Kenneth Buck

On May 6, 2020, The Denver Post published a recording of a conference call between Buck and local Republican party official Eli Bremer, who confirmed the authenticity of the recording.

Buck ran for reelection to a third term in 2018, running unopposed in the Republican primary. He then defeated Democratic nominee Karen McCormick during the general election with 60.6% of the vote.

Buck voted in favor of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Buck believes the bill is "fairer for American families" and that it will "keep more jobs in America."

Buck ran for reelection to a second term in 2016, running unopposed in the Republican primary. He then defeated Democratic nominee Bob Seay during the general election with 63.5% of the vote.

Although Buck positioned himself as the candidate for the Tea Party movement during the Republican primary, he stirred controversy at times with remarks critical of former Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Tea Party favorite, and the statement "Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I'm on the camera?" – a reference to those suspicious of President Barack Obama's place of birth. Buck blamed the comments on his exhaustion and frustration after months of campaigning, and on his exasperation that it was difficult to keep campaign debate focused on the issue of mounting governmental debt. Tea Party leader Lu Busse criticized Buck's "choice of words" and inclination to treat all Tea Party adherents as a uniform group.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that called signing the amicus brief an act of "election subversion." Additionally, Pelosi reprimanded Buck and the other House members who supported the lawsuit: "The 126 Republican Members that signed onto this lawsuit brought dishonor to the House. Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions." New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell, citing section three of the 14th Amendment, called for Pelosi to not seat Buck and the other Republicans who signed the brief supporting the suit. Pascrell argued that "the text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids Members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United States. Trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that."

During the 2010 Senate race, The Colorado Independent ran an article entitled "Suspect in 2005 Buck rape case said he knew it was rape,". The article, about a case Buck refused to prosecute in 2006, included a complete transcript of a tape between the victim and her attacker, including the following dialogue: Victim: "You do realize that … it’s rape." Suspect: "Yeah, I do." Victim: "Like in a number of different ways, because I didn’t want to do it and because I was intoxicated and because I was afraid." Suspect: "Yes I do. I know." The tape, which Greeley police had the victim record during their investigation, was available before Buck made his decision not to prosecute the woman's admitted rapist. According to a following article in the Independent, "Buck’s refusal to prosecute 2005 rape case reverberates in U.S. Senate race," the reporter provides a transcript of another tape of a conversation between the woman and Buck, in which "Buck appears to all but blame her for the rape and tells her that her case would never fly with a Weld County jury." “A jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse,” Buck told the Greeley Tribune in 2006. "That comment made me feel horrible," the victim told the Colorado Independent in 2010. "The offender admitted he did it, but Ken Buck said I was to blame. Had he (Buck) not attacked me, I might have let it go. But he put the blame on me, and I was furious. I still am furious, she said. According to the Independent, "A man entered the alleged victim’s apartment and had sex with her while she was drunk, she says. As she passed in and out of consciousness, she says she told him “no” and tried to push him away. If he had been a stranger, the case may have played out differently, but he was a former lover, and she had invited him over." In the meeting that she recorded, Buck said, “It appears to me … that you invited him over to have sex with him," and that he thought she might have wanted to file rape charges to retaliate against the man for some bad feeling left over from when they had been lovers more than a year earlier. According to the Independent, "Buck also comes off on this tape as being at least as concerned with the woman’s sexual history and alcohol consumption as he is with other facts of the case." Drawing on Buck's abortion stance, the Independent also pointed out that "The suspect in this case had claimed that the victim had at one point a year or so before this event become pregnant with his child and had an abortion, which she denies, saying she miscarried. The suspect's claim, though, is in the police report, and Buck refers to it as a reason she may be motivated to file charges where he thinks none are warranted."

Angered by what he later called the nation's "lurch to the left," Buck announced his plans to run for U.S. Senator on April 28, 2009. In his first run for state-wide office, Buck frequently referenced national issues in defining his goals as a U.S. senator. Among these were his opposition to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (a program of federal economic stimulus initiated under President George W. Bush and finalized under President Barack Obama) and the role of federal policy czars. Buck also stressed mounting governmental debt, an issue to which he was to frequently return throughout the primary campaign. Buck, contrasting himself to what he argued was the "top down" style of early Republican favorite Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton, also pledged a "bottom-up" campaign that would include visits to each of Colorado's 64 counties.

Buck was elected the District Attorney for Weld County, Colorado in 2004. When he suspected that Social Security numbers were being stolen by undocumented immigrants, he raided a tax service in Greeley, Colorado and seized more than 5,000 tax files. The American Civil Liberties Union sued Buck's office for violating the privacy of the service's clients and after an appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court, costing the county approximately $150,000, the raid was deemed unconstitutional. Buck has said that his time enforcing laws for the Justice Department and Weld County stoked his desire to become a lawmaker himself.

In 1990 Buck joined the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado where he became Chief of the Criminal Division. Buck was formally reprimanded and required to take ethics classes in 2001 for a meeting he had with defense attorneys about a felony case he thought should not be pursued. Only one of the three men initially indicted on felony charges was convicted, for a misdemeanor offense. Buck said he is "not proud" of the incident that effectively ended his career with the Justice Department, but says he felt it was "unethical" to prosecute such a "weak" case against the three men. One of the three men donated $700 to Buck's 2010 Senate campaign.

In 1986, he was hired by Congressman Dick Cheney to work on the Iran-Contra investigation. Following that assignment, he worked as a prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C.

After college Buck moved west and worked in Wyoming at the state legislative services office and received a J.D. degree from the University of Wyoming College of Law in 1985. He was also an instructor at the University of Denver Law School and for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy in Colorado.

Kenneth Robert Buck (born February 16, 1959) is an American politician who represents Colorado's 4th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican. He previously served as District Attorney for Weld County, Colorado. Buck ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate in 2010, losing to Democrat Michael Bennet. Buck was elected Chair of the Colorado Republican Party on March 30, 2019, replacing Jeff Hays.