District to face 95-day vacancy

With Buck’s departure, Eastern Plains special election not until June

For the first time in more than 40 years, a congressional district in Colorado is without a voice in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 1983, a seat sat vacant because Jack Swigert, a former astronaut on the Apollo 13 who was elected the previous November, died of cancer one week before taking office. This time around, it’s because Republican Ken Buck stepped down from Congress late last month — more than nine months before the end of his fifth term representing the 4th Congressional District.

Swigert’s death resulted in an 85-day absence in the newly formed, metro-denver-based 6th Congressional District that ended when Dan Schaefer won a special election at the end of March 1983. Schaefer, who died in 2006, went on to serve eight more terms in Congress.

Likewise, a special election on June 25 will fill Buck’s seat, but not before the 750,000 Coloradans who call the 4th District home endure a 95-day vacancy in Washington.

That’s more than three months of no one in the House voting on bills, pushing for federal funding or looking out for the economic engines — farming, ranching, meatpacking, and oil and gas extraction — of the vast Eastern Plains district. The 4th abuts the state line with Wyoming and Nebraska in the north and follows the Kansas line to the Oklahoma Panhandle in the south.

“This is usually a period when there’s a lot of legislating going on in Washington,” said Ken Bickers, a political science professor at the University of Colorado. “The policymaking — the sausage-making — is really busy about this time through the fall.”

The next occupant will be determined when Republican Greg Lopez, a former Parker mayor and two-time gubernatorial hopeful, faces off against Democrat Trisha Calvarese in the special election in June. They were chosen through party caucuses in recent weeks.

Until then, Travis Grant, a spokesman for the Colorado Farm Bureau, said the state’s agriculture sector is keeping an eye on the nation’s capital while the 4th District’s seat sits empty.

“Given that Colorado’s 4th Congressional District is an agricultural powerhouse, it would

be impossible to ignore the ramifications of the vacancy,” he said. “The most glaring of these matters is the need to get a new Farm Bill passed before the extension of the 2018 farm bill runs out on Sept. 30.”

As for the oil and gas sector, Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said the timing of Buck’s departure was fortuitous, “since the House has done good work on energy already.”

“With no plans for more energy legislation to hit the floor in the next few months, (Buck) has already taken care of one of the most important economic drivers in his district by voting for those (industry) bills,” she said.

Sgamma expressed little hope that legislation that’s passed the House will advance any time soon in the Democratic-majority Senate.