Territorial seal of Wyoming, depicting rich people from other areas moving in to control the state's politics. . . oh, wait. . . it mostly depicts work.
And I'm gonna tell you workers,
'fore you cash in your checks
They say "America First,"
but they mean "America Next!"
Woody Guthrie, Lindbergh.
This was originally going to be a post in the election thread, as it comes up in that context.
Here's how.
Recently former Wyoming Secretary of State Max Maxfield filed an election complaint against Chuck Gray which in essence stated that Mr. Gray only reports $11,000 in income per year, but loaned his abandoned campaign against Liz Cheney over $200,000. The math, Mr. Maxfield maintains, doesn't add up for a guy whose only been in the state for a decade and who must be in his early 30s. In other words, how can a guy with no visible means of support earning money at the poverty level loan himself that kind of dough.
Well, the answer is pretty obvious. Gray has external funding sources.
In the recent debate with his opponent Tara Nethercott he accused her of being behind the Maxfield effort, for which there is no evidence at all. Nethercott surely didn't start it, but she has made use of it, noting that his connection with work is pretty thin. Gray has attempted to defend himself by accusing Nethercott of being a "lawyer/politician".
That's ironic for Gray, as he's also a politician. They both have been in the legislature the same length of time. Moreover, while I can't find it now, while Gray was at Wharton he gave an interview to some sort of school journal in which he said his ambition was to become a lawyer. So his disdain of lawyers apparently comes more recently.
Gray said in the debate that he had inherited the money that he loaned to his campaign, which in some ways, although he probably doesn't realize it, makes this story worse. As does this:
August 11, 2022
The Trib ran an article on this date on campaign donations and the various candidates.
Perhaps the most remarkable figures where for Secretary of State, where Chuch Gray has raised $528,000 to Nethercott's $333,000. Of that, $500,000 of Gray's money was donated by his father and $10,000 from himself, meaning he's really raised $18,000. Nethercott loaned her campaign $95,000.
Gray has seemingly been able to get by in the state for a decade with a light attraction to what most people would regard as substantial work, assuming that his role at his family's radio station isn't accounted for in some other fashion that's allowable under the IRS code but which isn't regarded as income. I have no idea. That may be the case. At any rate, however, most people's parents aren't in a situation to give them $500,000 in their early 30s in order to mount a bid for office.
Which raises a number of topics.
The first is, in regard to Gray, does this matter?
I'd think so.
What a person does with their own money is their own business, to an extent. But when it comes to spending money in order to obtain a public office, that's everyone's business. One of Gray's recent television advertisements complains that Nethercott voted for a bill to raise the Secretary of State's wages to $125,000, for instance.
This would suggest that Gray thinks $125,000 for that office is a lot, but it's not. The median income for Wyoming is $33,000, which is very low, so for a lot of people that would be a lot, but Nethercott will probably be taking a pay cut if she wins. Gray will be getting a big pay raise, but apparently his situation is such that this doesn't really matter.
Of course, it's a four-year position, which also means that Nethercott will have to work the better part of a year to pay back the load to herself. Gray won't have to, but the $500,000 investment on the part of his father? Well, I guess that's also like spending your inheritance. That somebody is willing to spend a half million dollars to obtain a job that will take several years in pay in order to recoup the loss raises, yet again, more questions.
All of which gets to this.
Very few people are in the category of "idle rich". Even most of the rich aren't in the category of idle rich, where they have so much surplus cash they really don't have to do anything.
If a person is in that category, what they do with their cash is their own business, as long as they are honest about it, and their employment of their resources doesn't work to the detriment of other people.
And that's the problem with what Gray is doing.
Wyoming has experienced an influx of money in recent years, with there being some really spectacular examples. Susan Gore, who has funded far right political movements, is one such example. She's not from here, but more than that, she's not of here either. Her efforts are funding attempts to make the state into something it's never been, under the banner of "liberty". Gray is part of that same effort.
Gore is one example, but Gray's quite another. The resources presumably are nowhere equal, but the thought of a young man seemingly employing his efforts at doing little else other than to try to advance in politics in a state he has virtually no connection with is, well, disturbing. I can't really imagine it myself. That is, if I had surplus money, I don't think I'd go, let's say, to Alaska and try to influence their politics.
But that's what Gray has being doing from day one here, and that's what people like Susan Gore and Foster Friess have been attempting as well. To make it worse, the Wyoming they're trying to recreate is an imaginary one that they don't really know. The state they moved to isn't the one they think it was, and what they're attempting to make it into isn't where most of us would have wanted to go.
At one time, having vast idle wealth in the country bound a person to obligation. We only recently mentioned the two Roosevelts who were elected President in this blog, as they were rich men. They were both examples of this, however.
But they were also examples of noblesse oblige, the sense that "being nobility obligates".
This was particularly true in the case of Theodore Roosevelt. His father was wealthy, but he'd also been dedicated to the cause of poor newsboys, something that was a real problem in his era. Theodore Roosevelt senior also made it plain to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. that their wealth would enable the younger man to choose a career of his liking that didn't have to pay well, but he'd have to choose one. Originally, the later President had intended to be a scientist, and indeed was published and well regarded in natural history.
Indeed, while Theodore Roosevelt, following his father's death, turned to the then disreputable career of politician in years as tender as that of Gray's, he never really quit working. He wrote, he published, he studied, and he ranched. His finances were not always great by any means as he's overspend in his endeavors, but his capacity for work was literally manic.
Wealthy New Yorker Theodore Roosevelt, who resigned from his position as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to serve at great hazard in the Spanish American War. We don't see too many wealthy Americans doing this sort of service anymore.
I know less about his cousin Franklin, but Franklin always admired Theodore. He came to the nation's attention first as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, something Theodore Roosevelt had also been. So he entered public service. . . as a type of bureaucrat. . . . before he was a politician.
And other examples abound. Winston Churchill, who was from a wealthy family (although he always overspent his resources, as did his mother) served as a British Army cavalryman in his early years, with that being his intended career in an era in which those born into British wealth were not expected to "work" but to go into public service in the military or the clergy, or perhaps engage in agriculture. He took a break from that to act as a correspondent, and then later served in the Army again in the early part of World War One before entering politics. T. E. Lawrence, from the same class, and burdened with the same cultural expectation not to "work", was first an archeologist before entering the British Army during the Great War.
John F. Kennedy in World War Two.
Turning back to our own shores, I'll be frank that I'm not a fan of the Kennedy family, including John F. Kennedy. But the President of the early 1960s had served, and heroically, in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War. That's definitely work.
Yet another interesting example would be George S. Patton, whose family was very wealthy. Patton had a career as a soldier, quite obviously, as that was something people in his class did.
Patton in World War One.
We don't seem to see things like this much anymore.
Gray, according to what little we know of him, went right from Wharton to a Wyoming radio station. A really blistering article in WyoFile notes his career and that he was reported as an executive at the station. That article goes on to note that the radio entity in Wyoming seems to facially be out of compliance with registration requirements The article is so extensive that about all you can do is quote from it, rather than try to summarize it, as it notes:
He has listed Mount Rushmore Broadcasting, Inc. as his sole employment — initially working as a program director, then later as an operations manager — on each of his requisite elected official financial disclosure forms.
According to records from the secretary of state’s office — and later confirmed by a department spokesperson — Mount Rushmore Broadcasting was administratively dissolved by the state almost two decades ago for failing to file annual reports and pay its license fees to Wyoming. Gray’s father, Jan Charles Gray, is president of the Delaware-based entity, according to state records. The entity uses a registered agent in its Wyoming filings, but 2016 documents from the Federal Communications Commission indicate that the elder Gray is also owner of the corporation.
Like all out-of-state entities, it was required to obtain a certificate of authority from the secretary of state’s office before transacting business in the state. It did so in 1993, according to state records, but failed to file requisite annual reports and pay yearly fees based on its assets located and employed in Wyoming. Mount Rushmore entered into a 24-month period during which it could have paid a reinstatement fee, as well as what was already owed. But the company did not comply within the two-year window, after which Wyoming statute does not allow entities to be brought back into good standing.
Monique Meese with the Wyoming Secretary of State’s office confirmed that Mount Rushmore Broadcasting, Inc. was administratively dissolved on June 10, 2003 and thereby lost the ability to be reinstated. At press time, the entity was not under review by the office, Meese said, because no written complaints had been submitted.
On his most recent state elected officials financial disclosure form dated Jan. 28, 2022, Gray listed operations manager of Mount Rushmore Broadcasting as his employment. According to his campaign website, he began his career there in 2013 “as a radio executive and hosted a conservative radio show,” until 2019.
During a July candidate forum in Casper, Gray said he became a permanent resident of Wyoming in 2012. He spent his childhood summers here with his father after his parents divorced, he said.
Prior to going to work for his father, Gray graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s of science and bachelor’s of arts degrees, according to his lawmaker bio.
When WyoFile approached Gray to clarify his professional experience immediately following the forum in Casper, he declined to answer questions, but said he would respond to written questions over email. WyoFile sent several written questions to the lawmaker, including a request for more details regarding his duties as an employee of Mount Rushmore Broadcasting and how his academic and professional resumes qualified him for the position. Gray responded with a statement about ballot drop boxes and ballot harvesting — he feels both are threats to election integrity — but no further information on his background. WyoFile sent a subsequent email asking about his employer conducting business in Wyoming without a certificate of authority. The lawmaker did not respond.
Mount Rushmore Broadcasting is currently the licensee for two AM stations and five FM stations in Wyoming, according to Federal Communications Commission records. Most of those stations are in Casper, and all but one of those can currently be heard on the air.
In 2016, three years after Gray claims to have begun working there, Mount Rushmore entered into a consent decree with the FCC for failing to maintain a full-time management and staff presence at the main studio of two of its stations during regular business hours, among other things. One term of the settlement was a $25,000 civil penalty, which was less than the originally proposed penalty. Mount Rushmore Broadcasting submitted a sworn statement along with several years of tax returns indicating an inability to pay all forfeitures, according to the consent decree. The original amount was just under $160,000, according to the FCC. Part of the agreement required Mount Rushmore Broadcasting to pay the remainder of the originally proposed penalties if the FCC found it misled the commission regarding its financial status. The commission declined to say whether that occurred.
In 2015, Mount Rushmore Broadcasting paid almost $5,000 in back wages to former employees, after the U.S. Department of Labor sued the entity for not properly paying its workers.
Between April 2020 and March 2021, it received more than $28,000 in federal dollars through the Paycheck Protection Program in order to retain two jobs. Gray, a vocal opponent of federal subsidies, voted during the 2022 Legislative session against a bill authorizing the state to spend other pandemic relief funds. He declined to answer questions on the matter when WyoFile contacted him for previous reporting.
I'd note that there could be explanations for why it is seemingly out of compliance with filing requirements in Wyoming, and indeed for all of this, but it does raise questions.
Maybe the bigger question, however, is this. Does simply graduating from school really mean that you are now qualified to legislate and govern?
I guess the voters can and will decide that. But quite frankly, those who were not born wealthy, and have had to work, have rounder experiences than those who simply benefitted from the circumstances of their births. Those born wealthy, however, who have educated themselves in school and out in the world have different qualifications yet, and are often quite admirable.
The Roosevelts, we'd note, were champions of the poor. Theodore Roosevelt wouldn't even be qualified to walk into a county Republican Party meeting today, in spite of still being admired as a Republican President. John F. Kennedy, for all his faults, was concerned with the same class as well. Churchill had to be restrained from directly entering into combat a couple of times during World War Two.
Noblesse Oblige.
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