Fredreka Schouten

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – Colorado Rep. Ken Buck hasn’t made a lot of friends in Washington as a founding member of the often unruly, ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus that's fond of challenging the party’s leaders on Capitol Hill.

And the second-term Republican is unlikely to make many more with Tuesday’s publication of his tell-all book, Drain the Swamp: How Washington is Worse Than You Think, co-authored with Bill Blankschaen.

In it, Buck says lawmakers are mostly “fat and happy alligators who feel pretty darn comfortable in the swamp.” He casts Republican leaders as “playground bullies” who go to great lengths, including yanking subcommittee chairmanships and canceling lawmakers’ overseas trips, to punish dissenters. And he decries a “pay-to-play” system in which plum committee assignments and leadership slots are tied to lawmakers’ fundraising skills instead of their policy expertise.

“The critical criteria for getting ahead is fundraising, and it’s a reality that the people you are going to raise money from want something" from Congress, Buck told USA TODAY in a telephone interview Monday. “A lot of members see the problem, but they want to get re-elected.”

Early in the book, Buck spells out the steep dues lawmakers are required to give to the House Republican campaign committee keep their seats on influential committees. As a member of the House Rules Committee — one of the five “A” committees that also include Appropriations, Ways and Means, Financial Services and Energy and Commerce — Buck said he must raise $450,000 over the next two years for the GOP’s House campaign arm if he hopes to retain his slot.

The chairman of an “A” committee must raise even more: $1.2 million, he wrote. It’s no wonder, then, that “some members of Congress spend at least half their time fundraising to keep their dues paid and campaign coffers full,” Buck said.

Buck, unlike some Freedom Caucus members, pays those dues, he said, because he wants his party to retain its majority in Congress.

Read more:

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Buck, a former federal prosecutor, represents a sprawling district covering Eastern Colorado’s high plains. In 2010, he narrowly lost a U.S. Senate race, dogged in the general election by unflattering comments he made about his female rival in the GOP primary and a statement comparing homosexuality to alcoholism.

In 2014, he ran successfully for an open House seat and quickly aligned with like-minded conservatives to help form the Freedom Caucus. He said he soon risked ouster as president of his freshman class over his refusal to back a trade measure.

Some of the anecdotes cited in Buck’s 152-page book were subject of news coverage at the time, such as a short-lived move in 2015 to strip another conservative upstart, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., of a subcommittee chairmanship after he bucked then-House Speaker John Boehner and other GOP leaders on a procedural vote.

But it’s rare for a sitting lawmaker to write a tome about Washington’s perceived ills.

“A lot of people leave Congress and then write a book about the terrible evils they saw when they were in Congress for 20 years,” Buck said in the interview. “I think it’s important to write a book while I’m there. I’m working within the system because the only way to change the system is for the American people to know what’s going on and to put pressure on Congress to change."

Buck trains some of his fire on someone no longer in Congress: Boehner, who resigned in the fall of 2015 in the face of opposition from Freedom Caucus members. They were displeased about Boehner’s compromises with President Obama.

In the interview, Buck said he has discussed the book with the current House leaders, but he declined to “repeat private conversations," detailing their reactions.

Principled stand?

Buck views his effort as a principled stand against a free-spending and undisciplined Washington.

His top goal: urging voters to agitate for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He said it would restore fiscal discipline to Congress and help drive out big money in politics because lawmakers would no longer have the leeway “to give everybody everything they wanted” in spending bills.

Changing the Constitution is a long shot. Buck is urging his readers to become involved in the so-called Article V movement, which proposes an action unprecedented in U.S. history: a convention called by the states to draft amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The movement has raised fears of a runaway convention in which everything from gun ownership to gay marriage could be up for debate. Buck argues the requirement that three-fourths of states approve any changes would be a safeguard against radical change to the Constitution.

Buck also is pushing changes that are smaller in scope, such as ensuring that lawmakers actually work on Mondays, a day when votes are rarely scheduled because most lawmakers are traveling back to Washington from their home districts.

Buck's title echoes the campaign slogan of President Trump, who talked often during the presidential race of reducing the influence of special interests in Washington. In the book, Buck encourages Trump to follow through on his campaign pledges, such as slowing the revolving door between the executive branch and lobbying firms.

Buck said “more than a few” rank-and-file members have approached him to ask “ ‘Is my name in the book?’ I find that really funny because they must feel guilty about something.”

In the end, he said, some of his colleagues could "feel betrayed and there are the some who will feel relieved because this is what needs to happen and somebody else is stepping out in front of the train to get this done.”

"I didn't go there (Washington) with a lot of friends," Buck added. "And I won't leave with a lot of friends."