GOP Rep. Ken Buck Voted ‘Present’ in Speaker’s Race Because Scalise and Jordan Wouldn’t Admit Biden Won

Isaac SchorrOct 11th, 2023, 3:46 pm

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) secured the Republican nomination to be the next speaker of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, beating out Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) by a margin of 113-99.

But Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) did not cast his ballot for either of them at the GOP conference meeting where Scalise was selected because of their refusal to admit that President Joe Biden prevailed in the 2020 presidential election.

At a forum held on Tuesday, Buck asked Scalise and Jordan if the election had been stolen from then-President Donald Trump, but was unable to secure a straight answer from either. One House Republican present at the forum told Politico’s Olivia Beavers that they “tried to have it both ways.”

During forum, Ken Buck pressed Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise on whether 2020 election was stolen, sources tell @MZanona and me.⁰⁰Neither Scalise nor Jordan answered directly and talked state election laws. French Hill followed up, but no more clarity
Confirming @Olivia_Beavers

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 11, 2023

Buck was apparently dissatisfied with their answers, leading to his abstention from the vote on Wednesday.

“If we don’t have the moral clarity to decide whether President Biden won or not, we don’t have the moral clarity to rule,” Buck told reporters.

Rep. Ken Buck told reporters he voted present on the Scalise-Jordan race.

“If we don't have the moral clarity to decide whether President Biden won or not, we don't have the moral clarity to rule.”

— 𝚁𝚎𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚌𝚊 𝙱𝚎𝚒𝚝𝚜𝚌𝚑 (@RebeccaBeitsch) October 11, 2023

Previewing the speaker’s race on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Buck noted that both Scalise and Jordan voted to decertify electors in January 2021, lamenting that “we [Republicans] continue to perpetuate a lie about the 2020 election being stolen, that we talk about the January 6 events as an unguided tour of the Capitol, that we we are pretending that the people who assaulted police officers and destroyed federal government property are political prisoners.”