Catholics, according to the Church, are obligated to vote, and to do so in an informed manner.
And, I'll add to that, those who like to say that religion should stay out of politics are grossly misinformed, at least to the extent they mean that religion should be held personally and not influence a person's vote. A truly held set of religious beliefs ought to inform everything a person does.
This year is simply agonizing for the well-informed, thoughtful, Catholic voter.
In my area, where I will vote, two women contest for the position of Congressman.
The Republican expresses pro-life views, and views which suggest that she holds traditional views on the definition of marriage, two positions which are taken very seriously, even definitively so, by serious Catholics.
She also holds a mix of conservative views on various other issues, some of which I agree with, and some of which I do not, but none of which are moral issues, or at least not closely so.
The Democrat holds pro abortion and "progressive" views on the definition of marriage, and a host of other liberal views, some of which I agree with, and some of which I do not, but none of which are moral issues, or at least not closely so.
So, no dilemma, in weighing the voting scale, eh?
Well, the Republican has also expressed the view that the election was stolen, and her entire campaign was basically a stab in the back on the incumbent who stood by principals. In order to advance her campaign, she went from doubts, to being certain of election theft, and is now expressing views regarding the current administration which might charitably be described as nutty, even going so far as to suggest that inflation is a Democratic plot designed to bring about a liberal "Utopia". If I'm to take her asserted positions as actually held, it would mean she's believing in wild flights of dangerous fantasy, thereby making her a scary potential office holder. If I am to assume that they're taken for the purpose of being elected, she's lying and an enemy of democracy.
And there are no viable third party choices, really. One is from the far right, and the other from the Libertarian Party.
The far right candidate, running on the Constitutional Party ticket, is probably every bit as far right as the Republican, but with a very obvious Protestant Evangelical bent to her campaign. She doesn't say the vile things that the Republican does, and to the extent that her positions sound nutty, they sound nutty in the way that a position expressed by a person with little experience in the world and little education might voice them. Innocently, in other words.
Maybe I haven't listened enough to her, however. Frankly, I've disregarded her all along as a candidate that will obviously make no impact in the current election. (I subsequently listed to the debate she was in, and it's relatively clear that she's in the "coup didn't happen camp", although as noted, she probably genuinely feels that way, as opposed to Hageman, whom may not).
The Libertarian is a Libertarian, and there's no point in even going there.
A person could protest vote for the Constitutional Party candidate, but that's all it would be, a protest. But then, in order to make that protest, a person ought to know what she really believes. Perhaps I should go back and listed to her in the recent debate, which the GOP candidate skipped out on.
The only realistic hope of defeating the candidate that's either lying or coming off the rails is to vote for the Democrat, which is voting for a position which is normally gravely morally objectionable.
And then we have the Secretary of State's office, where a co-religious is running unopposed based on a stolen election theory along and is otherwise not a candidate which I'd prefer to consider. A protest is surely mandated there, but it'll have to be a write-in protest.
And so the state's politics have come to this. It feels like being a German going to the polls in 1932.
Wyoming doesn't need a coward. Wyoming needs a leader, Wyoming needs a voice, Wyoming needs people who are able to stand up to anybody and anyone.
Lynette Gray Bull.
The candidates for Wyoming's lone seat to the Congress, less Harriet Hageman, debated last night.
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.
How do we answer the question posed in the title of this post?
Well, the short answer is because Harriet Hageman has said "no" to a debate, but that obviously doesn't suffice.
Lawyers, which Hageman is, generally are regarded as liking to debate, or at least being comfortable with it. Indeed, a common unthinking reply to "why should I become a lawyer" or "why did you become a lawyer" is 1) well I like to debate, and to get paid for debating, or the related 2) well I like to argue, and to get paid for arguing. . . In truth, lots of lawyers like to do neither, but Hageman has boosted herself in her campaign by portraying herself as a wild vigilante jurist gunning down the horrible agents of Federal repression.
Harriet Hageman stopping agents of the United States Fish & Wildlife Service.
Truth be known, as a native Wyomingite, a lot of the big evil enemies she cites as having been taken on by her in her role as Litigator of the Golden West are agencies I like. I have a hard time hating, for example, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service. And the two times I've encountered her in a legal setting since 1990 didn't involve the Federal Government at all, although one did involve the super wealthy, who happened to be her client. But I digress.
My point is, here, that abstaining from debating requires some sort of reason, and the reasons are few.
Before we look at those reason, we should consider something.
Hageman hasn't campaigned on any issues at all.
Her campaign was based solely on attacking Liz Cheney for voting to impeach Donald Trump and then going on to be his opponent in Congress. Cheney stood on principles and on that, Hageman used the opportunity to advance herself, and successfully, so far.
In the process, for months she was actually very reluctant, unlike her opponents in the House race, to say that Trump won the election, which he didn't. When pressed, she took refuge in having "questions".
Missed in that response is that it's a lawyer witness answer. It's the classic Clintonesque "It depends on what the meaning of is, is." It's a hair-splitting dodge. Literally every single person on Earth can claim to have questions about the election as life is uncertain, and a person can harbor doubts about literally anything human's do, which doesn't mean they're reasonable. A person can have questions if the sun will explode today, if you will die of a heart attack tonight, if your Welsh Corgi will suddenly remember he descends from wolves and rip your throat out, or whatever.
Bulldog editor, or perhaps as he would have preferred Irish Wolf Hound editor, of the Tribune in its glory days, Phil McCauley. Photo linked in from his 2009 obituary.
Unfortunately, in this day and age, there isn't the Fifth Estate muscle to really run that to ground. The Tribune in the days of Phil McCauley would have harassed her on that to the point of tears, but that didn't of course occur. She had "questions".
Well, anyhow, only at the bitter end, after being endorsed by Trump, and pressed at a Casper Politics In The Park did she relent to fully selling her soul and saying the election had been stolen. She handily beat Cheney on that topic alone, with her enthusiastic supporters believing that she believes what they believe, thereby feeding into their beliefs for her personal advantage.
One is reminded of the classic line from A Man For All Seasons when Richard perjures himself:
Sir Thomas More: Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?
She's been really quiet since the Primary.
This assumes, of course, that she knows the truth, which frankly is my assumption.
Since that time, and after the primary election, she received a letter from forty-one Wyoming lawyers asking her to stop lying about the election being stolen. Quixotically branded the "Wyoming 41" by the Democratic primary candidate Steve Helling, who ran as a pro Trump Democrat (his campaign made next to no sense and received next to no support), they asked her, in a private letter, to quit lying. Her reply was practically unhinged, accusing them of being part of a nationwide plot to discredit Trumpite candidates by holding them to their oaths. The Wyoming 41 denied that, and frankly the accusation was absurd, and in turn wrote her back, this time with 52 signators on the letter.1 She didn't reply to that one.
And she's not replying much to anyone else in any really visible fashion.
Her current quietness may simply because she knows she's almost certain to be elected, and she just doesn't want to bother. But if that's the case, what would it hurt. Sure, she may very well have no need to debate, but if that's the case, debating can't possibly hurt her.
Or maybe it can.
Lynette Gray Bull is a very effective speaker and preformed very well against Cheney two years ago. At that time, she received 25% of the vote, and she'll receive more this time. It's difficult to imagine her adding another 25% to defeat Hageman, but maybe Hageman is worried that in a debate that will bring the difference between the two into sharp focus, she might.2 3
Since the primary, the January 6 committee has resumed and Trump is going to receive a subpoena to go to the Committee. That will appear on prime-time television, and he'll look like a strange liar. He's going to resist going, of course. Maybe being Trump's anointed will have just as much cache a month from now as it now does, but it's not guaranteed.
But beyond that, maybe Hageman's real career history and the issues that raises would also come up. She's been an enemy by her own statements of the things most Wyomingites love. An ally only of development and use, she's unlikely to be seen as a friend of hunters, fishermen and people who just love the outdoors. A product of southeastern Wyoming, which has generally been a hard core "it's my property stay off" portion of the state, she may well fear what that would mean.
She has the social issues of course, with Gray Bull being much to the left of her, and presumably outside the main from where most Wyomingites are, but she might also recall, given her age, a Wyoming which really wasn't very conservative on those issues. Maybe being pro gun doesn't mean much in a state where the Democrats are also pro gun. Maybe the remaining social issues like abortion and gender issues don't have as much cache with rank and file voters as presumed. Maybe just raising those issues, in a public forum, on a stage in which the one candidate has children and the other doesn't, where one candidate is young, and the other isn't, and where both affect Native items in their dress, but one is indigenous, and the other isn't, creates problems she doesn't care to have come up.
And maybe she's not confident in her in own debating skills in front of an audience that isn't canned against a debater who has no choice but to debate, and who is good at it.
Anyway it's looked at, it's inexcusable. Hageman should debate.
Footnotes:
1. The fifty-two signatures actually reflects more than 52 lawyers actually supporting the overall effort, as some of the original "Wyoming 41" didn't sign the second time as their noted public roles with various institutions was causing those institutions to receive complaints.
2. If Grey Bull doesn't pull in 33% this time, I'd be surprised. That would really be only a modest increase in her toll. Imagining 35%, or even 40%, isn't unreasonable.
3. Hageman has given Grey Bull a gift in that Grey Bull can now accuse Hageman of being an outright coward and Hageman can do little about it. Calling somebody out for a verbal duel can't really be adequately responded to except by engaging in a verbal duel, at which point your prior decline amounts to an admission of sorts.
Hard to believe that we're up to the 12th installment of this thread.
And for many, it's hard to believe that this is a "race". Indeed, for many, for that matter most, of the elected positions in the state, the race is over, with the Republican Primary having determined the winner.
Which is a tragedy for multiple reasons.
Democracy can't really survive in a one party state atmosphere is the primary one, and that's sort of what we have right now. Indeed, rather than one party, which is what we at least facially have, we'd be better off, in terms of elections to have no parties at all, which would be simple enough to do. I've noted it before, but there's really no good reason for party affiliation to take on a semi governmental function, as it has. A case can even be made that it's unconstitutional. Rather, the primary could, and in my view should, simply weed out the lesser candidates so the contest goes on in the fall. If we did that, for example, quite a few of the legislative races that were seemingly decided would be going on to the Fall election, and some of the big statewide races, such as that for Secretary of State, would be down to two candidates.
Another reason it's bad, however, is that it creates the oddity of polarization within the parties themselves, which is occurring in a major way inside the GOP, but which gets sorted out, at least partially, in a non-democratic way. The GOP's central leadership right now, for instance, has been heavily at odds with the leadership in Natrona and Laramie County, with the result being that those two counties, the most populous in the state, have been pretty much sidelined.
This latter feature, I'd note, is a common one for one party systems. Mexico's PRI, for instance, had very conservative and very radically left elements, all within one party. The Soviet Union's Communist party had factions within it. Other examples abound, but the point is that in such systems factions, as George Washington termed them, develop anyhow, but the means of determining who comes out on top is not decided at the ballot box. As we are, of course, a democratic system, they do still get partially sorted out by the voters, but only partially. Most voters have little participation at all with party organizations, if they are in a party at all.
Let's now look at the "races"
United States House of Representatives
Republican Party
As everyone on the entire globe knows, former Cheney supporter Harriet Hageman played Brutus to Cheney's Caesar in the general election.
Et tu, Harriet?
She now goes on to the general election as the overwhelmingly favored candidate. So much so, that she's basically being treated as though she is already elected, which she is not.
We'll address this below, but in order to leap over the top of her former political friend, Hageman boarded the "Trump Train" and acted as his stalking horse. While this seems likely to propel her into the halls of Congress, it also means that Wyoming is going to the bottom of the barrel in the upcoming Congress. If the Republicans regain the House, it means that Hageman will be part of a right wing crowd that will basically be directed by Trump, through Kevin McCarthy. If the Democrats retain control, which is becoming an increasing likelihood, Hageman will have no voice at all.
Not that this seems to matter in the contemporary Congress. The GOP has marginalized itself in this session in hopes of regaining power via Trump. The problem they'll face with that, rather obviously, is they'll be completely indebted to him.
This is raising the issue of whether the GOP of earlier decades is essentially dead, and is now a new type of party, and indeed not the old party at all. Increasingly, this looks like it is in fact the case.1
Democratic Party.
Lynette Gray Bull, who pulled in an impressive performance in the 2020 general election when she ran against Cheney, when put in context (25%) comes back for a second crack at the bat.
Gray Bull, is of Sioux and Arapaho lineage and a resident of the Wind River Indian Reservation, faces long odds, but frankly they may be better this year than last, even though she's a dark horse candidate. Horrified Democrats and Independents, many of whom switched to the GOP to vote for Cheney, will likely roll back to the Democratic Party and vote for Gray Bull. Self-satisfied Republicans, feeling their work is done in the election, may not bother to go to the polls in November. Added to that, horrified Republicans, of which there is a fair number, may go over to Gray Bull on democratic principles, seeing as Hageman is fully invested at the present time as an anti-democratic Christian Nationalist candidate.2
It's been noted that Hageman is really an establishment Republican, but a legitimate question at this point is whether she used to be an establishment Republican and no longer is, or whether the establishment Republicans, including Hageman, have been so duped that there's really no escaping for them. Either situation is more likely that Hageman and the GOP reemerging the party that it once was. I'm not as optimistic as former legislator Tim Stubson is on this score.
Anyhow, some Republicans will vote for Gray Bull as a protest. Some will vote for her on democratic principles. If she took 25% of the vote in 2020, which she did, and Democrats and Independents come out in strength this go around, that alone ought to take her to 30%, which is far below what she would need to win, of course.
However, the gap to winning, an added 20%, isn't really all that much. Hageman, this year, took about 70% of the vote. Of the 30% that voted against her, the question is how many are really upset Republicans.
Operating against this is that Gray Bull is very liberal on social issues, which may cause Republicans to hold their noses and vote for Hageman in spite of their disgust, or to just not vote at all.
Governor
Republican
This race really is over. Mark Gordon won.
Democrat
Theresa Livingston, a former employee of the BLM from Worland won the Democratic primary, but it really doesn't matter.
Secretary of State
Republican
In an upset, Chuck Gray, who has only been in the state for a decade, and who has plenty of strikes against him as a candidate for this office, won due to being the Trump backed far right Christian Nationalist candidate.
Gray, who wasn't universally popular in the legislature, focused on bogus election concerns in his campaign. It's deuce difficult to figure out how the voters thought he was qualified for this office, but he has it.
Democrat
631 Democratic write in votes were cast in the primary for Secretary of State, but that doesn't mean that any of the people written in will advance to the general. If any of them did, unless they're a very surprising candidate, they're going nowhere.
State Treasurer
Republican
Curt Meier won the GOP nomination for a second term.
Democrat
Nobody ran in the Democratic primary. A little over 400 write votes were cast, but once again, it's highly unlikely that any of the write-ins will run, and even more unlikely they would win if they did.
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
Republican
This race saw Delgenfelder beat out recently appointed Schroeder, who was not a popular choice, for this position. This race bucked the hard right trend.
Democrat
Sergio Maldonado advances to the primary as the Democratic candidate, where he was running unopposed. Maldonado is a member of the Northern Arapaho tribe as well as being a Hispanic, so he joins Gray Bull in being in the category of the rare minority running for office. He has a long career in education and has been endorsed by the Wyoming Education Association, one of the few powerful unions in Wyoming.
Other Races
I don't try to cover all the legislative and county races, as I don't know a lot about them as a rule. I'll cover a few here, just as they're of some interest. I'm going to do that, however, in summary form.
The Natrona County Assessors race has proven interesting as incumbent assessor, serving his first term, Matt Keating, lost to Linda Saulsbury. Saulsbury had been an appointed assessor who filled out her popular predecessor's term, but ran into trouble with the staff she inherited. Keating took advantage of that in his race, but Keating has proven to be an unpopular assessor in the county, and Saulsbury took advantage of that.
What probably wasn't obvious to county residents was that assessors statewide ran into a state mandate to correct their undervalued assessments, which was part of a state drive to address budget shortfalls statewide. Be that as it may, Keating's bedside manner on the topic was awful, and this was far from apparent. Late in the race he began to try to point this out, and also took the position that the elevated tax levels could be dropped by municipalities choosing not to impose their full mill levies, a position that would be untenable for the municipalities as it would disqualify them for Federal grants. Three years running of tax challenges due to sometimes bizarrely changed assessments caused people to have enough, and it's been obvious for months that Keating was going to go down in the primary.
What might not have been expected, however, is that he'd take county commissioners out with him as collateral damage. Several challengers campaigned on the commissioners not being able to address this situation, which legally they really can't. Nonetheless, one long serving commissioner fell for the two-year seat and another for the four-year seat. One previously elected commissioners survived to run in November, but he polled the lowest among the survivors and will be joined in the race by a Democratic challenger. It's very far from obvious that he will survive the challenge.
An interesting aspect of this is that, while it was not obvious at the time, the Natrona County Commission was one of the first local bodies in the county to show the rightward tilt of the GOP, having elected a couple of right leaning commissioners in prior years and having one who was able to tilt that way at least in appearance. Now two of them are gone, and a third who was previously a City of Casper Councilman who had fallen in a city election is gone as well. Chances are good that a third will fall. This will leave with the council with new members who are bucking the rightward drift (rush?) trend and should cause the remaining right wing member some concern. At the broken edge of the bottle, the same voters who voted in the county for Gray and Hageman have basically rejected a hands-off approach and voted for a sharply more activist, and indeed activist that will disregard the law, approach. This is interesting in that in the end, Wyoming elections slowly drift towards being like Canadian ones to some degree, with people voting their pocket books.
If all the "less government", "no Federal money" Republicans get their way in the legislature, Wyoming would actually be looking at sharply reduced Federal funds and such grim tasks as paying for our own highways, something we can't do and don't want to try.
August 22, 2022
According to Fremont County Senator Cale Case, a traditional Wyoming Republican conservative, there's an effort being made to find an independent to mount a write-in campaign against Republican Secretary of State nominee Chuck Gray. Nobody has yet been identified to make the attempt.
In order to run on the general ballot as an independent a little over 5,000 signatures would have to be filed with the Secretary of State's office by August 31. That seems rather unlikely.
That wouldn't keep anyone from running a write in campaign, but that's an even more difficult proposition.
Independents do not have a history of electoral success in Wyoming and while Gray is controversial, such a person would face long odds.
August 23, 2022
A press report indicates that a lot of Republicans in the recent race did not vote down ballot.
For instance, 14,000 Republicans did not cast a Secretary of State vote.
This likely explains the hard right turn to some degree. Voters turning out to vote against Cheney out of Trump loyalty likely amounted to a disproportionate percentage of primary voters.
August 23, cont.
In a really unusual turn of events, Cale Case was mounting an effort to draft former legislator Nathan Winters for a run at the Secretary of State's office even though Winter didn't consent. Today the current Secretary of State determined that a potential candidate had to sign off on the effort, which ended this draft campaign.
At the same time, according to the Trib, Republicans are urging Tim or Susan Stubson to run as an independant.
August 28, 2022
The director of communications and policy at the Secretary of State's office has resigned as she does not wish to work for Chuck Gray, who has called into question the work of the office through his assertions that something was wrong with the Wyoming election.
It's beyond question that the Wyoming election was well run and there was no fraud, none of which has kept Gray from running around pretending like something needs to be done to shore up Wyoming's elections. In the words of the resigning individual:
He’s called into question the integrity of this office and now he’s going to run it, and yuck.
He has called into question the integrity of the office through his suggestions.
According to a post on Reddit, which therefore may be wild innuendo and dubious, rumors were circulating prior to the election that there'd be widespread resignations in the office if Gray was elected. That is, we'd note, purely a rumor. But now at least one person has resigned. Even if the rumor was true, however, people generally need their jobs and large scale registrations would be phenomenal.
Having said this, Gray himself may have had an inkling of this, as he said in an earlier PBS debate:
The insiders down there at the Capital, a lot of them don’t want things to improve, I’ve seen the Secretary of State staff work, and I do believe I can work with them towards getting this election integrity vision.
While not greatly familiar with the workings of the office itself, it is more likely than not is nearly self operating with professionals no matter who is in office which means that more likely than not, the only thing the Secretary of State really needs to do is set wider policy. If Gray doesn't lose most of the staff, he can likely spend four years on his "election integrity vision" and not really mess up the work of the office. That would leave him, as he likely knows, a springboard to attempt to become Governor if Gordon does not run for a third term, which he may well do knowing that if he doesn't, the office may fall to the hard right, assuming, which is not a safe assumption, that politics hasn't moved on in the meantime.
If, and it's only an if, and not very likely, Gray faced a large-scale office revolt, however, he may find himself in the same position as Cindy Hill was, who at some point really wasn't able to deal with an office that was in open revolt against her.
August 30, 2022
The write-in deadline fell yesterday, with nobody filing with signatures to run against Chuck Gray, as some had hoped. There were write in candidates certified, however, for several of the legislative races.
August 31, 2022
Secretary of State Ed Buchanan will assume the judgeship he was appointed to in mid-September, and step
down from his current position at that time. This means an interim Secretary of State will be appointed to oversee this year's election.
September 1, 2022
In Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola defeated a slate of candidates in a special election for Congressman from that state. Sarah Palin was one of the contestants.
The race was to fill the seat of the deceased Don Young, so the position is, obviously, pretty temporary, but presumably gives Peltola an edge as the incumbent in November.
The race was notable for several reasons, including that Peltola, who is Yup’ik, will become the first Native Alaskan Congressman. But more than that, it's the first ranked choice election in Alaska's history, the system, which disregards party, having just been adopted by Alaska's voters.
A bill in a Wyoming legislative committee proposes to adopt the same system, which is more democratic than the party primary system the state now has. This result would suggest that when unrestrained by party, voters will in fact cast a a wider net.
Defeated Sarah Palin complained about the new system in the election itself, and railed against it after being defeated.
September 6, 2022
The Wyoming GOP, noting that if he leaves on September 15 as he has indicated that he will it will mean that his appointed successor shall have mere weeks to prepare for administering the General Election, has asked Ed Buchanan to remain in office to the end of his term.
In this context, that is not an unreasonable request and, indeed, this should have been taken into account as soon as he indicated that he was pursuing a judgeship.
September 7, 2022
Secretary of State Buchanan declined the GOP's request.
I'm frankly surprised, and I also frankly think this entire episode has not been well thought out.
September 10, 2022
The Tribune reports that November's general election shall have the highest number of unaffiliated and third party candidates on the ballot since 1998.
House District 8, in which the notable mainstream Republican Dave Zwonitzer is running for reelection, but in a newly formed district in Laramie County, is one of them. In that district, Independent Brenda Lyttle is his only opponent. The increasing discord in the mostly Republican legislature, which has split into two branches, motivated her run as an Independent, although Zwonitzer has one of the most dignified presentations in the legislature Medicare expansion and education funding are her issues, so she's basically ironically running with what would normally be moderate Republican or Democratic stance.
Here I hope that Zwonitzer, who has been an influential intelligent voice in the legislature, wins reelection.
Bob Strobel is running in northwest Wyoming's House District 22. Stroble represents himself as a lifelong Republcan, but he's unyielding on the public lands remaining in Federal hands. I don't know anything about that district, but on that basis alone, I hope that Strobel wins.
Three Constitution Party candidates are running. The Constitution Party, at least in my view, tends to have a reading of the Constitution that uniquely interprets it by disregarding what it actually says, in support of a far right Quasi Christian Nationalist position. I'd thought they'd gone away, but they're running more candidates this year than ever.
A record number of Libertarians are also running for state solon positions.
Which takes us to the Governor's and House races. We haven't covered the third parties at all, and we now should. The Trib reports the third parties as having candidates for both, but we're only seeing that for the House of Representatives. Having said that, the Trib is probably right, but the candidates probably haven't secured sufficient signatures yet to appear on the general ballot.
United States House of Representatives
Republican Party
Harriet Hageman. Hageman is the Trump endorsed flag bearer for the those who felt that Cheney betrayed the state by not getting on the Trump train. She'll go into the race with more wild far right GOP populist enthusiasm, more moderate GOP contempt and more inflated expectations of any candidate in the state's history.
Democratic Party.
Lynette Gray Bull, who pulled in an impressive performance in the 2020 general election when she ran against Cheney, when put in context (25%) comes back for a second crack at the bat, as a darkhorse candidate, but with better odds this time than previously as she'll secure a fair number of disgruntled Republicans and horrified independents.
Constitution Party
Melissa Selvig, who ran on the Republican ticket to the far right before correctly assessing her ticket as doomed, has signed up for a doomed effort as the Constitution Party's candidate for the House.
Independent
Casey Hardison is a gadfly candidate who is also running for the President of the United States in 2024 for the Democratic Republican Party. A chemist, he has a series of drug convictions.
September 13, 2022
Senator Cale Case will be the subject of a censure vote by the Republican Central Committee, which will also ask him to drop his Republican affiliation.
This is the second time Case has faced a censure vote for being true to his values. He earlier this year was censured by the Fremont County GOP before going on to win reelection with a 10 point margin.
This time it's because of his open opposition to Chuck Gray and the election stolen lie that Gray espoused in the primary election. Case, a longtime legislator and formally one of the most conservative members of the body, has openly been backing the bill to remove election certification from the Secretary of State on the basis that Gray is an election denier. The Republican Party censure resolution refers to this as an abuse of power, which is somewhat ironic given the putative threat Gray represents in his role. Case also sought to have an independent run against Gray. Case has indicated that, having been through this process once already, he isn't really worried about what the GOP Central Committee does.
September 14, 2022
GOP Congressional candidate Harriet Hageman has refused a PBS offer to host a debate with her opponent, Lynette Grey Bull.
Boo hiss.
The refusal comes across as chicken, chickenshit, and disrepectful.
Grey Bull took about 25% of the vote in the last election against Cheney, at which point most of the people who now hate Cheney with the red hot passion of a thousand burning suns swooned at her inherited GOP presence. If she too 25% under those circumstances she likely holds to take more now. The question is whether Hageman figures that she's already been crowned and need not lower herself to debate her Democratic candidate, or whether she fears debating a candidate who isn't welded to Donald Trump might increase that candidates odds.
Anyway a person looks at it, this is already a symbol of how those Wyomingites who haven't agreed to work towards the leader are likely to be treated in some quarters.
Park County's GOP has passed a resolution supporting Chuck Gray and denouncing efforts to restrict the Secretary of State's authority over elections.
On Gray, as readers here know, there is a bill in the legislature to remove election supervision from the Secretar of State's office and vest it in a new non partisan commission. Gray released a statement condemning the bill, not surprisingly, aiming it as he tends to do at imaginary "big government" insiders. More specifically, he stated:
Republicans across Wyoming correctly see Zwonitzer’s and (Case’s) effort for what it is — a couple of big-government insiders who are shamelessly ignoring the will of voters and our right to have our elected officials represent us.
There might be some merit to that, although Zwonitzer had a good reply, but it raises the question of why on earth the Secretary of State's office is an elected office. Indeed, the same question applies to the State Auditor's office and the State Treasurer's office. Whatever the original reason is, it's long since become obsolete and most years a high percentage of voters, if asked, don't have any idea who any of these candidates actually are. More on that in a seperate post.
Gray, of course, was elected because he was Trump backed and he ran around in his campaign spreading the election lie myth, so he was in fact elected in the primary as a contestant, the only one, to prevent a myth that didn't happen from reoccuring. That, however, brings up the interesting point that if Gray is really worried about this, he ought to support the law, as it would make our already really secure election super safe.
September 23, 2022
The news reports (but not the Edition of the Trib, which was replaced today with the E-edition of Beatrice Nebraska's newspaper) that a group of Wyoming lawyers, including some very prominent ones (the outgoing and elect State Bar Presidents, at least one prominent retired judge, a former Attorney General of the State of Wyoming) wrote to Harriet Hageman complaining of her misrepresenting the election as stolen and pointing out what they state is her ethical obligations as a lawyer to tell the truth.
Hageman's reaction has been to publically publish a counter to their letter which might best be characterized as absurd, asserting the lawyers are part of a left wing national movement to attack conservative candidates. Her reaction, therefore, to be told not to lie, was to lie.
Hageman, as a politician, is now past the State Bar as a concern and into the hall of Congress where lying is a long practiced tradition. But the evolution of the candidate, from a quiet Cheney supporter, to a Cheney challenger who at first wouldn't call the election stolen, to one who now heavily leans into having "questions" and implies the election is stolen, to one who won't debate her opponent and who reacts to her fellow bar members private letter with a public assertion of wild conspiracy has been remarkable.
The writing lawyers who were in turn interviewed by the Trib were measured in their response, simply siting their obligation to uphold the truth, with only the former AG signatory showing some real ire, in which he also noted the lies more directly advanced by Chuck Gray.
September 26, 2022
All three of the names forewarded to Governor Gordon for interim Secretary of State are far right figures aligned with the views of Chuck Gray.
September 28, 2022
Lynette Gray Bull, Democratic candidate for the U.S. House in Wyoming, publicly asked for Liz Cheney's endorsement via Twitter.
The request was based on Cheney's open statement that she's help anti Trump candidates even if they are Democrats.
September 30, 2022
Karl Allred, who is a gas plant manager who unsuccessfully ran for the legislature with a Harriet Hageman endorsement, will be the interim Secretary of State.
Applicants for the office included some who had direct experience with it, but they were not appointed to be finalists. The office deals principally with business matters and has been highly respected. It has a very professional staff who can likely carry that forward, but there have been rumors that they'll largely resign rather than work under Chuck Gray.
Allred enters the office an unknown, but one who is likely less extreme than the other two finalists. He fits into the mold right now, however, of the GOP sending individuals who are fully bought into the populist Trump wing of the party. It's remarkable that individuals who were clearly more qualified were passed over. The state has reason to worry about this trend, which it has now endured a second time, although the last one, with the Superintendent of Education seems to hae worked out. Notably, the voters did not choose that person for reelection.
October 1, 2022
Following up on yesterday's entry, Allred it turns out has a string of failed legislative bids. He was one of the inidividuals who sued Governor Matt Mead over the capitol improvement contract and he was one of the conservative candidates who violated the University of Wyoming's open carry prohibition in an attempt to challenge its constitutionality. Indeed, a recent photo of him addressing the Central Committee depicts him carrying a sidearm at that event.
The Governor's announcement, which I cannot find, was "pointedly" short, according to the press.
Representative Mike Yin, D Jackson, emailed to the Tribune that none of the choices presented to the Governor were reasonable ones, which seems to be borne out by the names of applicants the Central Committee passed over who had experience relevant to the job. Allred was seeingly the least extreme of the three. On September 17, prior to his selection, Allred had called Yin a "flippin idiot" who needed to be gotten rid of.
October 2, 2022
The lawyers castigated by Harriet Hageman after they wrote her letter about truthful representations replied to her public reply to their private letter, once again pointing out that lawyers have a duty to respect the decisin of courts. More signed the second letter, than the first.
Somewhat missed in the story on the first letter is that it was a private letter, not a public one. Hageman published it, associating it with a conspiracy theory.
October 3, 2022
Both China and Russia appear set to try to interfere in the elections, Russia by trying to cast doubt on US election integrity.
It can't help but be noted that the GOP has done a fine job of doing that itself without Russian help, although some of the prinicpal figures in that, such as Donald Trump and Tucker Carson, have very odd affinities with Putin.
The FEC has notified the Hageman campaign that it has failed to meet reporting regulations.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Ogden Driscoll faces a write in campaign now from his right for a defeated candidate from the primary. The challenger, Roger Connet, hasn't endorsed or discouraged the campaign.
October 7, 2022
In a development showing just how odd this election year really is, the Uinta County GOP is endorsing a write-in candidate, and "enthusiastically" over their own primary candidate victor for House District 19.
The move by the county's GOP committee was not received with universal welcome.
October 9, 2022
Lynette Grey Bull forcefully campaigned for Liz Cheney's endorsement in a rally in Casper yesterday.
Footnotes:
1. See:
Fromer legislator Stubson's position on this is very admirable and he's been an outspoken champion of Cheney this election cycle, but he supported Ted Cruz in the Cruz campaign, which is some ways was a portent of things to come. As a legislator, he also supported the study bill that was to look at trying to get the Federal lands transferred to Wyoming, which also fits in to the far right list of ticket items. He is not in that camp, but this illustrates in a way how we slid down this slippery slope.
Former Speaker of the House in Wyoming Tom Lubnau very much saw this coming and tried to warn everyone to no avail.
2. It can certainly be debated whether or not Hageman really is a Christian Nationalist, which is not the same thing, we'd note, as being a Christian or observant Christian. Rather, it's the theme that the GOP is leaning heavily into.
We dealt with the rising phenomenon of Christian Nationalism recently, but the definition of the movement is becoming much clearer. We'll expand on that shortly.
Why do pundits, from Robert Reich, to the great cast of NPR's Politics, to the round table folks on the weekend shows keep getting politics, their bread and butter, wrong?
Maybe they don't go out and actually live the lives of real folks.
A recent week from the formerly august journal, The New Republic:
If Merrick Garland had been confirmed in 2016, we would still have the Roberts Court instead of the Trump-McConnell Court. As backlash to “Dobbs” mounts, McConnell may come to regret that fact.
What an amazing load of complete drivel. No wonder the left remains threatened by the presence of a bizarrely speaking septuagenarian millionaire serial polygamist.
They're clueless.
Here's how the logic noted above is supposed to work.
Suburban women (which in the minds of progressives defines somebody who is a cross between "soccer mom", Betty Crocker and the proverbial "Karen") suddenly becomes a Democratic voter due to the Dobbs decision because, no matter what else she thinks, the issue of abortion, the way progressives define it, is the most important issue in the world to her. And because of that, she's now boosting gay education in schools, the rights of the LBGQT, and subscribes to the Bernie Sanders newsletter.
And Kansas is evidence of this.
Not hardly.
In the real world, the suburban female voter is more likely to be a mid 30s professional who is watching her paycheck evaporate due to inflation, who can't hire competent help at work as there isn't any, anymore, whose existing help is "laying flat" and "quiet quitting", and who is wondering how she's going to help put food on the table.
She's a lot more likely to vote her pocketbook than
Most people aren't single issue voters. A few people, on the right and the left, are, but those who are single issue voters are much more likely to be on the right. And this is why:
Robert Reich
@RBReich
·
Why are Republicans trying to prevent students from discussing sexuality, gender, and systemic racism in the classroom? Because the biggest threat facing the Republican Party is a multi-racial generation of Young people unafraid to speak truth to power — and make them irrelevant.
No, that's not it either.
It's because, starting in the 1970s, the left forced social change into society through the courts, not the ballot box, and average people got tired of being told that something's that they didn't accept, they had to accept, because nine old dudes in dresses told them they had to, Oracle at Delphi fashion.
How the left views the Supreme Court, how the Supreme Court has sometimes seemingly viewed itself, and how the right views how the left views the Supreme Court. The Oracle at Delphi. The Constitution has a penumbra? Well okay then. . .
So what that means is that when Soccer Mom goes to the ballot, she's not seeing it the way Robert Reich is at all.
And you can be 20 years old Ms. Soccer, whose is looking at a world that's pretty messed up due to the "tear everything down" mentality of the 1970s isn't. She's probably looking for the guard rails, only to find that they've taken off the parapet.
Well, what about Kansas?
Yeah, what about Kansas? That proves the point.
Kansas was a vote on repealing a constitutional amendment. It was a straight up or down vote. A person doesn't have to have that strong of convictions on anything to vote on something like that, which is why really badly conceived of constitutional amendments sail past Wyoming voters and become law, and then are completely forgotten. I'm not saying that vote was insignificant, but if it was combined with pocket book issues and the like, and for that matter other social issues, there's no telling where it would go.
Indeed, real voters have opinions on gun control, abortion, health care, the environment, Donald Trump, inflation and on and on. In the mind of the punditry Soccer Mom is charging off to the polls on abortion, but that actual voter stands a pretty good chance of having highly traditional values on marriage, a middle position on gun control, is worried on environmental issues, is really worried on inflation, and has no strong opinion on the Orange Haired Menace.
This doesn't describe the punditry. The punditry has strong opinions on everything, and they line up right and left.
Real people don't.
Which gets us to this.
Some people vote single issue tickets on social issues, but they're mostly on the right. And they do go to the polls.
Most people don't vote single issue anything, save for rare occasions, and often on very local issues.
Demographic groups align with their deeply held traditions after they establish themselves in the nation, and those traditions tend to be conservative, not liberal.
Those on the left who support their social issues sooner or later take them to the extreme and alienate everyone, and then they don't go to the polls.
Young people generally don't go to the polls, and they aren't going to in 2022 or 2024.
Abortion isn't going to make much of a difference in the 2022 or 2024 elections, and to the extent it does, it'll help the right, not the left.
To the extent any progressive politician is foolish enough to make gun control an issue, that'll hurt the left.
Nobody is going to the polls one way or another on LBGQT platforms, and that's going to play no role in upcoming elections.
Inflation is a big deal and that will impact voters, but in favor of Republicans.
You can't lie to voters for decades regarding their big worries and then have them support you anymore. They'll support somebody who listens to them, even if it's a dangerous bloviator.
You can't force your issues on people through courts for decades and then come out crying about the demise of democracy. People aren't going to believe that either.
Not matter what pundits believe, and rational people may wish for, Donald Trump just isn't going away, and it's not suddenly going to be the case that lots of Republicans abandon him.
And you can't really have any idea what real people are thinking if you don't have much of a connection with their lives.
The property owner, let's not pretend he's a rancher as that would imply that he makes his money from chiefly from agriculture, who owns the Elk Mountain Ranch has claimed that allowing corner crossing would devalue the property by $3,100,000 to $7,000,000, or so newspaper reports hold. The press further reports that it was shown this information by a "confidential" source.
More likely his legal representation claimed that.
Okay, let's break this down.
This is the story, as we'll recall, of three out-of-state hunters who hunted on the Elk Mountain Ranch's leased public lands, with Elk Mountain Ranch owned by Iron Bar Holdings, and ended up being tried for trespassing in Carbon County. According to the Wyoming Secretary of State's website, Iron Bar Holdings is a North Carolina limited liability company registered to do business in Wyoming.
North Carolina?
Well, yes, that's where Fred Eshelman lives.
Eshelman is a pharmacist by training who has done very well, economically, in that field. So well that North Carolina's school of pharmacy, which he donates to, has named that school after him. His bio appears on their site:
Fred Eshelman, PharmD
Fred Eshelman is the founder of Eshelman Ventures LLC, an investment company primarily interested in private health-care companies. Previously he founded and served as CEO and executive chairman of Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPDI, NASDAQ) prior to the sale of the company to private equity interests.
After PPD he served as the founding chairman and largest shareholder of Furiex Pharmaceuticals (FURX, NASDAQ), a company which licensed and rapidly developed new medicines. Furiex was sold to Forest Labs/Actavis in July, 2014.
His career has also included positions as senior vice president (development) and board member of the former Glaxo, Inc., as well as various management positions with Beecham Laboratories and Boehringer Mannheim Pharmaceuticals.
Eshelman has served on the executive committee of the Medical Foundation of North Carolina, was on the board of trustees for UNC-W and in 2011 was appointed by the NC General Assembly to serve on the Board of Governors for the state’s multicampus university system as well as the NC Biotechnology Center. In addition, he chairs the board of visitors for the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the top pharmacy programs in the United States. In May 2008 the School was named for Eshelman in recognition of his many contributions to the school and the profession.
Eshelman has received many awards including the Davie and Distinguished Service Awards from UNC and Outstanding Alumnus from both the UNC and University of Cincinnati schools of pharmacy, as well as the N.C. Entrepreneur Hall of Fame Award. He earned a B.S. in pharmacy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, received his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Cincinnati, and completed a residency at Cincinnati General Hospital. He is a graduate of the Owner/President Management Program at Harvard Business School.
Indeed, the fact that Eshelman is very wealthy apparently was referenced by one of his employees in the initial confrontation with the Missouri hunters, which isn't a very wise thing to do as it looks bad. Indeed, it looks bad right away, and then again in court.
So, Iron Bar Holdings is Fred Eshelman, very wealthy pharmaceutical personality.
The Missouri hunters, by all accounts, went to great pains to avoid touching the ground on Elk Mountain. They brought ladders of some sort to step over the corners. They were detected by the ranch employees who called the authorities, who frankly weren't really sure what to do, and they declined to issue citations. Ultimately, this matter was somehow prosecuted in Carbon County, where the jury found there was no trespass.
During this time frame, a civil lawsuit was brought in the state's Second Judicial District. For reasons that aren't clear to me, as I wouldn't have filed it, the Missouri hunters had the case removed to Federal Court, no doubt on jurisdictional grounds. Also for reasons that aren't clear to me, as I would have thought Iron Bar would have preferred the case to be in Federal Court, Iron Bar sought to have that reversed, unsuccessfully, claiming the Federal Court lacked jurisdiction, a claim that seem pretty stretched given the pretty obvious diversity jurisdiction here.
I wonder if both sides regret their decisions now, given the results of the Carbon County jury trial. I have to think if the 2nd Judicial District in Rawlins had a jury that said "no trespass" once, they'd have that happen again.
Anyhow, it's in Federal Court. The docket sheet for the case reads as follows:
U.S. District Court District of Wyoming (Cheyenne) CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 2:22-cv-00067-SWS
Iron Bar Holdings LLC v. Cape et al Assigned to: Honorable Scott W Skavdahl Referred to: Honorable Kelly H Rankin
Case in other court:
Second Judicial District - Carbon County, Wyoming, Civil Act. No. 22-00034
Cause: 28:1441 Petition for Removal
Date Filed: 03/22/2022 Jury Demand: Both Nature of Suit: 890 Other Statutory Actions Jurisdiction: Federal Question
Plaintiff
Iron Bar Holdings LLC a North Carolina limited liability company registered to do business in Wyoming
represented by
M Gregory Weisz PENCE & MACMILLAN LLC 1720 Carey Avenue, Suite 600 PO Box 765 Cheyenne, WY 82003 307/638-0386 Fax: 307/634-0336 Email: gweisz@penceandmac.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Eric B Hanson KEKER, VAN NEST & PETERS 633 Battery St. San Francisco, CA 94111 415-676-2349 Email: ehanson@keker.com TERMINATED: 08/31/2022 LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE
Patrick Lewallen CHAPMAN VALDEZ & LANSING 125 West 2nd Street PO Box 2710 Casper, WY 82601 307/237-1983 Email: plewallen@bslo.com TERMINATED: 08/31/2022 LEAD ATTORNEY
Trevor James Schenk CHAPMAN VALDEZ & LANSING 125 W. 2nd Street PO Box 2710 Casper, WY 82602 307-259-3797 Email: tschenk@bslo.com TERMINATED: 08/31/2022 LEAD ATTORNEY
V.
Defendant
Bradley H Cape
represented by
Ryan A Semerad THE FULLER LAW FIRM 242 South Grant Street Casper, WY 82609 307-265-3455 Fax: 307-265-2859 Email: semerad@thefullerlawyers.com ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Defendant
Zachary M Smith
represented by
Ryan A Semerad (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Defendant
Phillip G Yeomans
represented by
Ryan A Semerad (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Defendant
John W Slowensky
represented by
Ryan A Semerad (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Amicus
Wyoming Stockgrowers Association
represented by
Karen J Budd-Falen BUDD-FALEN LAW OFFICES 300 East 18th Street P O Box 346 Cheyenne, WY 82003 307/632-5105 Fax: 307/637-3891 Email: karen@buddfalen.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Amicus
Wyoming Wool Growers Association
represented by
Karen J Budd-Falen (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
What does this tell us?
Well, not much, really, other than that Back Country Hunters & Anglers tried to intervene in the action, no doubt in support of the Missouri hunters, but weren't allowed in. It also tells us that the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association and the Wyoming Wool Growers Association (which at one time were headed for a merger, but which must not have completed that process) are going to be allowed to file "friend of the court" briefs in this matter. Those briefs will no doubt be on the side of Iron Bar.1
Which presents our first historical observation.
The Wyoming Stockgrowers Association was instrumental in bringing about the Johnson County War and the assassination campaign that was associated with it. I'm not saying that they organized it, but they were pretty close to the large, and often foreign owned, cattleman part of the extra judicial war against the small ranchers of Natrona and Johnson Counties of the 1890s.
I'm also not saying that they're somehow involved in such efforts today.
I'm am noting that history rhymes, if not repeats, as they say.
So what did Iron Bar's lawsuit claim? Well, see for yourself:
In litigation, under a rule called FRCP 26, parties are required to disclose certain information, including their calculation of damages. Piecing the news stories together, and reading between the lines, what this probably means is that somehow a reporter got access to a FRCP "self executing" disclosure.
Normally, these aren't public, but they aren't secret either. I obviously don't know who this cat got out of the bag, but it was riding around with its head and front feet out of the bag anyhow, and at some point it was going to get out.
Further, what this really means is that Iron Bar is asserting that if corner crossing is allowed, it'll devalue the value of the property as he can't lock up the Federal domain.
Well, hopefully that's exactly what the court rules. I.e., you can cross the corners.
Before we go on, let's note that the argument here is deeply flawed. What's apparently being stated by the plaintiff is that if the court rules that corner crossing isn't illegal, the value of the land drops, as he can't lock people out and charge people for access.
But if it's illegal, he can't do that, and never could. Being wrong about the law doesn't entitle you to reimbursement.
You can't claim that you'll lose money as something is illegal. That's like arguing if I can't personally close the road and charge people tolls for using it, even though it isn't mine, I'll lose money. I had no right to do that in the first place. It doesn't matter if I thought I could.
On the other hand, if he's right, and he can close the corners, it's not like he's arguing that the value of crossing the corner is $3.1M to $7M.
You only get the actual reasonable trespassing fee, which traditionally has been the damage to the land.
Either way you look at it, the damages are pretty low.
This, by the way, is why I didn't vote for Rob Hendry, the ranching Natrona County Commissioner, in the last election.
A lot of other people didn't too, so he's on his way out, but my reason is probably unique. Some goons of his stopped my son and I and tossed us off public land, or more accuratley deterred us from going where we were going, claiming that if we trespassed there'd be a $10,000 fine.
That's bullshit.
Anyhow, we don't know what will come out of this litigation, and the results are far from guaranteed, but this gets into the topic of the Homestead Acts, the Taylor Grazing Act, and frankly Distributism and Localism.
What Iron Bar is doing here, shouldn't be allowed to do is to lock up public land that it doesn't own. That is what the hunters were accessing. How does that devalue the land? As noted, if there is no right, it doesn't. If the landowner does have that right, it doesn't devalue anything. The damages claimed here are out of whack.
Moreover, if the purpose of the original homestead acts and the Taylor Grazing Act are kept in mind, we shouldn't even be having this conversation.
The original homestead acts, which is likely how this ranch was started at some point, were intended to induce agriculturalists into lands that were regarded as poor prospects. The United States at that time, and indeed American culture at that time, regarded development as a good thing and had the concept that development only occurred where agriculture first entered. The very first homestead act was designed for farmers, and farmers alone, and had that express goal. As homesteaders moved into the West, however, livestock grazing became the common agricultural pursuit and the homestead act were modified to accommodate that. By this point, a different sort of development, much less intense than that East of the Mississippi was envisioned, which was cattle centric.
But the law always allowed for other uses of land. Miners actually had the superior use, their use being so extensive that they could come on land where the agriculturalist owned the surface, and the Federal Government the subsurface, and mine it anyway.
And on the Federal lands, what the agricultural user got was the right to use it, and nothing else whatsoever.
You could also buy Federal lands, of course, and you could simply run cattle on the public domain, free of charge until 1934. That fact came to be hugely significant and led directly to the Johnson County War. By that time a fairly formal, and extralegal, system of controlling the public lands had developed which favored large landowners, and which was administered by the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. Indeed, the WSGA did it partially under color of law.
And, as we know, it ultimately came to war, if private war. The large cattlemen felt the small ones were all rustler and thieves, and more than that, they were trespassing on an implied right of the large interests to control the land, title or not. The small cattlemen, on the other hand, were largely compliant with the law, had a right to homestead, and were trying just to get by.
The small cattlemen won the Johnson County War on the field, but weren't able to put the offenders behind bars, for reasons we'll deal with elsewhere. Their defense of their ground, however, did put an end to the threat of the large cattlemen snuffing out homesteading. It didn't completely end the violence, however, which went on, including in evolved forms with evolved causes, into the 20th Century. In southwestern Wyoming it effectively came to an end with the hanging of Tom Horn for the crime of killing Willie Nickell, and in central Wyoming it came to an end in 1909 with the prosecution of the killers of the Spring Creek Raid.
But some portions of the old contest remain, with all the questions that existed in some form still remaining. Some of them are existential.
To note a few, to what extent are the uberwealthy entitled to use ground at all, when their vast resources mean that the ranching aspect of ranch land is a mere incidental to their ownership?
To what extent is any human being entitled to keep others off land they aren't directly using at the time, or aren't using in a means that's contrary to the non owning entrants use?
Is it just that land that was acquired by a government agricultural land distribution program, a sort of social welfare for agriculturalist, is now owned by people who are not in that category in some fashion?
Isn't hunting more elemental than anything else, with accordingly superior rights in every existential and environmental fashion.
If you aren't touching the ground, are you really trespassing?
I'll note that I'm not saying that Fred Eschelman is a bad person. According to what little I've read on him, he's donated major conservation easements on lands he's held in Wyoming, which is a very good thing to do. Some of his statements make him appear to be a conservationist of the Nature Conservancy type. An argument can be made that, in 2022, but for people like Eschelman, large blocks of land would bet all chopped up.
An argument can also be made, however, that agricultural land ought not to be owned by people who do not have some sort of direct role, participation, or interest in agriculture, or at least in the community, which at Eschelman's economic level is pretty difficult to do. Having vast, vast amounts of money, more than the regular rich, so to speak, puts a person in a category all of its own and it's a problematic one. The fact that levels of wealth like that are allowed to even occur suggest a certain deficiency in our economy. And that deficiency allows a person to view people like the Missouri hunters differently than a regular rancher can, or even a regular wealthy local landowner can.
I'm also not saying that rich people shouldn't own land either. But there is the question of what is "rich", and what is super rich. It's one thing making money in your community and then entering agriculture, a story that's fairly common and has been for a long time. It's another making money far, far away, and then coming into the country you are not from, are not part of, and are not of, and buying that land up.
Indeed, an argument could be made that's a sort of colonialism.
I.e, if I had lots of money (I don't) and bought ranchland in my home state, well, I'm from there and have to live there and people can and will give me an earful at the gas station or cafe, or whatever. But if I made piles of money and then bought up farm ground in North Carolina, and hired people to run it for me, and stopped in from time to time, I wouldn't really have any signficant connection with the community where my ground was at all. Indeed, I don't know what people in North Carolina think, and by and large, on most days, I don't care all that much about it either. They aren't going to give me an earful at the gas station.
No wonder, therefore, the jury reacted the way it did in Carbon County. That jury didn't want to be told that they had to bow to somebody in North Carolina.
Footnotes:
1. This is a classic case of finding yourself in a fight in a time and place not of your choosing. This legal issue has been around for years, and has come up at least once before, but now its back in a major way, with the standard bearor for the agricultural organizations being an out of stater. The Stockgrowers and the Woolgrowers have to enter the contest or feel comfortable with no voice at all, but they sure wouldn't have wanted it to come up this way.
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