U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert introduces legislation to her former Colorado district

As U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert began a new chapter in her political career Friday — representing a new Colorado district in Congress — she left some legislative accomplishments in the district she led for four years but where her chances for reelection are dwindling. are weakened.

Last month, the bipartisan Upper Colorado-San Juan River Basins Endangered Fish Recovery Programs Reauthorization Act became law, extending protections for four threatened and endangered native fish species on the western slope. President Joe Biden signed it as part of the broader National Defense Authorization Act.

And in the coming days, the Democratic president is expected to sign the CONVEY Act, a Boebert-led bill that directs the Bureau of Land Management to sell a 31-acre parcel in Clifton to Mesa County for economic development.

“These are bipartisan efforts that may not have garnered national attention, but they will have a major impact on the health of our state and that is what is most important to me as a lawmaker,” Boebert, a Republican, wrote in a statement. at the Denver Post.

The two-term congresswoman was sworn in Friday to represent eastern Colorado’s 4th Congressional District in the 119th Congress. This came a little more than a year after she announced she would not run for re-election in the 3rd District, which covers a vast mountainous swath of western Colorado, stretching from Craig to Cortez via Pueblo on the Front Range.

Boebert, 38, has lost her luster in the district she represented since 2021, making headlines for controversial statements and questionable behavior. She nearly lost her first bid for re-election in 2022, although the 3rd District is heavily Republican.

More unwanted media coverage exploded nearly a year later, when Boebert was removed from a musical at Denver’s Buell Theater after engaging in inappropriate behavior, including vaping and groping his date. Several prominent Republicans in the state have publicly said they are withdrawing their support for him.

Boebert moved to the state’s reddest district — the 4th — in late 2023. She won a June primary and then the November election.

It took Boebert nearly three years into his term in Congress to see his first bill passed — the Pueblo Jobs Act — in December 2023. The law aims to create 1,000 jobs in Pueblo after the depot closes Pueblo Army Chemical Corps. Another bill to assign unique ZIP codes to communities across the country that don’t have them — including the 4th District communities of Lone Tree, Castle Pines and Severance — passed the House last month but did not was not adopted by the Senate.

But Boebert’s fish recovery bill — designed to protect the humpback chub, bonytail, Colorado pikeminnow and razorback sucker — passed. For Melvin Baker, chairman of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, the legislation was important.

“As stewards of the land, the tribe supports the recovery of endangered fish populations and the protection of waterways to support endangered fish,” he said.

With both houses of Congress now controlled by Republicans, Boebert is optimistic about her ability to pass more legislation than she could in a politically divided Congress. But she said she will remember with nostalgia the part of Colorado that made her a household name in the first place.