One Colorado Republican joined with all of the state’s House Democrats on Tuesday voting to depose Kevin McCarthy as House speaker, leaving the GOP-controlled chamber without a leader just days after McCarthy brokered a bipartisan deal to prevent a government shutdown.

The close 216-210 vote made McCarthy the first U.S. House speaker in history to lose his job and plunged Washington into what lawmakers warned is uncharted territory.

U.S. Rep. Ken Buck of Windsor joined with seven other Republicans and all Democrats present voting to fire McCarthy, citing the California Republican’s promotion of stopgap funding legislation over the weekend as a reason for his vote.

“We cannot continue to fund the government by continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills,” Buck tweeted after lawmakers voted. “We must change course to sensible budgeting and save our country.”

Before the vote, Buck signaled his intentions, tweeting that he believed McCarthy “has repeatedly broken his word both to the American people and to members of Congress.”

The other two Republican members of Colorado’s House delegation, U.S. Reps. Doug Lamborn and Lauren Boebert, stuck with McCarthy, though Boebert made clear that she, too, was frustrated by what she called “broken promises, secret deals, and failed leadership.”

Lamborn, a staunch McCarthy ally, called McCarthy’s ouster “an unfortunate episode in the history of the Republican Party in Congress.”

“Personal politics on the part of a few have interrupted important legislative work like passing appropriations bills to fund essential government functions while reducing wasteful spending,” Lamborn said in a statement, adding that he valued McCarthy’s work as speaker “to secure our borders, reduce our debt, and battle the left’s extreme social agenda.”

During a tense roll call vote on the motion to vacate the speakership brought by Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a persistent McCarthy critic, Boebert answered that she was voting “no for now.”

After the vote had concluded, Boebert elaborated on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Boebert aired her frustration over McCarthy’s handling of legislation — including working with Democrats to avert a debt ceiling crisis earlier this summer and to pass a temporary spending bill on Saturday — and added: “I am sick and tired of business as usual in the Swamp.”

“My focus right now is on getting the federal government funded through 12 individual spending bills like we promised everyone in January, delivering on the priorities of the Third District, and moving forward on the Oversight and Accountability Committee’s impeachment inquiry,” she said.

“Another Speaker fight right now, in my opinion, undermines those priorities at the worst possible time. It would delay the hard work and important fights necessary to get this country back on track. We need to finish the job the American people elected us to do, and I’m here to ensure that happens.”

Boebert was among a handful of Republicans who forced McCarthy to undergo 15 votes before his election as speaker in January.

She finally voted “present” in a procedural move that enabled his win, though not before GOP lawmakers reportedly extracted a series of promises from McCarthy, including to change House rules to allow a single member to call for the speaker’s removal, like Gaetz did this week.

House Democrats early on Tuesday declared that they wouldn’t come to McCarthy’s rescue.

“This is their civil war,” U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat, told reporters following a party meeting. “They can’t govern. They have no coalition.”

Noting that Democrats had agreed on their approach to the upcoming vote, he added: “We’re united in what our purpose is, and we’re not going to bail anybody out.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette of Denver tweeted after the vote that she wasn’t surprised that the House GOP “has declared open civil war on itself.”

“It’s just a shame that the American people will pay the price for this chaos,” she added. “Today is a sad day.”

The delegation’s two first-term Democrats, U.S. Reps. Brittany Pettersen of Lakewood and Yadira Caraveo of Thornton, said that House Republicans had demonstrated that they are in disarray.

“Democrats have been committed to working across the aisle since day one, but the Republican party has been held hostage by their most extreme, far-right members,” Pettersen tweeted after the vote. “Their dysfunction has been on full display today and our country deserves better.”

Said Caraveo in a statement: “From the first day of this congress, Mr. McCarthy has wrought chaos on our nation’s Capitol. He secured the speakership only after fifteen rounds of votes and backroom deals. And he has spent the past nine months filling normally bipartisan packages with poison pills and letting a few extreme Members hijack our work in Congress. In the West, we understand that a person’s word is their bond. I will not support a speaker whose word cannot be trusted. This body deserves better, the American people deserve better, and Colorado’s 8th District deserves better.”

The leaders of the state’s Republican and Democratic parties took predictably opposing views of the day’s developments in statements to Colorado Politics.

“Washington, D.C., is broken, and its failed leadership needed to be held accountable today, so we applaud Congressman Buck for his principled and historic vote,” said Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams.

“Coloradans want leadership, not political games,” said Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Shad Murib. “From Boebert’s ‘no for now’ waffling politician-speak to the chaos and dysfunction of McCarthy’s failed tenure, this entire House majority has been a sad embarrassment for the country.”

He added that the party intends to play a pivotal role “bringing some common-sense back to Congress in 2024 ... and ending this MAGA chaos.”