May 14, 2020 12:10 PM UTC

Ken Buck Once Again Vows To Thoroughly Investigate Himself

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby updates on the developing scandal over Colorado GOP Chairman Ken Buck’s management of the COVID-addled 2020 assemblies, the apparent fudging of the results of which is threatening to plunge an already beleaguered party facing another round of destruction at the polls in November into even more intraparty chaos:

The chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, formed a special commission Wednesday to review the party’s assembly nomination and ballot designation processes, some of which the 4th District congressman is deeply involved with himself. [Pols emphasis]

Controversies in the party’s nomination process first came to light in a Denver Post story last week that included a recording of Buck ordering Eli Bremer, the GOP chairman for Senate District 10, to place a candidate on the June primary ballot who only received 24% of the vote at the district’s assembly in March. His opponent, state Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, received 76%.

If the news that Buck is forming a special commission to look into irregularities that Buck himself appears to have not only been party to but directed sounds familiar to you, it’s because almost exactly one year ago this headline ran in the Colorado Springs Gazette:

That’s right, patient readers–this strategy of setting up an “investigation” to investigate one’s own actions, thus delaying accountability, allowing time to settle emotions, and burying misconduct eventually under procedural jargon in a report no one reads, is a thing that Ken Buck does:

U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, has asked a state lawmaker to lead an inquiry into allegations by another legislator that the March party election won by Buck was so riddled with errors and irregularities that its final results could be open to question.

Buck told Colorado Politics that he’s enlisted state Rep. Mark Baisley of Roxborough Park to assemble a panel to examine allegations made by state Rep. Susan Beckman, a Littleton Republican and Buck’s chief rival in the March party election.

After Baisley and his team investigate Beckman’s complaints, Buck said he wants them to issue recommendations on party election procedures — potentially including holding another vote for state party chairman. [Pols emphasis]

Needless to say, there was never another vote for state party chairman. Within a few days of this story, Colorado GOP vice-chair Kristi Burton Brown had filed her ill-conceived recall attempt against Democratic Rep. Tom Sullivan, Ken Buck got busy in Washington making himself and the party look as bad as possible during the long impeachment inquiry, and the news cycle moved on from the allegations of electoral treachery that kicked off Buck’s term as Colorado GOP party chairman.

As it turns out, Buck’s electoral treachery, and the method of covering it up, follows a pattern.