Monday, September 14, 2026
Thursday, September 3, 2026
The 2027 Legislature, super early edition. The make them stop edition.
Ugh, just when the first corn fed, cornfederate legislature was safely in the history books, the Management Council met. Of course, the same dumb ideas that get rejected repeatedly are back up for reconsideration, at least in part.
I hear we want to do the election review again and redo the same bills that just died three weeks ago ... in exchange for 911 funding.
Tara Nethercott.
The corner crossing bill won't be back, which is too bad.
Vote the WFC out and send them back to pre 1964 Alabama where they'll be happy.
May 13, 2026
Woman Sued By House Candidate Reid Rasner Urges Ban On Frivolous Lawsuits
I was aware this legislation had been introduced. Frankly, Anti SLAPP provisions are really tricky as they're based, basically, on pre judging a litigants intent.
June 10, 2026
Lawmakers revive proposal to remove Wyoming property taxes
The money has to come from somewhere. Property taxes rise because in no small part new people come in and overpay in the local housing market, and otherwise inflate it.
A better idea would be to have an unrealized sales tax on the sale of real property from other states that
is used by a person within five years of moving to Wyoming.
August 13, 2026
Lawmakers reject proposal for online court records, streamed hearings
Thank goodness. This idea was outright unworkable.
August 29, 2026
Things are going to be rough from now until the the beginning of the next legislative session as the members of the deposed Freedom Caucus be a general pain.
At Least Five Lawmakers Walk Out Of ‘Absurd’ Joint Committee Meeting
August 30, 2026
The WFC food fight at the legislature continues as Chip Neiman took to Facebook to pout over Senators walking out of the recent pointless joint meeting.
As Speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives, I’m entrusted with the responsibility of appointing legislators to standing committees. It’s a charge I didn’t take lightly upon my election to the Speakership.
I’m proud of the members of the House Minerals and Appropriations Committees for finishing the job they took up for the interim pertaining to local government infrastructure funding and the Wyoming Business Council.
Today, the Senate walked out on Wyoming cities, towns and counties. Conversely, the House committee members remained steadfast in order to deliver the strongest local government funding model seen in decades. This bill will fund local infrastructure and benefit every local jurisdiction and citizen.
The Legislature isn’t a place for turf warfare.
I worry for the future of the Wyoming Legislature. I encourage those new members coming to Cheyenne, to remember who they serve; not a committee, a chamber or any particular lobbying outfit, they serve the people of Wyoming. See less
Neiman notes that he's Speaker of the House in the legislature, which is true, but he's on his way out and is a lame duck. The complaint that the "Legislature isn't a place for turf warfare" is really rich given that the WFC acted like the first Vandals in Rome in Cheyenne. If it's turf warfare, they started it.
We're going to see a lot more of this. The WFC has been kicked to the curb, but like the the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French) in the Battle of Berlin, it's going to see that everything is destroyed that it can destroy before it goes.
One common theme we're now seeing in connection with the WFC losing is this one that appears in the comments to Nieman:
Me too! We are quickly becoming a blue state, just as Charlie Kirk predicted!😢
I've scene that more than once now.
People who make that comment are deluded. I don't know about this person, but they're likely also carpetbaggers. Wyoming is a conservative state, but it's not a Turning Point USA Southern Bible Belt state. This is why traditionally there was no support for restricting abortion much here (which I do feel should be restricted, and indeed illegal) and nobody cared much whether somebody was a homosexual or not, which apparently is also no longer the case. The local view, and it was expressed in the Democratic and Republican parties, wsa "I don't care what you do as long as you leave me alone". The WFC didn't want to leave people alone.
As for Charlie Kirk and his predications, I'm increasingly in the "I don't care what Charlie had to say" camp. I don't mean to sound like a Kirk basher, but those politicos and their followers that are Kirk acolytes increasingly don't impress me. Kirk was brought to UW by one of his collegiate admirers who went on to work for Hageman and get canned for following Francoist website, with the same fellow then managing Chuck Gray's campaign. That's a good enough reason not to vote for Gray, although were are are plenty of other reasons not to do so. Anyhow, Kirk never reflected a Wyoming point of view.
September 3, 2026
Wyoming lawmakers change course on property tax reform amid signs of waning support
This is a result of the defeat of the WFC, and that Wyomingites did not rise to the occasion to take advantage of a bevy of potential exemptions, at least one of which was in my view likely illegal.
The last year made it increasingly obvious where local funding came from for municipalities and counties, which likely helps explain this.
It also signals the death spiral of a WFC dream.
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
The 2026 Election, 20th Edition. Primary Voting Commences Edition. Vote like your future and that of your state depends on it, because it does, part four.
When I started this thread and entered what is now the fourth part of what was supposed to be the last pre primary edition, I had no idea that there's be so many posts in that relatively short amount of time.
It's been a busy primary, including a busy final couple of weeks in the primary.
The election is Tuesday.
There's a lot at stake. Indeed, it wouldn't be exaggerating too much to say everything's at stake. The GOP dominates in Wyoming and the Republican primary will determine if the state goes into the fully delusional right, or pulls back, gets a strong cup of coffee, and wakes up to what's happening. So far, it's pretty clear the MAGA wing of the GOP hasn't done that.
I voted for:
Governor: Barlow.
Senate: Mead
House of Representatives: Christensen.
Secretary of State: Short.
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Harshman
There are some candidates that really need to be sent packing this election, which doesn't mean they will be. Earlier editions of this series discuss those people, often in depth.
One prediction on packing. If Chuck Gray loses, and I sincerely hope he does, he'll leave the state. There's nothing to hold him here in the first place, and he truly isn't one of us.
That's been the focus of a late mailer and some television ads. This election cycle has featured both in unprecedented levels. Quite a few of them are disgusting, dealing in lies and half truths, but a few do hit home. The late one on Gray being from Los Angeles, educated in a prep school, and then going to Wharton is one. Anyhow, the money wasted on this election cycle is absolutely unconscionable. Multimillionaire Steve Friess is flooding the zone with them and ought to lose for that reason alone.
Well, this really will be the last of this edition, and it'll be short. We'll start a new one Wednesday, after the primary.
August 17, 2026
Wyoming Public Radio reports almost all of the Freedom Caucus members who received checks in Checkgate cased them.
As of Friday, who candidate still hadn't reported on his campaign finances.
Wyoming Debrief: August 17, 2026
August 18, 2026
This will be the last day for this thread, as a new one will take over. Today is primary election day.
Still, there's some outgoing news. First, this:
August 18, 2026
Good news:
Retired Cheyenne attorney renews legal challenge to Secretary Gray’s handoff of voter data fedsGray violated the law on this and needs to be held fully accountable. Courts looking at this issue have uniformly supported the states that refused to provide the information.
Gray should be made to recover the information he supplied. This was illegal.
What Gray did was absolutely unconscionable. He supplied confidential information to the Federal Government illegally, and only because Donald Trump is President.
There's no earthly way he would have done the same thing if Kamala Harris had asked for the same information. He should suffer the full impact of violating the law, which is a misdemeanor. He's insist the same if somebody had done the same thing and a Democratic President was in office.
Gray's occupancy of the Secretary of State's office has always been because he saw it as a stepping stone to higher office. His campaign was based on lies. He won the office in a nasty three way race, made nasty by him, against lawyer and legislator Tara Nethercott and geologist Mark Armstrong. Nethercott fell about 12,000 votes short, and Armstrong's presence in the race scrubbed away 14,292 votes. Even a candidate who had withdrawn, Dan Dockstader, drew 3,465 votes. Given that, he received less than half the votes caste and there's always been a strong element in the state who opposed him, just as MAGA's have adored him.
This race will show in the bloom is of the love Chuck rose. Chuck didn't anticipate a well funded campaign to his right from another carpetbagger, Steve Friess, and he appears to be in real trouble. Moreover, Christensen has been, according to what data we can derive, really coming up and may be ahead of Chuck at this point. Christensen would make the best choice for the office of Congressman.
Something must be going on in MAGA world as an old friend of mine who is deeply MAGA and who serves as precinct committeeman suddenly indicated he was not supporting Harriet Hageman for Senate, which is almost unthinkable. He's lockstep with GOP recommendations otherwise and has been all along. He's indicating he's not voting for anyone for Senate and he's predicting that a lot of other people will not either.
For a precinct committeeman to openly declare that nobody is worth voting for in their party is extraordinary. He's wrong, Sam Mead is a good candidate. For somebody who is so died in the wool on the GOP's straight jacket endorsement policy this is also remarkable, as now he's in open defiance of the GOP litmus test.
I don't know what occured. Obviously, something did, but you'd have to probably be part of MAGA to know what that is. My guess, and its just that, is that some MAGAs who are working class folks and sportsmen suddenly realized that Hageman is an enemy of Public Lands and always has been.
A reminder on that topic:
SELLOUTS vs. CHAMPIONS
Protect Wyoming's list of legislators and their record on public lands:
SELLOUTS vs. CHAMPIONS
This is really worth knowing. While this is directly copying most of the page, here's what they founds:
top SELLOUTS
Note: While Senators Tim French and Laura Pearson are not up currently for re-election, they are the legislators most actively trying to privatize and sell off our wildlife. So we want folks to take note, even though they’re not on the ballot this year.
top CHAMPIONS
Note: Senator Nethercott is not up for re-election in 2026, but has been one of the most vocal defenders of sportsmen and women on the Senate floor, and deserves a spot in the Top Defenders.
all legislator scores
I don't know all the legislators by any means, but the antis I know are no surprise. The pros I know aren't a surprise either. Unfortunately a couple of them are leaving the legislature.
Anyone on the anti list here should be voted out of office.
And also:
Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 17th Edition. Primary Voting Co...
Vote like the future of your state depends on it. It does.
In Texas, Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico hired a five-year veteran of Republican Sen. John Cornyn's office to help defeat GOP nominee Ken Paxton. And Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs picked Republican-turned-independent Mayor John Giles as her running mate.
These moves aren't stunts. It shows the Democratic Party, in spite of a lot of angst about it becoming Democratic Socialist, is in fact moving to the center in some locations. James Byrd in Wyoming is an example of that, and so are these events.
Talarico was nearly dismissed as a gadfly by Republicans early on but now there's very serious GOP concern that he'll defeat Ken Paxton, who so covered with the crap of his own misdeeds that it won't wash off.
Cont:
Alaska and Florida also have primaries today.
Cont:
The NRA sent out an email today backing Campbell in Natrona County, which is to their credit as she's a moderate Republican facing a challenge from the far right.
Last edition: