This was really a busy week for Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, assuming time spent on Twitter falls within her job description. In the run-up to the week’s main event—the House’s vote on whether to lift the nation’s debt ceiling—Boebert reportedly tweeted her doubtlessly well-researched opinions on the issue some 23 times. If the U.S. taxpayer paid their congressional representatives by the tweet, Boebert might have even qualified for overtime.
However, congresspeople are not paid to tweet. They’re paid to legislate, and the way you do that as an elected congressperson is by voting on legislation. It’s a fairly easy process: You push a “Yea” button, a “Nay” button, or even a “Present” button. That way, you can go back to your district and actually claim that you, you know, did something to represent them. After all, that’s what you’re there for. That’s why your constituents pay you a salary.
But this basic concept seems to have been lost on Rep. Boebert. Because when the time came to vote on whether to accept or reject the landmark “deal” reached between President Biden and Boebert’s own caucus leader, Kevin McCarthy, Boebert was nowhere to be found.
RELATED STORY: GOP Freedom Caucus admits goal on debt ceiling was to tank the economy in 2024 to help Trump win
As reported by Bevan Hurley, writing for The Independent, Boebert wasn’t even in the chamber when the House cast its crucial vote.
MAGA firebrand Lauren Boebert emerged as one of the fiercest critics to the debt ceiling deal brokered by House leader Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden to avoid a catastrophic default.
But when it was time for the House of Representatives to cast their votes on Wednesday night, she failed to show up.
Boebert was widely assumed to be against the debt ceiling deal, much preferring—like her Republican colleagues in the so-called “Freedom Caucus”—to send the nation over a fiscal cliff. It’s not clear whether she was tweeting at the time, hobnobbing with friends, or just preening for the cameras like she had done on Tuesday. Still, missing such a crucial vote for no apparent good reason suggests a level of ineptitude that even Boebert’s most ardent constituents probably would have trouble justifying.
As Hurley reports, Adam Frisch, Boebert’s 2022 Democratic opponent (who, as Hurley notes, lost to Boebert by a mere 546 votes), may have put it best:
Good question. Perhaps House Republicans might want to consider imposing some type of “work requirements” on Rep. Boebert, just to keep this from becoming a habit. Or maybe her constituents should just vote her out.
RELATED STORY: Debt limit deal reached; Republican hard-liners are livid
