October 04, 2023 03:07 PM UTC

Colorado's Hardest-Working Congressperson, Rep. Yadira Caraveo

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• by: Colorado Pols

Yesterday, the Colorado Sun’s Unaffiliated newsletter featured a chart with a brief explainer, highlighting the members of Colorado’s congressional delegation most inclined to vote against their own party:

[Rep. Ken Buck] broke from the GOP majority 14.4% of the time on floor votes from January through September. Buck also had the highest percentage of missed floor votes in the delegation, at 4.9%.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Garfield County, voted against the majority of House Republicans 13.3% of the time in the first nine months of the year and missed 4.5% of the floor votes taken in the chamber.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, of Thornton, voted against the majority of her party 8.5% of the time, higher than Colorado Springs Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn at 5.2% and considerably higher than the other six Democrats in Colorado’s congressional delegation.

Reps. Ken Buck and Lauren Boebert, despite their disagreements on hot-button issues like impeaching Joe Biden and most recently dumping House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, have a long history of being on the wrong side of overwhelming majorities, voting against seemingly routine measures like fraud and carbon monoxide prevention. Rep. Yadira Caraveo’s lower incidence of votes against her party, though still higher than the rest of her delegation, can be spun much more gainfully as healthy independence befitting her swing district.

But for most voters, here’s the “voting percentage” that should matter most:

Caraveo was also the only Coloradan in Congress who didn’t miss a vote in the first nine months of this Congressional term. [Pols emphasis]

That’s right–of Colorado’s ten federal representatives, the only one who managed to be present for 100% of votes taken so far in her first term in Congress is Rep. Yadira Caraveo. That’s not an easy feat given lawmakers busy and often changing schedules, and most lawmakers can be expected to miss at least a few votes at some point due to unforeseeable delays. The contrast between Yadira’s perfect punctuality on matters big and small and Lauren Boebert scrambling up the steps of Congress to miss her vote against raising the debt ceiling this summer, a bill Boebert had spent weeks previous railing against, is night and day.

Even if you don’t always agree, Caraveo’s work ethic is unassailable–and that ought to count for more than one’s propensity for intraparty squabbling. Caraveo’s success comes not from making headlines every news cycle, but from tirelessly doing the job she was sent to Washington to do.

Caraveo deserves as much good attention as Boebert deserves the bad. Let’s all try to remember that.