Colorado lawmakers from both parties expressed frustration Friday as divided House Republicans restarted efforts to elect a speaker.

Republicans dropped U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan as their nominee in a secret vote after the Ohio Republican earlier failed to win the gavel in a third round of balloting on the House floor.

Opposition to the Donald Trump-backed GOP nominee grew through the week. On Friday, 25 Republicans voted for someone else, up five from the number who broke ranks in Tuesday’s first round.

U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Lafayette and a member of his party’s House leadership team, told Colorado Politics that it was time Republicans acknowledged that the only way out of the stalemate was to reach bipartisan agreement with the chamber’s Democrats.

Across the aisle, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Silt Republican and early Jordan endorser, said through a spokesman that she didn’t want Jordan to end his candidacy and was unhappy that the House didn’t plan to reconvene until next week.

The House has been without a speaker and unable to move legislation since the beginning of the month, when eight Republicans – including U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, a former chairman of the Colorado GOP – joined the chamber’s Democrats to remove Kevin McCarthy from the position, making the California Republican the first speaker in history to be fired from the job mid-term.

Members of Colorado’s House delegation stuck with the positions they’d held all week through a series of votes to replace McCarthy.

Boebert and fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn voted for Jordan, while Buck effectively voted against Jordan, voting instead for House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota. Colorado’s five Democrats voted with their caucus for House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Friday’s vote was 194 for Jordan and 210 for Jeffries, both falling short of the 216 votes needed for a majority of those voting. Another 25 votes went to a handful of Republicans, including McCarthy, Emmer and Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, who has wielded the gavel for nearly three weeks without clear authority to do more than supervise elections for a permanent speaker.

In a closed-door GOP meeting following Friday’s floor vote, Republicans voted 112-86 by secret ballot against Jordan continuing as the party’s nominee, indicating much lower support for his candidacy than was evident when members cast their votes in public.

Boebert made clear after the session that she backed Jordan, while Buck has been firm in his opposition, citing Jordan’s refusal to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, among other beefs. A spokeswoman for Lamborn didn’t respond to an inquiry asking how the Colorado Springs Republican voted.

Republicans scheduled a forum for speaker candidates on Monday evening and said lawmakers have until midday Sunday to declare candidacies. By late Friday, more than a half-dozen Republicans had announced they want the job, including Emmer, who won a quick endorsement from McCarthy and a thumbs-down from Trump.

A spokesman for Boebert told Colorado Politics on Friday afternoon that she still supported Jordan to be the next speaker and had “nothing else at the moment” to say about other prospects.

“She doesn’t believe the House should be taking the weekend off,” Boebert’s press secretary, Anthony Fakhoury said in an email. “The people’s House needs a leader.”

Democrats said there was a clear solution to their Republican colleagues’ failed attempts to elect a speaker.

“For the past three weeks, House Republicans have plunged the U.S. Congress into unprecedented chaos,” Neguse said in a statement.

“House Democrats have repeatedly made clear that we are committed to finding common ground and working with our colleagues to reopen the House. For the good of our country, it is time for our Republican colleagues to walk away from the extremism and dysfunction, and join with House Democrats on a bipartisan path forward,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Lakewood, echoed Boebert’s frustration at the delayed proceedings and Neguse’s plea for Republicans to work with Democrats amid rising global tensions and a looming deadline to prevent a federal government shutdown.

“The American people shouldn’t have to pay the price for the Republican Party’s inability to govern. It’s been 2½ weeks since the U.S. House of Representatives had a Speaker. Yet, we’ve all been sent home,” Pettersen said in a statement.

“We need a functional Congress. Our federal government and the services we all rely on are less than one month away from running out of money. People continue to struggle with rising costs as our economy recovers from a global pandemic. We have urgent international needs, like the conflicts in Israel, Gaza, and Ukraine, that we must address for the long-term security of the United States and the world.”

Considering the stakes, Pettersen added that she was “extremely disappointed” that Republicans continued to spurn Democrats’ help.

“American people need leadership and bipartisanship from their government – not chaos and dysfunction.”