After representing El Paso County in Congress for nearly a generation, Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn stunned observers last week when he announced that he plans to retire, rather than seek reelection this year, after nine terms in office.

The 69-year-old Kansas-born attorney said he intends to devote the rest of the year to legislating – instead of politics – and vowed to “finish out strong.”

He’ll depart after 30 years in office, including a dozen in the Colorado General Assembly, where Lamborn served as majority whip in the state House and President pro-tem in the state Senate. In his final term in the U.S. House, Lamborn chairs the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee and serves as vice chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, making him the only gavel-wielding member of the state’s House delegation.

While he’s only managed to put his name on a handful of laws over the decades – naming a post office, naming a VA outpatient clinic, authorizing a commemorative coin and legalizing access to the Manitou Incline – Lamborn has left an indelible stamp on the Pikes Peak Region and its political landscape.

Consistently ranked one the most conservative members of Congress, Lamborn’s crowning achievement has been helping keep U.S. Space Command’s headquarters in Colorado Springs, capping a congressional career devoted to bringing home the bacon for the 5th Congressional District’s military installations.

As a member of the House Armed Services Committee since midway through his first term, Lamborn claims more than 250 provisions adopted over the years as part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, must-pass legislation that is drafted in the committee.

He’ll also be remembered for fending off a steady stream of primary challengers, waging a campaign to cut funding for public broadcasting – spurred by witnessing a same-sex wedding between a rat and an aardvark in a children’s cartoon – and letting his adult son camp out at the U.S. Capitol.

Never far from controversy, the outspoken Lamborn drew national headlines a few times, including when he apologized during a 2011 fight over the debt ceiling after saying that being associated with President Obama’s policies was like “touching a tar baby.” Insisting that he hadn’t known the phrase had racist connotations, Lamborn said he’d intended to imply that a quagmire awaited Republicans who embraced the administration’s proposals.

A decade ago, Lamborn gained notoriety for several years for seeking to defund the Public Broadcasting Corporation and National Public Radio, engaging in what appeared to be a grudge match with Big Bird.

“For his own good, it’s time to push Big Bird out of the nest so he can fly on his own,” Lamborn said during a funding battle. Years, later, Lamborn declared that he was a fan of the iconic Sesame Street character but maintained the U.S. government shouldn’t be paying to sustain his antics. “If we have to borrow money from China to keep Big Bird in his nest, it’s time for him to go!” Lamborn said.

Through it all, the devout Christian introduced dozens of bills he describes as pro-life, in keeping with his stated belief that human life begins with fertilization.

“Every human life has inherent value and should be treated with dignity regardless of the stage of development, race, age, gender, or ability,” Lamborn’s office said in a career recap released last week after he announced his retirement.

Lamborn points to a steady stream of legislation, amendments and letters intended to support Israel and strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship. Most prominently, he introduced the Taylor Force Act, which blocks the U.S. government from aiding the Palestinian Authority so long as the authority pays “martyr” payments to terrorists or their surviving family. It later passed and was signed into law by President Donald Trump as part of a larger bill.

Among numerous recent Lamborn-sponsored measures signed into law as part of the annual defense policy bill are provisions supporting hypersonic weaponry, missile defense and modernization of the U.S. nuclear deterrence force. In earlier sessions, Lamborn was behind establishing the basing decision that led to Northern Command’s location in Colorado Springs, the creation of the Space National Guard and preventing the Obama administration from transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the continental U.S.

In other funding accomplishments, Lamborn was instrumental in securing a $65 million Department of Transportation grant in 2018 that made it possible to widen the “Gap,” an 18-mile stretch of Interstate 25 between Castle Rock and Monument, which has reduced congestion on the heavily traveled route along the Front Range.

Only the fourth House member to represent Colorado’s 5th CD, Lamborn won the seat in 2006 in a brutal, six-way primary to replace retiring 10-term U.S. Rep. Joel Hefley. Lamborn emerged with the GOP nomination with just 27% of the vote in the solid Republican district, which has never sent a Democrat to Congress in its 50-year existence.

Lamborn has survived primaries six more times since – he’s managed to avoid GOP challengers just two times in his nine terms – and has cruised to reelection by double digits.

Twice after his first win, Lamborn’s challengers managed to keep the incumbent under 50%. In 2008, two of his leading opponents from the previous election – Jeff Crank, a former Hefley aide, and retired Air Force Major Gen. Bentley Rayburn, who finished in second and third place two years earlier – roughly split the vote, while in 2022, Lamborn fell short of a majority, receiving 47% in a four-way primary.

The Republican who finished second behind Lamborn last cycle, former state Rep. Dave Williams, who was elected earlier this year as chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, this week became the first major Republican to declare his candidacy for the seat Lamborn will be vacating, with the primary field expected to swell in coming weeks.

It wasn’t always an easy path to the primary ballot for Lamborn.

In 2016, young activist Calandra Vargas put a scare in the incumbent by nearly keeping Lamborn from qualifying for the primary at the district assembly. Although Lamborn came within just 18 delegate votes of losing his seat at the party meeting, he handily defeated his surprise challenger in the primary.

Two years later, Lamborn petitioned onto the ballot rather than risk the unpredictable assembly process, but that proved equally perilous. After it turned out the firm he’d hired to collect signatures violated Colorado law, Lamborn had to go to court multiple times to secure a spot on the ballot. Following losses in district court and before the Colorado Supreme Court, Lamborn won a ruling in federal court that put him on the ballot and overturned a state law that set residency requirements for petition circulators.

He went on to trounce his four primary challengers – led by former El Paso county commissioner and U.S. Senate nominee Darryl Glenn, and state Sen. Owen Hill, who had also previously run for the U.S. Senate – with 52% of the vote, more than 30 points ahead of Glenn, the next-closest Republican.

Lamborn was hit with a lawsuit filed by a former staffer in 2021, alleging that the congressman took a lax approach to safety during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and then fired the staffer in retaliation after he complained. The lawsuit said congressional staff often ran personal errands for Lamborn and his wife and helped one of Lamborn’s sons apply for federal jobs. It also accused Lamborn of letting his son live rent-free in the basement of the U.S. Capitol.

While the lawsuit was settled a year ago – its terms weren’t disclosed – elements of the complaint remain under investigation by the House Committee on Ethics, which announced in 2022 that it would review allegations Lamborn misused official resources for personal purposes, including requiring congressional staffers to perform tasks for the Lamborn family and his campaign. The probe followed a finding by a separate congressional ethics office that Lamborn might have violated federal laws and House rules.

According to a report released by the Office of Congressional Ethics, the bipartisan panel determined there was “substantial reason to believe” that Lamborn’s congressional staffers were required to perform tasks for the congressman’s family and his campaign, including picking up mail, setting up Zoom meetings, moving furniture and planning a party for the lawmaker’s daughter-in-law to celebrate her becoming a naturalized citizen.

A Lamborn spokeswoman called the allegations “false and unfounded” and said her boss expected to be cleared by the ethics committee, which doesn’t comment on pending cases except to note that the existence of an investigation doesn’t necessarily indicate a violation has occurred.