Lauren Boebert facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lauren Boebert
Official portrait, 2020
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Colorado's 3rd district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2021
Preceded by	Scott Tipton
Personal details
Born	Lauren Opal Roberts (1986-12-19) December 19, 1986 (age 37) Altamonte Springs, Florida, U.S.
Political party	Republican (since 2008)
Other political affiliations	Democratic (2006–2008)
Spouse	Jayson Boebert ​ ​ (m. 2007; div. 2023)​
Children	4
Signature

Lauren Opal Boebert (/ˈboʊbərt/ BOH-bərt; née Roberts; born December 19, 1986) is an American politician, businesswoman, and gun rights activist serving as the U.S. representative for CO's 3rd congressional district since 2021. From 2013 to 2022, she owned Shooters Grill, a restaurant in Rifle, Colorado, where staff members were encouraged to carry firearms openly.

A member of the Republican Party, Boebert is known for her gun rights advocacy. In the 2020 United States House of Representatives elections in Colorado she unexpectedly defeated incumbent Scott Tipton in the primary election and went on to win the general election over Democratic nominee Diane Mitsch Bush, a former state representative. In Congress, Boebert has associated herself with the conservative Republican Study Committee, the right-wing Freedom Caucus, of which she became the communications chair in January 2022, and the pro-gun Second Amendment Caucus. She won reelection in 2022 by a narrow margin of 546 votes against former Aspen City Council member Adam Frisch.

Boebert's views are broadly considered far-right. She is an ally and supporter of former president Donald Trump. She supports Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and voted to overturn its results during the Electoral College vote count. She has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, has "celebrated attacks on the free press", and some academic and journalistic sources have investigated her ties to far-right extremism. She advocates an isolationist foreign policy, but supports closer ties with Israel for religious reasons. A self-described born-again Christian, Boebert has said that she is "tired of this separation of church and state junk" and argued for greater church power and influence in government decision-making.

Early life

Boebert was born in Altamonte Springs, Florida, on December 19, 1986. When she was 12, she and her family moved to the Montbello neighborhood of Denver and later to Aurora, Colorado, before settling in Rifle, Colorado, in 2003. Boebert dropped out of high school during her senior year in 2004 when she had a baby; she earned a GED certificate in 2020, a month before her first election primary.

Boebert has stated that her family depended on welfare when she was growing up, and that she was raised in a Democratic household in a liberal area. Records at the Colorado secretary of state's office show that her mother was registered to vote in Colorado as a Republican from 2001 to 2013 and as a Democrat from 2015 to 2020. At age 19, Boebert herself registered to vote in 2006 as a Democrat; in 2008, she changed her affiliation to Republican.

According to Boebert, she became religious while attending a church in Glenwood Springs, and that she became a born-again Christian in 2009. She has said she volunteered at a local jail for seven years, but attendance logs at the Garfield County Sheriff's office show that she volunteered at the jail nine times between May 2014 and November 2016.

Early career

After leaving high school, Boebert took a job as an assistant manager at a McDonald's in Rifle. She later said that this job changed her views about whether government assistance is necessary. After marrying in 2007, she got a job filing for a natural gas drilling company and then became a pipeliner, a member of a team that builds and maintains pipelines and pumping stations.

Restaurant ownership

Boebert at Shooters Grill

In 2013, Boebert and her husband opened Shooters Grill in Rifle, west of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. In 2015, Boebert opened Putters restaurant on Rifle Creek Golf Course, which she sold in December 2016.

Shooters Grill closed in July 2022, when the building's new owner opted not to renew the lease.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2020

Primary

Boebert with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2021

In September 2019, Boebert made national headlines when she confronted Beto O'Rourke, a candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, at an Aurora town hall meeting over his proposal for a buy-back program and a ban on assault-style rifles like AR-15s. Later that month, she opposed a measure banning guns in city-owned buildings at a meeting of the Aspen City Council. The ordinance passed unanimously a month later.

Boebert was an organizer of the December 2019 "We Will Not Comply!" rally opposing Colorado's red flag law, which allows guns to be taken from people deemed a threat. The American Patriots Three Percent militia, affiliated with the Three Percenters, provided security, and members of the Proud Boys attended the rally. On Twitter, Boebert has used rhetoric friendly to the Three Percenters and posed with members of the group (she deleted the tweet with the photos after being asked about it). During her congressional campaign, she said she was "with the militia".

In December 2019, Boebert launched her campaign to represent CO's 3rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives, beginning with a challenge to five-term incumbent Scott Tipton in the Republican primary. During her campaign, she criticized Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of "The Squad", positioning herself as a conservative alternative to the progressive representative. Seth Masket, a political science professor at the University of Denver, suggested that Boebert wanted to motivate Republican voters to participate in the primary during a slow election cycle by stirring up their anger at Ocasio-Cortez and others.

Boebert criticized Tipton's voting record, which she said did not reflect his district. Before the primary, Trump endorsed Tipton, but Boebert characterized him as unsupportive of Trump. She accused him of supporting amnesty for undocumented immigrants by voting for H.R. 5038, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2019, saying that the act had a provision that led to citizenship and provided funding for housing for undocumented farm workers. Boebert decried what she said were Tipton's insufficient efforts to continue funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, whose money had run out within two weeks, arguing that more was needed. Boebert raised just over $150,000 through the June 30 primary.

In a May 2020 interview on SteelTruth, a QAnon-supporting web show, Boebert said she was "very familiar with" the conspiracy theory: "Everything I've heard of Q, I hope that this is real because it only means America is getting stronger and better." The Colorado Times Recorder reported that she followed multiple YouTube channels connected with QAnon before deleting her YouTube account when it came under scrutiny. Boebert later distanced herself from QAnon, in a statement where she also endorsed investigations into "deep state activities that undermine" President Trump.

In September 2019, Boebert aide and future campaign manager Sherronna Bishop published a video on her Facebook page in which she interviewed a self-proclaimed member of the far-right group Proud Boys, which Bishop called "pro-everything that makes America great", adding, "thank God for you guys and the Proud Boys". Bishop left the Boebert campaign shortly after Boebert won the Republican nomination. In October 2020, Boebert's campaign denied any connection to the Proud Boys and said Boebert did not share Bishop's views.

On June 30, Boebert won the Republican nomination with 54.6% of the vote to Tipton's 45.4%. The result gained national attention and surprised political commentators. CNN and Politico called it a "stunning upset"; The Hill made a similar statement. Tipton conceded defeat on election night and Trump congratulated Boebert in a tweet. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Cheri Bustos said in a statement that national Republicans should disavow Boebert for supporting QAnon.

Boebert was the first primary challenger to defeat a sitting U.S. representative in Colorado in 48 years, since Democratic Representative Wayne Aspinall lost to Alan Merson. She pledged to join the Freedom Caucus upon taking office.

General election

Boebert faced Democratic former state representative Diane Mitsch Bush, a retired sociology professor from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, in the November general election. Boebert said that Mitsch Bush's platform was "more government control" and that Mitsch Bush had a "socialist agenda". Boebert emphasized her devotion to Trump and his policies and reiterated her points about deregulation of industries and decreasing healthcare funding, while rallying for the expansion of gun rights.

In late July, Boebert was considered the front-runner. A September survey paid for by Michael Bloomberg's Democratic-leaning House Majority PAC had Mitsch Bush ahead by one percentage point. Mitsch Bush outraised Boebert, with $4.2 million for her and nearly $4 million spent by Democratic operatives, as opposed to Boebert's $2.4 million raised and more than $5 million spent by the Republicans, but Boebert won the election, 51.27% to 45.41%. According to the Atlas of the 2020 Elections, Boebert was able to command strong support in the traditionally conservative areas of the Western Slope of Colorado and the San Luis Valley while retaining enough Republican votes in liberal-leaning Pueblo and other Democratic areas. It also stated that Boebert did not suffer from the Trump effect, as compared to the support of Trump at the polls, with the 3rd district witnessing few split-ticket votes. Her campaign succeeded by appealing to independence and rebellion.

Boebert speaking at Turning Point USA's December 2020 Student Action Summit in Palm Beach, Florida

Boebert reimbursed herself $22,259 for mileage costs in 2020 from her campaign's finances, which legally would require her to have driven 38,712 mi (62,301 km). The Denver Post reported in early February 2021 that three ethics experts said that the high figure was suspicious. Boebert's campaign attributed the figure to her "aggressive travel schedule", but members of her campaign did not provide evidence for the amount of travel. CPR News calculated that it was plausible that Boebert had driven 30,000 miles based on her visits to 129 events. Boebert said in a mid-February interview that she "drove tens of thousands of miles ... I had to make those connections, and really, I underreported a lot of stuff." In late February 2021, Boebert's campaign updated its campaign finance filing, reclassifying $3,053 claimed for mileage to "hotels", and $867 claimed for mileage to Uber rides, thus claiming a mileage of around 30,000 miles.

Despite campaign finance laws and ethics laws requiring Congressional candidates to reveal their immediate family's income sources to show potential conflicts of interest, Boebert did not report her husband's income in her 2020 filing, instead belatedly revealing it in August 2021, the same day the Federal Election Commission (FEC) sent her a letter investigating her campaign expenses. The filing, while misnaming the company involved, stated that her husband, Jayson, was paid $460,000 in 2019 and $478,000 in 2020 as a consultant for Terra Energy, one of Colorado's largest natural gas producers and fourth nationwide in methane emissions. The company told The Daily Beast that Jayson was a contracted shift worker for the company who was not paid directly but through another company, Boebert Consulting. As of 2021, Colorado classified Boebert Consulting as a delinquent company due to the lack of filings or registered agent with the state. Boebert oversees the energy industry via her position on the House Committee on Natural Resources.

2022

Use of campaign funds for personal expenses

In August 2021, the FEC investigated the apparent use of more than $6,000 from Boebert's 2022 reelection campaign funds for her personal expenses. The funds were used between May and June 2021 via four Venmo payments. Boebert's communications director said that these were indeed personal expenses, "billed to the campaign account in error", and that the "reimbursement has already happened". In September 2021, Boebert submitted documents to the FEC declaring that the campaign money had been used to settle rental and utilities bills, and had since been reimbursed.

Republican primary

Boebert sought a second term representing Colorado's 3rd congressional district in the 2022 election. During the primary, her main challenger was Don Coram, a state senator who positioned himself as more moderate.

Boebert's campaign had a significant advantage, with $5 million in campaign funds to Coram's $225,000; Coram also started campaigning late in the primary, and Trump endorsed Boebert. During the pre-primary debate on May 26, Boebert emphasized the bills she had introduced in Congress while questioning Coram's legislative votes. She also repeated claims of massive election fraud and invoked her opposition to the restrictions introduced as a result of the spread of what she called the "Fauci-funded China virus" (SARS-CoV-2).

Boebert supporters failed to throw Coram off the ballot for allegedly not having collected enough signatures. Several thousand Democrats tried to influence the election by renouncing their membership in the party and voting as independents for more moderate Republicans, which is allowed in the state. Boebert won the primary with almost 66% of the vote.

General election

In a debate with Democratic nominee Adam Frisch on September 11, 2022, Boebert took credit for bills she had voted against, did not cross-examine Frisch, proposed more oil and gas development to respond to climate change, and kept attacking House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Boebert defeated Frisch by a small margin in a closer than expected race. The margin was so close it triggered an automatic recount. The recount was completed on December 12 and affirmed that Boebert won by 546 votes out of 327,000.

2024

Boebert filed her statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on January 13, 2023. After narrowly winning reelection in 2022, she attempted to rebrand her image with the voters in her district from a MAGA firebrand to a hard-working congresswoman. In 2023, she blamed her narrow 2022 victory on "'ballot harvesting' — a GOP term for third-party collection of absentee ballots — rather than what Democrats have called her 'MAGA extremism' and political charades" while her press releases focused on local issues, including a "$5 million grant for a rural health center in a spending package she voted against".

Tenure

Observers describe Boebert as far-right; she rejects the label.

As of January 29, 2022, Boebert had introduced 17 bills and seven resolutions, none of which passed committee. In January 2023, at the beginning of the 118th Congress, she was one of 20 far-right Republican members who prevented the election of Kevin McCarthy to the House speakership on the first 14 ballots.

In February 2023, Boebert co-sponsored a bill to designate the "AR-15-style rifle" the National Gun of the United States.

During the 2023 United States debt-ceiling crisis, Boebert was a vocal opponent of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 and vowed to vote "nay" on the bill, which passed in the House 314–117. She missed the vote and said on the record that she had been "unavoidably detained". Two days later, Boebert tweeted that she had missed the vote as a "no-show protest" but CNN had captured her running up the steps to the House and being told that the vote had been closed.

Boebert has blocked critics on her personal Twitter account. A blocked constituent sued her for access, but the case was dismissed with prejudice in October 2022.

Efforts to impeach President Biden

Boebert has twice attempted to impeach President Biden. In September 2021, she submitted a resolution to impeach him and another to impeach Vice President Kamala Harris over the withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan.

Boebert made another attempt in June 2023, when she filed a privileged resolution to bypass House leadership and bring impeachment articles against Biden for his immigration and border protection policies to the floor for a vote. The House voted instead to refer the matter to the Homeland Security and Judiciary committees.

Committee assignments

For the 118th Congress:

• Committee on Natural Resources
  • Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
  • Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries
• Committee on Oversight and Accountability
  • Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs
  • Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce

Caucus memberships

Boebert is a member of the following Congressional caucuses:

• Freedom Caucus
• Republican Study Committee
• Second Amendment Caucus

Political positions

Democratic politicians in Colorado and the Aurora Sentinel Colorado accused Boebert of helping to incite violence at the U.S. Capitol and called on her to resign. While the Capitol was being stormed, Boebert posted information on Twitter about the proceedings of the certification, including that the House chamber had been locked down and that Pelosi had been evacuated. She was accused of endangering members' safety and faced calls to resign, but refused.

In June 2021, Boebert was one of 21 House Republicans to vote against a resolution to give the Congressional Gold Medal to police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol. She later explained that she objected to giving an award to Billy Evans, who was included in the resolution and who died during an unrelated Capitol attack in April that year. Boebert additionally rejects the term "insurrection" for the January 6 events.

Boebert opposes the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would elect the president by popular vote.

Boebert is a strong advocate of gun rights.

Boebert sponsored H.R. 6202, the American Tech Workforce Act of 2021, introduced by Representative Jim Banks. The legislation would establish a wage floor for the high-skill H-1B visa program, thereby significantly reducing employer dependence on the program. The bill would also eliminate the Optional Practical Training program that allows foreign graduates to stay and work in the United States.

During her 2020 campaign, Boebert pledged that she would not support any federal budget that resulted in additional debt and that she would support a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. She opposes any tax increases.

Environment

Boebert has supported the energy industry. During her campaign, she said she supported "all-of-the-above energy, but the markets decide ... not the government." She declared support for uranium extraction and the generation of nuclear power, touting it as the "cleanest form of energy". In February 2021, Boebert proposed a bill to ban executive moratoriums on oil and gas leases and permits on some federal lands. She also proposed amendments to the Build Back Better Act that would abolish methane-emission payments by fracking companies and others that would increase royalties for oil and gas extraction on federal lands and abolish fines and financial requirements for cleaning abandoned drilling infrastructure. Conversely, Boebert opposes sustainable energy initiatives because she considers green energy unreliable and believes that decreasing the extraction of fossil fuels in her district will "regulate our communities into poverty". She opposes the Green New Deal, claiming it would cost $93 trillion to implement and would bankrupt the country. Boebert also opposes the participation of the United States in the Paris Agreement, calling it "job-killing", and introduced a bill the day after Biden's inauguration seeking to block re-entrance of the country to the agreement by forcing its ratification in the Senate by a two-thirds supermajority and prohibiting the use of federal funds for reaching the agreement's goals.

Boebert believes that attempts at decarbonization should be made via forest management. She has introduced a forest management bill, the Active Forest Management, Wildfire Prevention and Community Protection Act, which would attempt to prevent wildfires through several mitigation measures, such as removing trees killed by bark beetles, making it harder for groups to go to court to stop forest thinning, and requiring the United States Forest Service to harvest six billion board foot (14 million cubic meters) of lumber annually. Boebert has proposed legislation in the House anchoring the Bureau of Land Management's headquarters in Grand Junction, Colorado, which is in the 3rd district.

Foreign policy

Boebert was one of 49 House Republicans to vote to repeal the authorization of military force against Iraq. She also voted against the bipartisan ALLIES Act, which would increase by 8,000 the number of special immigrant visas for Afghan allies of the U.S. military during its invasion of Afghanistan while also reducing some application requirements that caused long application backlogs; the bill passed the House, 407–16. In August 2021, after the Afghan government fell to the Taliban, Boebert tweeted, "the Taliban are the only people building back better", reusing Biden's "Build Back Better" campaign slogan. She also opposes intervention in the escalation of the war tensions between Russia and Ukraine that started in late 2021.

Boebert supports the construction of a Mexico–U.S. border wall and opposes amnesty for undocumented immigrants living in the US.

Boebert has urged for even closer relations between Israel and the United States, saying that their foundings were divinely inspired and that they are the "two nations [in the world] that have been created to glorify God".

In 2023, Boebert was among 47 Republicans to vote in favor of H.Con.Res. 21, which directed President Joe Biden to remove U.S. troops from Syria within 180 days.

Health care

During her primary campaign, Boebert argued for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and advocated against the introduction of a single-payer healthcare system, saying it would harm small businesses like hers because of the prohibitive cost. After the election, she said she was undecided about whether it was best to keep or repeal Obamacare, but wished that a more market-based system would be adopted. During her tenure in Congress, she was one of two representatives (the other was Marjorie Taylor Greene) to vote against the TRANSPLANT Act, which reauthorized the National Marrow Donor Program through 2026, citing concern over the addition of the program to the national debt as it had not received a Congressional Budget Office evaluation.

Separation of church and state

Boebert promotes the ideals of Christian nationalism. In June 2022, she told a church audience, "The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it. And I am tired of this separation of church and state junk. It's not in the Constitution." Boebert's office asserted she was not expressing support of Christian theocracy. Experts said her statement is contrary to the Constitution's Establishment Clause.

In late 2022, Boebert told two audiences, "we are in the last of the last days", and that they would have a role in "ushering in the second coming of Jesus".

Personal life

After Boebert's mother, Shawn Roberts Bentz, accused professional wrestler Stan Lane of fathering Boebert, Lane took two paternity tests, first in the 1980s and the second in 2023, which proved that he was not Boebert's father. According to Boebert: "My mom was 18 when she had me, which inspired me to be a mother when I was 18 years old."

Boebert lived with her husband, Jayson Boebert, in Silt, Colorado. They have four sons and one grandson. In February 2004, Jayson was arrested and charged for "harassing and physically assaulting" Boebert, and he was convicted in November 2004, the same year she had her first child. Before and after Boebert and her husband opened Shooters Grill, he worked in oil and gas fields.

On May 16, 2023, Boebert announced that she had filed for divorce from her husband on May 11, citing "irreconcilable differences".

Electoral history

2020 election cycle

2022 election cycle

See also

In Spanish: Lauren Boebert para niños