It didn’t take long for Colorado’s newest congresswoman to make a name for herself in Washington—although it’s not necessarily a good one. In just over two weeks in office, Representative Lauren Boebert has advocated for overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election, drawn the ire of her colleagues for tweeting the location of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and been sued in federal court by a constituent who the congresswoman blocked on Twitter.

A number of Coloradans seem to be fed up with her controversy-laden brand of politics. Last week, 68 elected leaders in Boebert’s district sent a letter to House leadership calling for an investigation into the Rifle resident’s actions during the events at the Capitol on January 6. Also, as of Monday, more than 32,000 Centennial Staters had signed a petition to expel her from office. How did the congresswoman, who represents Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, manage to make people so mad in such a short amount of time? Here’s a look back at the events of her first few weeks in office.

January 3: Boebert was officially sworn into Congress. Later that day she released a nearly three-minute video of herself walking around Washington, D.C., with what appeared to be a loaded gun. During the segment she declared that she will carry her Glock in Congress. 

Around the same time that the video was released, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Boebert announced that they’d officially formed the Second Amendment Caucus to fight back against Democrats’ attempts to enact stricter gun control policies. 

January 4: In response to the above video, the Washington., D.C., police chief said he would reach out to the congresswoman to make sure she was aware of the city’s concealed carry laws. While members of Congress are allowed to carry guns on Capitol grounds, residents of other states have to apply for a concealed carry permit to have a gun while moving throughout the District of Columbia. 

“I don’t know if he’s contacting each and every person to make sure that they’re following all the traffic laws,” Boebert said in response. “If I said I was coming to drive in Washington, D.C., maybe he’d need to call me and let me know exactly what their traffic laws are. To think that I’m ignorant of D.C. carry laws just because I said I will carry is a little absurd.”

January 5: The first Tuesday after the New Year was one of the least newsworthy of Boebert’s tenure. She did, however, provide an ominous tweet: 

January 6: On the morning of what would arguably become one of the craziest days in modern American history, Boebert simply tweeted: 

At the time, most people thought the tweet was in reference to planned Republican attempts to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election as president. Some would later view it as a call to armed insurrection. 

Later that day, Boebert gave a speech on the House floor objecting to Arizona’s electoral votes going for Biden that was littered with falsehoods. Her rambling address was quickly overshadowed, though, by thousands of Trump supporters storming the Capitol in hopes of preventing Congress from certifying the election results. The insurrectionists would overrun the Capitol complex, forcing many legislators, including Boebert, to barricade themselves in the House Chambers. In that moment, she tweeted multiple times: 

Ultimately, all members of Congress made it to safety, and after the rioters were cleared out, the legislative body was able to return that evening to certify the election results. During those proceedings, many lawmakers decried the role Boebert and other legislators, like Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri, played in inciting the riot with their continuing claims that the election was rigged. 

January 7: Beginning the previous night, and continuing into Thursday, January 7, more and more people began calling Boebert’s actions seditious.  It seems she responded to the criticism by blocking a number of people on Twitter who made such claims. 

One of the constituents Boebert blocked, former Colorado Representative Bri Buentello from Pueblo, sued the congresswoman in federal court on Sunday because of such actions. Buentello claims her inability to view her representative’s profile, which is a venue that is often used to announce policy, violates her First Amendment rights.  

More than 60 local organizations and community leaders, including a number of area lawmakers, also signed a letter calling on both Boebert and Representative Doug Lamborn to resign for supporting efforts to overturn the 2020 election—an act that they said helped spur rioters to storm the Capitol building just a day earlier.

January 8: The chorus of Boebert bashers continued to grow. The Grand Junction Sentinel in Boebert’s home district ran an editorial saying she deserves significant blame for the insurrection. In an interview with the Aurora Sentinel, fellow Colorado congressman Jason Crow said, “Lauren Boebert is a fool…she has no place at the Capitol.” 

Boebert, however, continued to double down on her false assertion that wide-scale election fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election. 

On that same day, Twitter banned  then President Donald Trump due to risk of further incitement of violence. Boebert responded by changing her Twitter avatar to a picture of Donald Trump and continuing to block critics. 

January 9 and 10: Protests took place at nearly all of Boebert’s Colorado offices and in many towns, such as Durango, throughout her district, decrying her role in the previous week’s insurrection. 

On Sunday night, she tweeted out a photo of her meeting with current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: 

January 11: The hashtag #resignboebert officially caught fire on Twitter. At one point during the day, there were at least 23,000 tweets calling for her resignation. Much of the criticism centered on Boebert tweeting the location of Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the previous week’s riots, with many wondering whether the messages were intended to help rioters find and potentially harm Pelosi. 

Boebert once again clapped back: “They accuse me of live-tweeting the Speaker’s presence after she had been safely removed from the Capitol, as if I was revealing some big secret, when in fact this removal was also being broadcast on TV,” she wrote in a statement. 

January 12: The House of Representatives met to vote on a resolution calling for Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove President Trump from office. Prior to that vote, metal detectors had been set up outside the House Chambers because many Democrats had expressed fears about the intentions of colleagues, like Boebert, who wanted to carry guns. Weapons and incendiary devices are banned in the chamber. Boebert did not take kindly to the metal detectors, which she saw as an unnecessary imposition, though she was eventually granted access to the floor. 

January 13: Boebert voted against impeaching then President Donald Trump for his role in inciting the mob that took over the Capitol building just a week prior. 

Twitter also suspended Boebert’s account (the reason why remains somewhat unclear). It appeared she wouldn’t be allowed to tweet until after Inauguration Day, but Twitter reversed its decision later in the day.

January 14: During an appearance on MSNBC, Representative Patrick Maloney of New York mentioned that he believed one member of Congress had given tours to some of the rioters the day before the insurrection occurred. Though he did not say Boebert’s name during the interview, many believed he was referring to the Rifle resident, sparking another round of backlash. Boebert has denied involvement in any such scenario.    

January 16: Boebert’s communications director quit after less than two weeks on the job.

January 18: Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee told CNN that he saw Boebert give a group of people a tour of the Capitol complex in the days leading up to the insurrection. “Now whether these people were people that were involved in the insurrection or not, I do not know,” he added. Boebert, in a series of tweets, denied the claim.

January 22: The Republican officially introduced her first three bills in Congress. The first would prevent the United States from spending money to join the Paris Climate Accord unless the Senate ratifies the agreement. The second would keep money from going to the World Health Organization unless America holds both the global institution and China responsible for their role in the global pandemic. And the final bill would overturn president Joe Biden’s mask mandate on federal property. None of the bills have any chance of passing in a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.

 

Shane Monaghan
Shane Monaghan
Shane Monaghan is the former digital editor of 5280.com and teaches journalism at Regis Jesuit High School.