May 15, 2020 02:34 PM UTC

Doug Lamborn Dials Up Buffoonery to New Level

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• by: Colorado Pols

Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado Springs) is widely regarded as one of the dimmest bulbs in Congress, and he regularly takes the opportunity to confirm his idiocy lest anyone forget. He did it again today:

If the $3 trillion dollar price tag on Pelosi’s radical wishlist were not enough, she is also trying to release prisoners. In fact, under the “Heroes Act” El Chapo could be released from the prison in my district. This is absurd. @SpeakerPelosi are you okay with releasing him?

— Rep. Doug Lamborn (@RepDLamborn) May 15, 2020

Yeah, that’s what’s happening: Democrats are pushing a coronavirus relief bill as an excuse to let one of the world’s most infamous drug lords out of prison. This is such a monumentally stupid accusation that it doesn’t even need to be fact-checked, but if you’re curious, the real intent of this portion of the legislation is to help deal with the coronavirus outbreak in our nation’s prisons by encouraging the release of NON-VIOLENT offenders (in other words, NOT Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is a resident of the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado). As Roll Call reports:

In a 44-page section called the “Pandemic Justice Response Act,” the bill would require the release of prisoners and those in the custody of U.S. Marshals Service who are within a year of being released, or those who are juveniles, over 50 years old or have a health condition such as diabetes, heart disease, HIV, cancer or are pregnant.

Public health experts say incarcerated people are particularly vulnerable to the grave harms of the virus because they have higher rates of underlying health issues, the bill states. And the close conditions and lack of hygiene products make prisons “unusually susceptible to viral pandemics,” the bill says.

Lamborn probably knows that his “El Chapo” accusation isn’t true, though it’s equally plausible that he totally believes this nonsense. It’s hard to know with Lamborn.

When he’s not drafting nonsensical legislation or calling constituents to yell at them for writing mean letters to the editor (and leaving voice mail messages, no less), Lamborn has been spotted literally running around the Capitol yanking paintings off the walls. This is the same guy who infamously called President Obama a “tar baby” and somehow managed to accidentally disclose classified information, so any stupid thing is possible when Lamborn is involved. He is also a bipartisan doofus; back in 2014, Lamborn was lambasted by Republican colleagues (including Mike Coffman and Cory Gardner) for openly encouraging military leaders to resign in protest over the foreign policy ideas of President Obama.

Lamborn is as bad a candidate as he is a politician — he almost didn’t make the Primary ballot in 2018 because his campaign couldn’t collect 1,500 valid petition signatures — but he’s still an actual Member of Congress because he has good timing. Lamborn narrowly won a 6-way Primary in 2006 in a district where incumbent Republicans get re-elected so long as they maintain a pulse (his predecessor, Joel Hefley, held this seat for 30 years).

If redistricting doesn’t make meaningful changes to CO-5, Lamborn will likely remain in this seat until somebody tells him that he retired. In the meantime, we can confidently say that no current or future Member of Congress from Colorado will ever be in danger of sliding underneath the bar that Lamborn has set for himself.