business.”
In 2019, Lind held a fundraiser at his home for then-U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican, that was attended by then-Vice President Mike Pence. In 2022, he donated to Herschel Walker’s unsuccessful Georgia U.S. Senate campaign, Joe O’Dea’s unsuccessful Colorado U.S. Senate campaign and state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer’s unsuccessful U.S. House campaign. He’s also given money to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and political action committees associated with the former president.
Lind donated to Buck in the 2016 and 2014 election cycles.
Buck is facing increasing pressure from Colorado Republicans given his recent track record of calling out fellow members of the House GOP, including over the attempt to impeach President Joe Biden. Some prominent Republicans are threatening to run against him in 2024 in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, whose electorate is overwhelmingly Republican.
Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams, for instance, told The Sun that he was “giving it consideration.” He posted on Facebook this week, however, that “the timing is simply not right for me and my family.”
State Rep. Richard Holtorf, R-Akron, has also expressed interested in running against buck in the 4th District, which spans across Colorado’s Eastern Plains and includes Castle Rock.
Buck was one of eight U.S. House Republicans who voted earlier this month to oust Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, from his position as speaker. In recent days, Buck has repeatedly voted against Jordan as the Ohio congressman has sought to replace McCarthy, in part because of Jordan’s embrace of 2020 election conspiracies.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, center, flanked by Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, left, and Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., arrives as the House Oversight and Accountability Committee holds a hearing to charge that the Justice Department interfered with a yearslong investigation into Hunter Biden, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, July 19, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Republicans on Friday dropped Jordan as their nominee for House speaker, making the decision during a closed-door session after the hard-edged Trump ally failed badly on a third ballot for the gavel. The House impasse deepening, Republicans have no realistic or workable plan to unite the fractured GOP majority, elect a new speaker and return to the work of Congress that has been languishing since McCarthy was ousted
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The Colorado GOP was urging Buck to join the two other Colorado Republicans in the U.S. House and vote for Jordan.
“It’s absolutely critical that all House Republicans unify and elect Congressman Jim Jordan immediately,” Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams wrote in a note to supporters this week. “We thank Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and Congressman Doug Lamborn for supporting Congressman Jordan to become Speaker of the House. Now, we call on Congressman Ken Buck to do likewise.”
O’Dea had also been urging Buck to back Jordan.
“The two greatest threats to our nation are our broken border and the debt,” O’Dea posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “On those issues, there is complete agreement between Jordan and Buck. It’s time for Republicans to start attacking the grave challenges facing the country.”
Buck, however, has said he will never vote for Jordan to become speaker.
Buck told NBC that in addition to losing his congressional office in Windsor — he has a second office in Castle Rock — he has received four death threats and a deluge of calls.
“I have six full-time people answering the phones,” Buck told NBC. “I have 20,000 messages from people where we couldn’t (speak to them).”
He added: “We have a country that is very divided at this point. What we need to do in Congress is to make sure we don’t throw some gasoline on that fire, make sure that we are talking in ways that soothe the tensions and not inflame the tensions.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
