July 21, 2022 10:08 AM UTC

Colorado Republicans Vote NO on Contraception Protections

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• by: Colorado Pols

Earlier this week we wrote about how all three of Colorado’s Republican Members of Congress — Reps. Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert, Ken Buck, and Doug Lamborn — voted NO on legislation intended to protect same-sex and interracial marriage. This is an important issue now because of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, in which Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas both indicated that the legal logic involved in that decision might lead to removing protections for same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, and even contraception.

Well, guess what happened today?

The House passed H.R. 8373, which codifies into law the right to contraception, 228-195-2.

Colorado delegation voted along party lines:

Boebert – No
Buck – No
Crow – Yes
DeGette – Yes
Lamborn – No
Neguse – Yes
Perlmutter – Yes

8-Rs voted yes. 2-Rs voted present #copolitics

— Caitlyn Kim (@caitlynkim) July 21, 2022

That’s right — Boebert, Buck, and Lamborn all voted NO on a bill seeking to protect the right to contraception. From The Washington Post:

The House passed legislation largely along party lines Thursday that would federally protect an individual’s access to contraception and ensure health-care providers are not penalized for prescribing it, a response to the Supreme Court decision last month that reversed federal protections for abortion access…

…The support for marriage equality by House Republicans on Tuesday shook the Senate into action, spurring Democratic leaders to shift their tone and announce that they will consider that bill on the Senate floor soon. But it’s unclear whether the Senate will also bring up the contraception legislation.

We haven’t seen a rationale for these votes other this perfectly ridiculous statement from Rep. Ken Buck regarding Tuesday’s vote on same-sex and interracial marriage protections:

Ken Buck says the Supreme Court considers marriage to be a “settled issue” and he believes them. He’s probably just trolling with this statement, but it’s in pretty bad taste to pretend that anything is settled law after the Supreme Court overturned Roe, which everybody insisted was also “settled law.” It’s also really lame for Buck to be pretending that inflation is the only thing that Congress should be discussing when the only thing Buck is talking about is the Second Amendment.

As far as we can tell, Boebert has not commented on these votes. Neither has Lamborn, though we can never be sure if he’s paying attention to anything or if a staffer is just carting him around “Weekend at Bernie’s” style.

Anyway, we’ll reiterate the same thing we wrote on Tuesday: If Republicans take control of one or more Chambers of Congress in 2023, they’re going to go after same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, and contraception. They’ll try to focus on the economy during the 2022 election — and even then only to blame Democrats — but don’t be fooled into thinking Republicans don’t have their own social agenda planned.

Colorado Republicans COULD have voted to protect same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, and access to contraception…but they didn’t. What else do you need to see?