Lauren Boebert Seeks Grant From Pete Buttigieg, Even After Mocking Him

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado has mocked Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg with antigay slurs and voted against President Biden's infrastructure bill, but that didn't keep her from pleading with Buttigieg for funding under the legislation for a project in her district.

Boebert, a far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ Republican, wrote last week to Buttigieg requesting $33.1 million through the Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program for a bridge in Glenwood Springs, Colo.

"With Rural Surface Transportation grant funds, Glenwood Springs will construct a new bridge connection that will provide a critical second emergency route/evacuation access between State Highway 82 and the western side of the Roaring Fork River in the City's South Corridor," she wrote.

Congress passed the infrastructure bill in late 2021 and Biden quickly signed it into law. Boebert opposed the bill, calling it "wasteful" and "garbage," and she said the Republicans who supported it were "RINOS," that is, Republicans in name only.

She had criticized Buttigieg for taking parental leave when he and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, welcomed twin babies last year. The criticism was ostensibly because the nation was in a supply-chain crisis, but Boebert used homophobic and sexist language. "The guy was not working! Because why? He was trying to figure out how to chest feed," she said in a YouTube video.

Boebert told a Colorado newspaper that she saw no conflict between opposing Biden's infrastructure bill and requesting the funding. "I am for investing in rural Colorado, but Biden's so-called infrastructure bill was not the right way to do it," she wrote in an email to The Durango Herald. "Less than 10% of $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill went to roads and bridges. The bill provides tens of billions of dollars for Solyndra style slush funds, Green New Deal policies, electric busses, and government welfare."

She had previously lauded projects included in the bill, the paper notes. She did so in a newsletter in March that listed "nine Boebert wins for Colorado."

Glenwood Springs Mayor Jonathan Godes told Business Insider that he welcomed Boebert's support despite the stance she took on the bill. "Would I have loved to have had a complete bipartisan bill that was supported by everybody? Yeah, absolutely," he said. But it's been a challenge to fund the bridge, so this is a positive step, he said. Boebert has been working with him on the project.

Godes, a Democrat, hasn't always had a good relationship with Boebert. In January 2021, he posted a photo on his Facebook page of her and some companions, some of whom appeared to be making a hand sign associated with the Three Percenters, a right-wing militia group, the Aspen Daily News reports. The photo had already circulated widely on social media with an inaccurate caption saying Boebert took the group on a tour of the U.S. Capitol prior to the January 6 insurrection. The picture was actually taken at the Colorado capitol in 2019.

After posting the picture, Godes received several threats, including at least one death threat, from supporters of Boebert. He then took his Facebook page down. He apologized for repeating inaccuracies but defended his reasoning. "As an elected official in a community that is represented by the congresswoman, I felt that it was important to make a clear distinction that these people and these hand signs do not represent the citizens of Glenwood Springs," he said at a City Council meeting, according to the Aspen paper. "These are not my friends and neighbors."