Colorado’s seven congressional Democrats all voted in favor of a plan to raise the country’s debt ceiling last week, calling the compromise legislation flawed but necessary to avoid default and avert an economic disaster.

To hear them tell it, U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, and U.S. Reps. Diana Degette, Joe Neguse, Jason Crow, Brittany Pettersen and Yadira Caraveo each had major misgivings about the agreement brokered by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin Mccarthy, but held their collective noses to help pass it.

When it came time to vote, however, the three Republican members of the state’s House delegation each went

a different way, with Doug Lamborn voting for the bill, Ken Buck voting against it and Lauren Boebert missing the vote after days of denouncing the deal.

Dubbed the Fiscal Responsibility Act by House GOP leaders, the bill passed the House 314-117 late on Wednesday, with slightly more support from Democrats than from the chamber’s majority Republicans. A day later, the Democratic-controlled Senate sent the legislation to Biden for his signature on a bipartisan 63-36 vote.

The bill passed just days before the June 5 deadline set by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who warned that federal spending would exceed the $31.4 trillion borrowing limit authorized by a previous Congress, which would have forced the federal government to miss debt payments for the first time in the country’s history.

Giving pundits the opportunity to haul out that trusty Washington bromide that if both extremes are against it, it must be a successful compromise, the package drew opposition from some of the most conservative and most progressive lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Those on the right maintained the deal didn’t cut spending enough, while those on the left protested the bill increases burdens on Americans who can least afford it.

While Biden and Democratic leaders excoriated Republicans for holding the country’s creditworthiness hostage — an interpretation bolstered last week when House Republican Matt Gaetz of Florida described the bargaining explicitly in those terms — Buck, Boebert and other GOP hardliners insisted that they’d been sent to Washington to rein in the federal government, not sit by while it grows.

The weeks-long drama leading up to last week’s votes also surfaced fractures in the fragile alliance of Republican lawmakers who elected McCarthy as speaker in January in a historic 15th round of voting, finally winning the gavel after reportedly giving up a raft of concessions to members of the House Freedom Caucus.

An outspoken member of the conservative group, Buck was among the first House Republicans to raise the possibility of ousting Mccarthy from the speaker’s chair, invoking promises the California Republican made to secure support from enough Republicans to gain the leadership post.

Buck acknowledged midweek that he asked during a House Freedom Caucus meeting about a potential “motion to vacate” — under terms agreed to by Mccarthy, just a single House member can call a vote to remove the speaker at any time — but told MSNBC that the group’s chairman called the move “premature.”

The next day, hours before the vote, Buck told Fox News reporter Chad Program: “I think next we start to have the discussion on the motion to vacate (the chair).”

“I voted no on the Biden-mccarthy debt limit ‘deal’ because our current financial situation is unsustainable, and this bill only ramps up the timeline to our government’s eventual default,” said Buck in a statement. During his five terms in Congress, Buck has never voted to raise the country’s debt ceiling.

“I can’t imagine a better deal for Democrats or a worse deal for our nation,” he added after listing elements of the bill he considers favorable for the Democrats. “When will Congress take its responsibilities to the American people seriously? It’s past time for fiscal change and leadership in Washington. I refuse to be complicit in this bipartisan bankruptcy.”

After the bill passed the House late on Wednesday, Buck said Mccarthy “got rolled” by Biden during an appearance on Newsmax’s Greg Kelly Reports, noting that any of the 71 Republicans who voted against the bill could initiate a vote on Mccarthy’s future.

“Those folks are going to be considering the motion to vacate,” Buck said. “Not all of them, but a lot of them, and I just think that Kevin, his celebration will be short lived.”

Added Buck: “This is a bill that had a lot in it for Democrats and very little in it for Republicans, other than you know, avoiding a black eye because of the debt default.”

Boebert, the House Freedom Caucus’s communications chair, would have been one of those “no” votes if she’d made it to the House chamber in time to vote, but she was one of just two Republicans — and two Democrats — who failed to cast a vote.

“Rep. Lauren Boebert narrowly missed the vote, running up the steps right as they gaveled,” Axios reporter Juliegrace Brufke tweeted shortly after the bill passed the House, setting off a storm of ridicule aimed at the Rifle Republican.

In the days leading up to the bill’s passage, Boebert was one of its most vocal critics.

“Our base didn’t volunteer, door knock and fight so hard to get us the majority for this kind of compromise deal with Joe Biden,” she said. “Our voters deserve better than this. We work for them. You can count me as a NO on this deal. We can do better.”

The morning after the House vote, Boebert issued a lengthy statement reiterating her opposition to the legislation but didn’t say why she hadn’t voted.

“The House passing this socalled ‘deal’ was another example of the Swamp shoving a $6-plus trillion blank check for Biden down Americans’ throats,” she said.

Boebert noted that she advocated for amendments to the bill a day earlier at a House Rules Committee hearing but was rebuffed when GOP leadership “rammed this thing through with a closed rule, and completely bypassed everything we fought for in January as part of the rules package changes that were implemented (to) allow members a voice.”

Boebert made clear how she would have voted if she’d been present.

“I certainly wasn’t afraid to vote against the bill, as I have been advocating against it all week,” she said. “I voted against the rule to consider the bill, I advocated against it publicly, and I will continue to call out the Swamp for selling out our conservative principles and mortgaging the American dream.”

Colorado Democrats rained down criticism in the wake of her blunder.

“.@Repboebert talk is cheap, leadership requires showing up,” tweeted Crow, her Democratic colleague, about an hour after the vote in a post attached to an earlier video of Boebert railing against the bill.

Democrat Adam Frisch, who lost a bid to unseat Boebert last fall in the closest congressional race in the country and is already seeking the nomination for a rematch, knocked her absence in a statement distributed the next day by his campaign.

“When critical issues are being decided impacting our district’s economy, CO-03 needs a leader and a representative who will actually show up for them and vote in the district’s best interest,” Frisch said. “What exactly was more important to Boebert than showing up and doing her job? The people of our district deserve an answer.”

Lamborn, the lone Colorado Republican to support the bill, took heat earlier in the week from Colorado Republican Chairman Dave Williams, who lost a primary challenge against Lamborn last summer.

In a “call to action” sent to the state GOP’S email list, Williams described the bill as “a terrible deal that should be rejected by every Republican in Congress” and heaped praise on Buck and Boebert for coming out against it.

His old foe, however, had yet to make his position known, Williams said, urging readers to call Lamborn’s congressional office to “encourage him to vote NO and not cave to the Washington establishment or special interest insiders.”

While Lamborn kept his cards close to his vest until the vote, moments later his office issued a lengthy statement explaining his position.

“Instead of bemoaning the fact that the deal did not go as far as it could have, which is always the case with major legislation, I voted to cut federal spending and lock in the reforms that the deal did achieve,” Lamborn said. “While the deal could always have done more, what it achieved is real, lasting, and unprecedented.”