I didn't plan on doing a second one of these before the election, but the existing one got too big, so here we are. . . again.
Hopefully this is the last one in this tread, in a fairly sad election year.
The primary election really demonstrated Wyoming's lurch to the hard right with two of the state wide candidates receiving Trump endorsements, along with Harriet Hageman's whose only real issue was her loyalty to Donald Trump. This upcoming legislative session promises, quite frankly, to be absolutely frightening and in the Congress Wyoming goes from having a respected, but not disliked in GOP circles, figure to one who will be, at least at first, a reliable GOP nullity. In the Secretary of State office, which is the central business office for the state, a person who, back door, is widely disrespected in many circles goes into the fall completely unopposed.
And that points out the collapse of the Democratic Party in the state. There are some notable Democrats who should be capable, in a sane situation, of easily beating a candidate like Chuck Gray, but they aren't running.
The races:
U.S. House of Representatives
Republican Party
Harriet Hageman. Anointed by Donald Trump to take out Liz Cheney, and a late adopter of the stolen election theory, Wyoming lawyer Hageman is the favorite, albeit one who is seemingly now fairly quiet.
On that, Hageman won't even debate her Democratic challenger, which is both arrogant and rude.
Democratic Party.
Lynette Gray Bull. Running a second time, the Native American candidate can be regarded as a "progressive" who is emphasizing her commitment to democracy, in opposition to Hageman's adoption of the stolen election story. Gray Bull has challenged Hageman to a debate, but Hageman has rudely declined, as noted above.
Governor
Republican
Mark Gordon.
Democrat
Theresa Livingston.
Secretary of State
Republican
Chuck Gray. Gray has only been in the state for a decade and is widely held in many circles to be temperamentally and professionally unqualified for this position.
Gray, who wasn't universally popular in the legislature, focused on bogus election concerns in his campaign. He'll take over from an even more unqualified interim Secretary of State who assumed this position when Ed Buchanan resigned to take a judicial appointment.
Democrat
None, the Democrats have defaulted in a race in which many feel the worst Republican candidate in the State's history won the GOP race, nearly assuring that the same individual will take that position.
State Treasurer
Republican
Curt Meier won the GOP nomination for a second term.
Democrat
None.
State Auditor
Kristi Racines took this race in the Republican primary, and she seems to be the only candidate in the state that everyone likes.
Superintendent of Public Instruction
This is the only race for statewide office which actually features two qualified candidates.
Republican
Megan Delgenfelder.
Democrat
Sergio Maldonado.
Proposed Amendments to the Wyoming Constitution.
This year features two proposed amendments to the Wyoming constitution. I'm not sure where the first one came from, but the second one is part of the general geriatric drift in the country, in which the generation that warned us to never trust anyone over 30 doesn't trust anyone under 60.
Proposed Amendment A
This proposed amendment's ballot summary states:
The Wyoming Constitution allows the state to invest state funds in equities such as the stock of corporations, but does not allow the funds of counties, cities and other political subdivisions to be invested in equities. The adoption of this amendment would allow the funds of counties, cities and other political subdivisions to be invested in equities to the extent and in the manner the legislature may allow by law. Any law authorizing the investment of specified political subdivision funds in equities would require a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature
The actual text of the revised statute would read as follows:
Article 16, Section 6. Loan of credit; donations prohibited; investment of funds; works of internal improvement.
(a) Neither the state nor any county, city, township, town, school district, or any other political subdivision, shall:
(i) Loan or give its credit or make donations to or in aid of any individual, association or corporation, except for necessary support of the poor; or
(ii) Subscribe to or become the owner of the capital stock of any association or corporation, except that:
(A) Funds of public employee retirement systems and the permanent funds of the state of Wyoming may be invested in such stock under conditions the legislature prescribes;
(B) The legislature may provide by law for the investment of funds not designated as permanent funds of the state in the capital stock of any association or corporation and may designate which of these funds may be invested. The legislature may prescribe different investment conditions for each fund. Any legislation establishing or increasing the percentage of any fund that may be invested under this subparagraph shall be passed only by a two-thirds (2/3) vote of all the members of each of the two (2) houses voting separately.
(C) The legislature may provide by law for the investment of county, city, township, town, school district, or any other political subdivision's funds in the capital stock of any association or corporation and may designate which of these funds may be invested. The legislature may prescribe different investment conditions for each type and class of political subdivision and for each type of fund. Any legislation establishing or increasing the percentage of any fund that may be invested under this subparagraph shall be passed only by a two-thirds (2/3) vote of all the members of each of the two (2) houses voting separately.
(b) The state shall not engage in any work of internal improvement unless authorized by a two-thirds (2/3) vote of the people.
I'm not really sure where this comes from, and I don't know what my opinion of it is. The theory, I guess, would be that the legislature could provide for a means for local governments to invest their funds in hopes of getting higher yields than they do from banks, which would also mean that they'd have to be able to tolerate downturns in the market.
Proposed Amendment B.
The amendment summary that will appear on the ballot states:
Currently, the Wyoming Constitution requires Wyoming Supreme Court justices and district court judges to retire upon reaching the age of seventy (70). This amendment increases the mandatory retirement age of Supreme Court justices and district court judges from age seventy (70) to age seventy-five (75).
October 13, 2022
Wyoming's interim Secretary of State Karl Allred made good on his promise to address a non issue by sending letters out to County Clerk's asking them to remove drop boxes. Only seven counties use them.
Prior Secretary of State Ed Buchanan, who abandoned the post he was elected to in order to be appointed a district court judge, thereby effectively disrupting the election leading to the GOP nomination and probable election of Chuck Gray, had encouraged their use due to COVID during the last election. Gray has promised to ban them.
Probably most people don't realize that drop boxes probably include the election machine outside of the clerk's door. I've only seen one dropbox that was located outside of a courthouse rather than in it, but I haven't been to all of these locations. Clerks are free to tell the unqualified to tell Allred to pound sand, and the Clerk of Laramie County, in her interview with the paper there, basically did, noting that her office already complied with the security requests that the never successfully elected Allred suggested in his cheery letter which acknowledged that prior elections had been successfully conducted.
While time will tell, this probably foreshadows an upcoming potentially hostile relationship between Clerks and Gray, if Gray tries to build on his "stolen election" campaign to tell the elected clerks what they can do.
Tulsi Gabbard, who left the GOP officially two days ago, has already endorsed a Trump backed Washington candidate.
According to the Tribune, a council for Casper's city council had to be shut down from speaking at a recent school board meeting when he got a bit out of control.
October 13, cont.
It should be noted that the GOP Governor has been riffing off of Trump populists, who also feel that just such actions in regard to the 2020 election resulted in it being stolen.
Hmmm. . . .
October 14, 2022
A debate of candidates for the U.S. House, save for Harriet Hageman, occurred last night.
Hageman was castigated by the other candidates for her failure to appear, which is either rude, arrogant, or cowardly. At least one candidate called her actions cowardly.
Hageman needs to be heard from on her failure to debate, and not with the excuse that she has other more effective means of communicating with Wyomingites. So far, more or less, her campaign has been limited to the fact that she supports now subpoenaed Donald J. Trump no matter what, whereas Liz Cheney has the courage of her convictions. Other than having united herself to Trump no matter what, there's nothing really known to distinguish her from Cheney, but the voters really haven't heard much from her otherwise in a widespread way. Public forum's she's attended to date have been principally populated with Hageman Fans/Cheney Haters, so that does not suffice.
October 14, 2022
Long serving (37 years) Deputy Secretary of State Karen Wheeler is leaving the office. She's the second prominent member of the Secretary of State's Office to leave, with the first one expressly leaving due to Chuck Gray coming into the office.
There have been rumor that resignations would be widespread. It would have been anticipated that this would have commenced after Chuck Gray assumed office in January, if it was going to, but with Interim Sectary Allred being of a similar mind to Gray, it may start sooner. If it does it will create the very election crisis that Gray and Allred claimed to be dedicated to avoiding, but because of their attacks on an institution which was not in trouble.
October 15, 2022
None of the clerks replying to Allred's request have agreed to comply with it, thereby making him 100% ineffective in that effort. Of course, the effort was pointless to begin with, but it foreshadows a likely showdown between the county clerks and incoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who has no more authority over them than Allred does.
This is not a minor manner. The clerks are rightfully telling Allred, and Gray by extension, to butt out. This is likely to visit the courts in some fashion.
October 20, 2022
The Deputy Secretary of State Karen Wheeler and Election Division Director Kai Schon announced in front of the Corporations Committee of the Legislature last Friday that they're resigning after the November election. While they termed it as being a good time to pursue other opportunities, it's pretty clear that neither wishes to serve under the likely winner, Chuck Gray, who based his campaign on fictional election security concerns. It's no wonder that either would wish to serve under Gray, although it remains a wonder that Gray won the primary. A lack of a primary opponent means that Gray almost certainly will tragically win the office.
Both individuals are graciously remaining through the general election, and Schon indicated he'll reach out to the "Secretary Elect".
October 23, 2022
Liz Cheney appeared as a guest on Meet The Press today. Relevant to the current election, she indicated that she's not voting for Harriet Hageman or Chuck Gray, and that anyone who is concerned about democracy, cannot.
Mary Peltola, Democratic Congressman from Alaska, received a number of Republican endorsements in that state for much the same reason.
October 25, 2022
The Natrona County School Board election is getting more attention than it normally would.
Superintendent for Public Instruction candidate Delgenfelder appeared at last night's meeting to support the district's right to make the decision to leave the book Gender Queer on the shelves, but to oppose the book itself, thereby basically taking both sides of the issue regarding the book. She suggested that it is pornographic. The book has drawn the ire of three candidates who are members of something called "Moms For Liberty".
I'd never heard of the group, but the name is a poor one and a bit ironic in some ways. Basically they're a conservative, nationwide, organization that emphasizes parental control of schools and fears that schools engage in liberal indoctrination. I'm not going to comment on that one way or another, but the "liberty" aspect of that shows the odd misuse of that word in our current culture.
The political right accuses, in essence, the political left of being "libertine", a word that I'd wager the majority of Americans are ignorant of nowadays.
The online etymology dictionary defines liberty as follows:
The French notion of liberty is political equality; the English notion is personal independence. [William R. Greg, "France in January 1852" in "Miscellaneous Essays"]
I’ll tell you what’s ‘toxic’ . . . trying to freeze free speech with ominous warnings that ‘we’re watching you’ from pointy-headed college professors and the leftist corporate media.
In the Biden administration, we are seeing the most dangerous, most destructive administration in U.S. history. President Biden and the radical Democrats are responsible for record-breaking inflation, record-breaking illegal immigration, record-breaking human trafficking, record-breaking drug running, and record-breaking energy and food costs.It would be one thing if these calamities were happening by accident, though it would still be tragic, but what we are enduring is actually the Democrats’ plan. Their goal is to completely upend our economy, to force people to bend to their will and compel behavioral changes to establish their leftist Utopia. We need members of Congress who will expose these nonsensical policies and fight to return us to a commonsense path that will lead us back to liberty and prosperity.
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