The 2025 Legislature is a general session, not a budget session The budget won't be considered. Only conventional legislation will be.
The bills that make it to the committees after November 4 are those, to a fairly significant degree, that are being advanced now. That means that a full bore populist agenda won't be considered in 2025. A partial one will be, but the populist party that claims to be conservative, but which isn't, and which claims to be Republican, but which isn't really, by traditional standards, won't be calling all the tunes.
That leaves it ample room to be disruptive and to complain, which it excels at. The problem is, for it, is that people will conceive of it as being "in power". It won't pass all of its agenda, maybe any of iit, and will have to explain why it couldn't.
The Senate and the Governor will be who it blames.
The 2026 legislature will be a budget session, and that's where the rubber will really meet the road. At least in the past, WFC members have backed wiping out property taxes (a moronic idea) and cutting the state's budget by 30% (another moronic idea).
That would wipe out much of the funding for education and decimate the primary schools, the University of Wyoming and the community colleges, some of which I'd guess will not survive. When UW starts to teeter, which it'll start too soon, second glances will really commence.
"What do you mean that we're going to Division l700 F in football?"
What'll also start to be impaired is all the emergency funding and the highway funding. We'll rely, ironically, very heavily on the Federal Government for that which, if it takes notice, may very well require the state to get its tax act together.
Frankly, it'll be a disaster for the state.
I'd like to be more optimistic about 2026, but I really can't. The Freedom Caucus won't get everything it wants, but it'll damage things enormously. Maybe enough that the intellectual poverty of much of its positions will become exposed and we can hope for a better 2026 set of results.
Yes, the 2024 Election hasn't even occured yet, and the 2026 one is clearly on, at least locally.
What we can tell for sure is that Chuck Gray is running for the office of Governor. He always was. The Secretary of State's office was very clearly a mere stepping stone in that plan, and the plan probably goes on from there. By coming to Wyoming, a state with a low population and a pronounced history of electing out of staters (we nearly have some sort of personality problem in that regard), it was a good bet, particularly when combined with his family money, although it was never a sure bet that he'd make the legislature and on from there. His plan requires, however, or at least he seemingly believes it requires, that he keep his name in the news, which he's worked hard to do, being involved in lawsuits, which is probably unconstitutional on his part, and releasing press releases that are extraordinary for his role, and for the invective language they contain. Mr. Gray has probably used the term "radical leftists" more in his two years of office than all of the prior Wyoming Secretaries of State combined.
This explains something that was otherwise a bit odd that we noticed recently, which was Secretary Gray's appearance in Casper in opposition of something he'd otherwise voted for:
Politics, as they say, makes for strange bedfellows. But how strange, nonetheless still surprises.
Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who rose to that position by pitching to the populist far right, which dominates the politics of the GOP right now, and which appears to be on the verge of bringing the party down nationally, has tacked in the wind in a very surprising direction. He appeared this past week at a meeting in Natrona County to oppose a proposed gravel pit project at the foot of Casper Mountain. He actually pitched for the upset residents in the area to mobilize and take their fight to Cheyenne, stating:
We have a very delicate ecosystem, the fragility up there, the fragility of the flows … the proximity to domestic water uses. All of those things should have led to a distinct treatment by the Office of State Lands, and that did not happen.
I am, frankly, stunned.
I frankly never really expected Mr. Gray to darken visage of the Pole Stripper monument on the east side of Casper's gateway, which you pass by on the road in from Cheyenne again, as he's not from here and doesn't really have a very strong connection to the state, although in fairness that connection would have been to Casper, where he was employed by his father's radio station and where he apparently spent the summers growing up (in an unhappy state of mind, according to one interview of somebody who knew him then). Gray pretty obviously always had a political career in mind and campaigned from the hard populist right from day one, attempting at first to displace a conservative house member unsuccessfully.
We have a post coming up which deals with the nature of populism, and how it in fact isn't conservatism. Gray was part of the populist rise in the GOP, even though his background would more naturally have put him in the conservative camp, not the populist one. But opportunity was found with populists, who now control the GOP state organization. The hallmark of populism, as we'll explore elsewhere, is a belief in the "wisdom of the people", which is its major failing, and why it tends to be heavily anti-scientific and very strongly vested in occupations that people are used to, but which are undergoing massive stress. In Wyoming that's expressed itself with a diehard attitude that nothing is going on with the climate and that fossil fuels will be, must have, and are going to dominate the state's economy forever. The months leading up to the recent legislative session, and the legislative session itself, demonstrated this with Governor Gordon taking criticism for supporting anything to address carbon concerns. Put fairly bluntly, because a large percentage of Wyoming's rank and file workers depend on the oil and gas industry, and things related to it, any questioning on anything tends to be taken as an attack on "the people".
Natrona County has had a gravel supply problem for quite a while and what the potential miner seeks to do here is basically, through the way our economy works, address it. There would be every reason to suspect that all of the state's politicians who ran to the far right would support this, and strongly. But they aren't.
The fact that Gray is not, and is citing environmental concerns, comes as a huge surprise. But as noted, given his background, he's probably considerably more conservative than populist, but has acted as politicians do, and taken aid and comfort where it was offered. Tara Nethercott ran as a conservative and lost for the same office.
But here's the thing.
That gravel is exactly the sort of thing that populists, if they're true to what they maintain they stand for, ought to support. It's good for industry, and the only reason to oppose the mining is that 1) it's in a bad place in terms of the neighbors and 2) legitimate environmental concerns, if there are any. But that's exactly the point. You really can't demand that the old ways carry on, until they're in your backyard.
Truth be known, given their nature, a lot of big environmental concerns are in everyone's backyard right now.
The old GOP would have recognized that nationally, and wouldn't be spending all sorts of time back in DC complaining about electric vehicles. And if people are comfortable with things being destructive elsewhere, they ought to be comfortable with them being destructive right here. If we aren't, we ought to be pretty careful about it everywhere.
There actually is some precedent for this, FWIW. A hallmark of Appalachian populism was the lamenting of what had happened to their region due to coal mining. John Prine's "Paradise" in some ways could be an environmental populist anthem.
Right about the time I noted this, Rod Miller, opinion writer for the Cowboy State Daily, wrote a satiric article on the same thing:
We have no idea, of course, who his opponent will be, unless it's Gordon, who is theoretically term limited out, but we already know from prior litigation that the restraint on his running again is unconstitutional. And Gordon clearly doesn't like Gray, a dislike that's not limited to him by any means. Gordon would have to challenge that in court, however, unless 1) a group of citizens does, and 2) the court ruled they'd have standing.
As voters, they should.
If that happens, I wouldn't be surprised to see Gordon run again, and to be asked to run again. While he was a candidate initially I worried about him, as he was further to the right on public lands issues than any candidate since Geringer, but he's actually acted as a very temperate Governor, something made difficult by 1) the intemperate level of our current politics, and 2) the occasional shortsightedness of the legislature.1
Anyhow, if you've ever had the occasion to see, Gordon and Gray together in an official setting, it's clear they don't get along. Indeed, on the State Land Board, it's clear that Gordon isn't the only one that's not keen on Gray. Gray for his part reacts back, as he did recently when he sent an unprecedented lengthy letter to the Governor on his vetoes.
Gray, like Donald Trump, has some feverish admirers.2 Indeed, this seems to be a hallmark of the populist right. They not only run candidates, but they develop personality cults routinely.
Rod Miller, again, in a recent column noted a real problem that Gray has. As, so far, they haven't really been able to advance their agenda without the help of conservatives, they have an advantage there as they always portray themselves as besieged by the numerous barbarians, the last legionnaire on Hadrian's Wall. Trump has actually, at a national level, worked to keep that status by ordering his party to defeat immigration legislation that was probably a once in a lifetime conservative opportunity.
Anyhow, as noted, Rod Miller recently noted a problem that Gray has. He's not married.
Indeed, without going into it, there was a figure in Wyoming decades ago whose marriage was questioned by whisperers on the basis that they believed he married just to end the speculation on why he wasn't married. The marriage lasted a very long time, so presumably the rumors were without foundation, but there were questions, which is interesting and shows, I guess, how people's minds can work.
Another way to look at it, I supposed, was prior to Trump if a person was a conservative people would ask about things that appeared to be contrary to public statements about conservatism. Not being married, for a conservative, was regarded as odd, and for that matter there are still people who whisper about Lindsey Graham, while nobody seems to worry about AOC being shacked up with her boyfriend or whatever is going on with Krysten Sinema.
And then there's Gray's age. It will make people suspicious of him at some point, or people will at least take note. Indeed, some of his critics from the left already have, but in a really juvenile way.
Actually determining Gray's age is a little difficult, and indeed, knowing anything about his background actually is. But Cowboy State Daily, a conservative organ, managed to reveal about as much as we know.
Gray was born in California and raised outside of Los Angeles. According to somebody close to the family, or who was, he was homeschooled by his mother.3He felt uncomfortable about his birthplace, and stated in the campaign
I come from a divorced family, like many people in our country. A judge said I was to live in a different place, but my dad lived here, built a business here, and I spent my summers here during the time that was allocated by the judge.
According to the same source, he didn't seem all that happy in Casper, Wyoming as a kid, but the circumstances could well explain that. The same source, who probably isn't a family friend anymore, reported to the Cowboy that Gray's father had a focus on the family owned radio station impacting legislation at a national level. Photos have been circulated of the father with President Reagan.
Gray graduated from high school in 2008 and the respected University of Pennsylvanian in 2012, which makes it all the more remarkable that he's been a success in Wyoming politics.4 If we assume the norm about graduation ages, he would have been 22 in 2012, which would make him 34 now.
In Wyoming, the average age for men to marry is 27.8 years on average, while for women it's 25.6. Gray's now notably over the median age, but that is a median. I was over it too when I married at age 31. My wife was below the female one. That's how averages work.
My parents, I'd note, were both over the median, although I don't know it with precision for the 1950s. In the 50s, the marriage age was actually at an unusual low. My father was 29, and my mother 32.
So his age, in the abstract, doesn't really mean anything overall, although it might personality wise.
As has been noted elsewhere on this site, Gray is a Roman Catholic and indeed I've seen him occasionally at Mass, although I would never have seen him every weekend as there are a lot of weekend Masses and my habits aren't the same as his. I have no reason to believe that he didn't attend weekly as required by the church.5 Catholics are supposed to observe traditional Catholic teachings in regard to sex and marriage. I'm not really going to be delving into that, but again we have no reason to believe that Gray isn't observant, in which case, as he is not married, he should be living as a chaste single man, and he probably is (something that has casued juvenile left wing ribbing).
Wyoming, however, is the least religious state in the union and while Catholics, Orthodox, Mormons and Protestants of traditional morality observe that morality, here, as with the rest of the United States, the late stage mass casualty nature of the Sexual Revolution means that a lot of people in these faiths don't, and the society at large does not. We've gone from a society where such outside the bounds of marriage behavior was illegal in varying degrees, to one where, nationwide, society pushes people into things whether they want to or not.
Be that as it may, save for Casper, Laramie, and probably Cheyenne, sexual conduct outside the biological gender norm is very much looked down upon. Indeed, in a really dense move, a Democratic Albany County legislator went to a meeting in Northeast Wyoming a while back on homosexual issues and was shocked by the hostile reception she received. She shouldn't have been.
No, I'm not saying this applies to Gray. I have no reason to believe that, and indeed I believe the opposite.
However, we've gone from a state whose ethos was "I don't care what you do as long as you leave me alone" to one in which, largely due to the importation of Evangelicals from elsewhere, a fairly large percentage of the population really care about what you do, particularly if they don't like it.
Indeed, at the time that Matthew Shepard was murdered, I was surprised when I heard an anti-homosexual comment. Such comments do not surprise me now, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear one now in the context of a murder. As noted, the exceptions seem to be Laramie (where Shepard was murdered, but which has never been hostile to homosexuals), Casper (which has had a homosexual 20 something mayor and which has a lesbian city council member) and Cheyenne (which has a homosexual member of the state House, as does Albany County). Well, I omitted Jackson and should include it here too.
At any rate, being an open homosexual and aiming for major office probably is impossible, although for minor ones it hasn't proven to be. The point is, however, that Miller is right. At some point, people are going to start wondering why staunchly populist Gray isn't married.
Maybe it's because he is in fact a staunchly populist out of state import. There aren't that many women in that pool. Indeed, having a one time vague contact with our staunchly populist Congresswoman, I was very surprised when it turned out she was a populist, or even a conservative. I'm not saying that she's not, I'm just surprised.
Gray is in a sort of oddball demographic. Not being from here, he wouldn't be in any circles in which women from here, professionals or otherwise, would be in. He appears to really be a fish out of water in terms of the local culture. When he appears at things, he does wear cowboy boots, but you can tell they've never been in a stirrup, and he otherwise is, at least based on my very limited observation of him, always dressed in what we might sort of regard as 1980s Denver Business Casual. I'd be stunned if I saw him on a trout stream or out in the prairie with his bird dog, Rex. I've seen him at a bar once, for a grand opening of something, but I don't imagine him walking up to the tender at The Buckhorn or The Oregon Trail and ordering a double Jack Daniel's either.
I was once told by an out-of-state lawyer who had been born in the state but who had moved to Denver after graduating from law school, regarding Wyomingites, that "you have to be tough just to live there". People who live here probably don't realize that, but there's more than a little truth to it. I'm often shocked by the appearance of populist legislature Jeanette Ward, as it's so clear she just doesn't belong here. She's not the kind of gal who would be comfortable sitting next to the ranch girl chewing tobacco who has the "Wrangler Butts Drive Me Nuts" bumper sticker on her pickup truck.6 Gray probably isn't comfortable with such a gal either. "Tomboys", as they used to be called, are sort of the mean average for Wyoming women.
Gray is well-educated, of course, which is part of the reason that I suspect a lot of his positions are affectations. I don't think he really believes the election was stolen, for example, unless he's doing so willfully, which would mean that he really doesn't believe that. Recently he's taken on the topic of firearms arguing, as part of the State Facilities Commission, that the state needs to open up carrying guns at the capitol, which is frankly absurd. While I don't know the answer, I suspect that Gray isn't really a firearms' aficionado.
Up until very recently, Wyomingites knew a lot about the people they sent to the legislature and public office, often knowing them personally to some degree. We actually knew the Governor and the First Lady on some basis other than politics, quite frequently, and our local reps we knew pretty well. The populist invasion defeated that to some degree, and in some cases, a great deal. The question is whether this is permanent, or temporary. It wasn't until the last election that people looked at Gray's background at all, and they still have very little. People haven't really grasped until just now that many of the Freedom Caucus are imports, not natives. We don't know much about some of them or their families, and chances are an average Wyomingite, or at least a long term native, would regard them as odd on some occasions. Chuck Gray just ran an op ed that was titled something like Only Wyomingites Should Vote In Wyoming's Elections. Most long term and native born Wyomingites feel that strongly, and wouldn't actually regard a lot of our current office holders as being Wyomingites.
There's evidence that the populist fad is passing. We'll see. This and the 2026 election will be a test of it. 2026 is a long ways off. For that matter, it's sufficiently long enough for these candidates to evolve if they need to. Some are probably capable of doing that. Others, undoubtedly not. The question will be if they need to.
May 11, 2024
It's very clear, to those paying any attention, that Wyoming elected executive branch officials really dislike Chuck Gray, including those who are very conservative. This became evident again when Superintendant of Education Degenfelder indicated Wyoming would join a Title IX lawsuit in opposition to the Federal Government's new rules on "transgender" atheletes. Degenfelder indicated that she'd been working behind the scenes with Gov. Gordon on this matter. In doing so she blasted Gray who earlier made comments wondering where the state's officials were on this matter, even though his office has less than 0 responsiblity in this department. Degenfelder stated in regard to Gray, "I would encourage Secretary Gray to join those of us actually making plays on the field rather than just heckling from the sidelines". Gray, who is a Californian who has lived very little of his life in Wyoming save for summers here while growing up, declared in response he was on "Team Wyoming".
FWIW, Wyoming really doesn't need to particpate in lawsuits maintained by other parties, as they're already maintained.
July 8, 2024
Now here's an interesting development. . .
I may have mentioned on this blog before that I feel Gov. Gordon should consider running, text of the Wyoming Constitution aside, for a third term. In doing so, if I did (I know that I've discussed with people) I've noted that the Constitutional prohibition on him doing so violates the Wyoming Constitution.
Turns out that I'm not the only one speculating on that.
And it turns out that Chuck Gray doesn't like the idea at all.
Footnotes
1. There are numerous examples of this, but a really good one is Gordon's effort to buy the UP checkerboard, which the legislature defeated. It would have been a real boon for the state, but fiscal conservatives just couldn't see it that way.
Recently, Gordon hasn't been shy about vetoing highly unadvised bills that have come out of the legislature, or shutting down bad regulations that come out of the Secretary of State's office.
2. And not just Gray, Harriet Hageman does as well.
3. Homeschooling, for whatever reason a person does it, can be developmentally limiting. I don't know about Gray's case, but its notable that some on the far right have done it, as they believe that schools are left wing organs and there are things they don't want their children exposed to them. The problem this presents is that children who are homeschooled grow up in a very narrow environment, whereas, at least here, those who go to public, and for that matter religious schools, do not.
4. There used to be a school interview of him from the University of Pennsylvania, in which he expressed a desire to become a lawyer. He's clearly not going to do that now, unless of course his political career ended, which is perfectly possible.
5. As noted here in prior posts, lying is regarded as a potentially serious sin in Catholicism, and lying about something like who won the 2020 election would be, in some circumstances, a mortal sin if you were a political figure.
6. Ward is from Illinois and openly calls herself a political refugee. At the time of moving here, she posted something about her children not having to wear masks in our public schools, adopting the far right wing view that trying to protect others in this fashion is somehow an intrusion on liberty. I suppose it is, but not relieving yourself in public is as well. Anyhow, at some point, presuming those children remain in public school, she'll be in for a shock as Casper's schools truly have a really wide demographic and are not exactly made up of an Evangelical populist sample of the population.
Donald Trump released a four-minute video attempting to thread the needle on abortion, and largely failed.
Abortion is proving to be an odd issue in this election. Following 1973's Roe v. Wade decision, the Democratic Party became increasingly pro death, with left the GOP as the pro-life default party. It was generally pro-life, as a conservative party, but it was more vague about it for many years than a person might suppose. This paid off for pro-life forces when the decision, which even informed left wing legal thinkers felt impossible to really defend, fell due to a Mitch McConnell influenced Supreme Court, appointed by Donald Trump. That was a long wished for conservative result, which Trump claimed credit for, not without some justification, but largely due to Trump giving McConnell free rein on Supreme Court appointments.
This has ended up being a hot election issue ever since, but it's still very poorly understood as to its impact. Various conservative states have enacted laws restricting or banning abortion (some old laws have just come back into operation) and it's ended up a ballot issue elsewhere. Democrats believe that the issue works in their favor, although how that squares with elected legislatures restricting it isn't very clear. Added to that, right wing Republicans began to push for a Federal nationwise restriction on abortion, which is something they haven't really fleshed out, thinking wise. A Federal law, while universal, seems to suggest a compromise on the topic, which is a topic that can't really be compromised on, at least on the pro-life side. That is, unless its just a nationwide ban, which seems to have little chance of passing. The various proposals make just about 0 intellectual sense whatsoever. A person either believes that all life has value, in which case it does from the first instance, or they believe it really doesn't, and should only be protected at an arbitrary point at which its too icky to admit to killing.
Enter the candidates on the issue. . .
Joe Biden, who is a Catholic and morally obligated to believe that all life is sacred, instead has opted for an apparent state of personal mortal sin and is for allowing the killing, with his campaign featuring that position, and he is still being allowed to receive Communion for some reason that's hard to grasp. Donald Trump, who has a predatory relationship with women to at least some degree, and who has been pretty keen on bedding women of a certain type, kept his views secret until earlier this week when, in a four-minute video, he came out for no Federal law at all.
No Federal law is the position of some conservative, but politically savvy, Republicans who aren't Trumpers. It is, for example, Chris Christie's position's was that the states should decide the issue for their states. But the concept of a nationwise ban has received increasing support in conservative camps due to some states enacting broad permissive abortion laws. It should be noted, others have enacted restrictive ones, like Wyoming (whose law is gummed up in court due to an incredibly dim witted paranoid law that enshrines personal medical choices as its supporters were rampaging paranoid about imaginary Obamacare "death panels".
This raises a lot of interesting questions, one being what does Trump actually think? Frankly, Trump doesn't appear to be a deep thinker on anything, but on this issue it's known that he's run the gambit in views, originally being in the pro death camp. His coming out the way he did appears to be in hopes of avoiding the issue, stating that it's a state rights issue. After giving his four-minute flat affect speech, he came out again today on the Arizona Supreme Court finding a territorial era statute banning abortion was constitutional and revised, which makes perfect sense legally. Noting that it was his appointees that brought the reversal of Roe finally around, he stated that the Arizona action, which again makes perfect legal sense, "went too far", which makes no legal sense but which reflects the view that most people have on courts which is that they're a policy legislature, which they aren't.
Life or death being a state's rights issue is lame in more ways than one. A person could argue it on a practical basis, that being that leaving it up to states is the only way for any peace on the issue at all, which is more or less Christie's position. Trump's view came out like a rambling mish mash of a confused intellect, which is a bit surprising as somebody must have written his statement for him.
Indeed, the fact that he read it brings up the issue of his mental status. Statements that he reads tend to come out with a very flat affect, which has yet to be explained. People continue to ignore the question of what's going on, organically, in his head.
All this has left some interesting fallout. Serious pro lifers are left wondering about who to support, with some having supported Trump in the past solely because of this issue. "He's better than Biden" seems to be the common reaction. But some are really upset. By the same token, Biden's designation of Easter as Transgender Visibility Day disgusted some who are fellow travelers on this issue. Pro lifers have been major supporters of the GOP since 1973, and now they have reason to question the party's loyalty to them.
And it all shows how compromised the values of politicians are in general.
April 12, 2024
The Trump campaign, which avoided debates in the primaries, wants more debates in the general election and wants them to start soon.
Trump is likely worried that a lot of his speaking coming up will be in the form of testimony, and wants to distract from that. Also, Trump no doubt feels he's a better speaker than Biden.
In actuality, neither of them are good speakers. Biden has had a lifelong stuttering problem which makes his speech a bit odd, and Trump's speech suggests that he's in the early to early-mid stage of the onset of dementia. Absent a spectacular performance, or spectacular failure, by either candidate, debates probably aren't going to matter much, but contrary to common belief, Trump, who really goes off the rail if he departs from the teleprompter, is more likely to say something extraordinarily off the mark, weird, or incoherent.*
Cont:
Governor Gordon rightly rejected Secretary of State Gray's new voting rules.
Gray, who is clearly running for Governor and keeping populist heat turned up as a result, will undoubtedly reply with something shortly.
Secretary of State Gray has an op ed in today's Trib entitled "Only Wyomingites Must Vote In Wyoming's Election".
It's a crime not to be a resident and vote in Wyoming's election, so this is a bit silly, but it's part of the Gray effort to whip up a frenzy in the populist right in part of his aim to run for Governor in 2026. It's also more than a little ironic, as Gray is not a Wyomingite, and most of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus isn't either. Jeanette Ward barely qualified to run for office when she ran for the seat Gray abandoned, as he tried first for the House and then for the SoS office.
Of course, "only Wyomingites" isn't what Gray means.
As always, Gray cited "radical left wing" activists as being his opponents.
Wyoming Democrats will caucus for the President today, not that it's going to matter. They'll choose Biden, and Biden will lose in Wyoming.
A Park County representative still wants all ballot counting in the county to be done by hand, but is being ignored as its a phenomenally bad idea.
Republican Dale Zwonitzer, a major House member from Cheyenne, is facing a run from Steve Johnson, Populist. Zwonitzer has faced open hostility from the Populist right the last several years.
Colorado will have an abortion ballot initiative in the fall.
April 15, 2024
While hardly newsworthy, Joe Biden won the Wyoming Caucus Saturday.
April 16, 2024
Donald Trump's criminal trial regarded to the paying of hush money to three people, two of them pornographic personages, began yesterday in New York.
The favorite of the Evangelical right is accused of paying Stormy Daniels, a pornographic actress, and another person, a former Playboy playmate, hush money prior to the 2016 election so they'd keep their mouths shut abut his fucking them. The third person is a doorman. The crime is asserted to be election interference, I guess, which is frankly a little hard to grasp in this context.
A jury has not yet been selected.
April 18, 2024
Senator Barrasso announced yesterday that he's running for reelection to the Senate.
I frankly thought he'd already announced, as he was obviously running for reelection. He has an opponent in the primary, Reid Rasner, who is running from the populist right.
I've mentioned the primary contest before, but I dismissed Rasner's campaign. Frankly, I was in error to do so as at this point I think Rasner has a serious chance of beating Barrasso, and Barrasso obviously fears that as well. Barrasso has been putting out hardcore populist, Trumpite, messages now for weeks. I strongly suspect that he doesn't believe in what he's tweeting, but he's taking this position, like almost every Republican political figure, in order to hang on to their jobs, even though it's killed the GOP.
Therefore, at the primary election, Wyoming will be presented with a contesnt between a genuine populist and a fake one. Actual conservatives will vote for Barrasso, not for what he's saying, but what they suspect he actually believes. Some populists will as well.
April 19, 2020
The GOP state convention defeated a bylaw proposal that would have provided a mechanism, probably ineffectively and illegally given the way party affiliation actually works, to kick actual Republicans out of the party.
One populists commented:
There was a group of citizens in Weston County very, very concerned about Liz Cheney and the way she tried to infiltrate and change our party,
Eh?
It's the populists who infilatrated the GOP, not the other way around. Cheney is a real Republican. Her opponents are largley Dixiecrats, but don't know it.
Natrona County voters will have a ballot item on the fall to create a Senior Service District consisting of the entire county. This will add 2 mills to people's taxes to fund senior services.
It's hugely unpopular to say so, but in an era in which Wyomingites are unhappy about all the growth they encouraged causing property values to rise (d'uh!) this will pass anyhow, and shouldn't. The current generation of seniors has had the best breaks of any generation in history, continues to basically control the country, and is fairly wealthy overall, even if individual members of the generation are not. A 2 mill tax effectively takes cash out of everyone's pockets to fulfill a need that people should have filled on their own, or that their families should.
Footnotes:
*Something you'll sometimes hear from Trump supporters is that "he talks like us". I fear that might be true, which is we're beginning to sound mildly demented and addled as a society.
Ugh, there's a time when that would have seen like a long time.
And it still should. Would that it would have been only 90 days prior to an election that anyone could even announce.
A full year of watching the clock count down.
A full year of pundits like Robert Reich telling you can't vote for a third party, and must vote for one of the two absurdities that are the current majority parties.
A full year of bizarro weird diction from Donald Trump.
A full year of two really old men compete for the votes of voter less than half their ages.
Nifty.
November 6, 2023
The latest polls show Trump beating Biden in the Fall election.
Simply amazing.
It'll all come down to five states, and about 100,000 voters, who will decide which of the two ancient men will lead the most powerful, if declining, nation on earth.
Both, FWIW, are showing signs of cognitive decline. This has been obvious for a while, but it was mentioned in regard to Trump for the first time on one of the weekend news shows. He's now getting noticeably confused and increasingly erratic.
Regarding cognitive decline, the fact that these are the nation's choices make it appear as the United States itself is suffering from cognitive decline.
While there will be plenty of it "it's not too late" comments, it pretty much is unless the Democrats dump Biden. The electorate doesn't want him, or Trump. And yet the parties insist on offering both of them. At least with the GOP, it's because their base really does want Trump, as frightening as that is. The Democrats do not want Biden.
November 8, 2023
And yet another poll shows Biden slipping further behind, even as the Democrats did well in yesterday's election.
If Biden isn't replaced as the candidate, there will be a second Trump term.
November 9, 2023
Donald Trump, yesterday:
Kim Jong-un leads 1.4 billion people, and there's no doubt about who the boss is, and they want me to say he's not an intelligent man.
Geez Louise, this is wrong in so many ways.
First of all, 1.4 B is the approximate population of China. North Korea has about 24M.
And nobody is saying that Kim Jong-un isn't intelligent, they're saying he's bad.
Trump has a thing for dictators. . .
During the GOP debate, one of the candidates proposed bombing targets in Iran.
cont:
Joe Manchin will not be running for reelection to the Senate in West Virginia.
Manchin was quite conservative, a fact which had given him a power broker role in the Senate. His departure, while not wholly unexpected, does put the GOP within striking distance of taking back the Senate.
November 10, 2023
Jill Stein has opted to lose again as the Green Party's candidate for President.
November 13, 2023
Tim Scott has dropped out of the GOP race.
In terms of serious candidates, that leaves Haley, Christie, DeSantis, and of course, Trump. There are others, but they're already reached the point of now return. The winnowing process is now well-developed.
Overall in the Republican race right now, the following are the serious candidates in terms of still (sort of) being contenders against Trump.
Trump.
Doug Burgum
Chris Christie
Ron DeSantis
Nikki Haley
Asa Hutchinson
Of the above, Hutchinson should drop out, as his campaign is gaining no traction and is essentially the same as Christie's. Burgum should drop out as well as his campiagn has generated little interest, mostly due to his own waffling on Trump.
GOP candidates still around that nobody is paying any attention to are:
Scott Alan Ayers
Ryan Binkley
Robert S. Carney
John Anthony Castro
Peter Jedick
Perry Johnson
Perry Johnson
Donald Kjornes
Mary Maxwell
Glenn McPeters
Glenn J. McPeters
Scott Peterson Merrell
Darius L. Mitchell
Vivek Ramaswamy
Sam Sloan
David Stuckenberg
Rachel Swift
Of these, only Ramaswamy is newsworthy, but most due to his being noisy and somewhat of a gadfly. So, in terms of real candidates, what the GOP actually has is:
Trump.
Doug Burgum
Chris Christie
Ron DeSantis
Nikki Haley
Asa Hutchinson
Vivek Ramaswamy
On the Democratic side, there are actually just about as many people running, but really only Biden and Dean Phillips are serious candidates. . . so far.
While it'll put me outside the mainstream, I very strongly suspect that Joe Manchin and Joe Biden have had a conversation about Biden dropping out, and Manchin stepping in.
Manchin is in his early 70s, which is still old, but younger than Trump. He's also a bonafide centrist. Liberal Democrats would hate this development, centrist Democrats, independents and traditional Republicans would welcome it. It would be a smart move. Right now, I'm predicting, as radical as it is, that Biden will drop out this month, followed by Manchin announcing a run.
In other news, Californian Republican House member McCarthy is indicating he may not run for reelection.
November 14, 2023
Apparently a retired lawyer has filed a 14th Amendment challenge to Trump, and oddly Cynthia Lummis who doesn't run again until 2026, in court. Secretary Gray sent out a press release on the matter.
Secretary Gray Condemns Attempt to Remove Donald Trump and Cynthia Lummis from Future Ballots in Wyoming
CHEYENNE, WY – In response to a recent filing in Wyoming District Court seeking to remove Donald Trump and Cynthia Lummis (whose term ends in 2026) from future ballots in Wyoming, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray announced his plans to vigorously defend against the filing (Newcomb v. Chuck Gray).
“The attempt to remove Donald Trump and Cynthia Lummis from the ballot is outrageously wrong and repugnant to our electoral process,” Secretary Gray said in a statement. “I am preparing a vigorous defense to stop these blatant, radical attempts to interfere with Wyoming’s elections. The weaponization of the Fourteenth Amendment to remove political opponents from the ballot undermines the sanctity of the Constitution. We are preparing to file a motion to dismiss to block this attempt at election interference. And we are committed to protecting the integrity of our elections and ensuring that the people of Wyoming can choose who to elect for themselves.”
November 15, 2023
A Michigan Court has rejected a 14th Amendment claim against Trump. It will be appealed.
November 17, 2023
Rep. Hageman went after Tim Newcomb's lawsuit regarding Trump being disqualified from being on the ballot for insurrection.
This isn't really surprising, Hageman is in political debt to Trump, but it's interesting in that she partially attacks the effort as unconstitutional and for using the legal system. Attempting to use the legal system is exactly what Trump attempted in order to try to retain office, and Trumpites have continually taken refuge in that fact.
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.
