By means of Maggie Mullen

The Wyoming Legislature has never in its history considered, debated or voted on a proposal to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot in any election in any state. Political mailings sent this week by the officially registered WY Freedom PAC to voters in Laramie, Fremont and Sweetwater Counties claim otherwise.

“(He) voted with the RADICAL LEFT to remove President Trump from the ballot,” read glossy postcards aimed at Reps. Lloyd Larsen (R-Lander), Cody Wylie (R-Rock Springs) and Dan Zwonitzer (R-Cheyenne).

A similar mailing addressed to Rep. JT Larson (R-Rock Springs) accused the lawmaker of “voting NO to keeping President Trump on the ballot this fall.”

But of the hundreds of bills and amendments introduced during the 2024 session, none required lawmakers to vote on whether to keep Trump on the ballot or remove him.

The WY Freedom PAC, the political action committee founded in 2023 to support the radical Wyoming Freedom Caucus, is responsible for the post.

Kari Drost, chair of WY Freedom PAC, referred WyoFile by phone on Friday to an explanation in the mailers.

“I don’t have them in front of me, but I’m pretty sure there’s a reference to all the statements at the bottom of the postcard,” Drost said. “There’s a specific mood referenced, so you could look that up.”

In the lower left corner of the mailing addressed to Larsen is a footnote: “Ref HB 01 Section 002,” which references a section of the fiscal 2024 budget bill that appropriated approximately $9.5 million to the Secretary of State’s Office.

The section below provides details about the Secretary of State’s budget, in particular how a certain amount of funds can be allocated in relation to ballot initiatives.

Drost, who said she was on her way to a meeting, did not elaborate on how a vote on a budget footnote amounted to a vote to remove Trump from the ballot. She asked WyoFile to email her with any additional questions. WyoFile had not received a response to that email as of press time.

John Bear (R-Gillette), chairman of the Freedom Caucus and leader of the PAC’s fundraising efforts, told WyoFile that the mailers’ claim involved a footnote in a budget bill that was intended to prohibit the secretary of state’s office from using state funds for out-of-state litigation.

Bear said the vote on the footnote was “effectively” a vote for or against Trump on the ballot.

“They knew what they were doing when they did it,” Bear said.

Zwonitzer called the mailers “excessive.”

“It’s a new low in Wyoming politics that colleagues in the Legislature are making up complete fabrications that are categorically false,” Zwonitzer said. “And they should expect a full-blown defamation lawsuit against the PAC and everyone involved.”

The mailers also criticize the way lawmakers voted on property taxes, immigrant driver’s licenses and restrictions on foreign land ownership.

Details

When lawmakers were drafting the budget earlier this year, they clashed over which elected officials should have the authority to represent the state’s interests in lawsuits, WyoFile reported in February.

Secretary of State Chuck Gray joined the Republican secretaries of state of Ohio and Missouri in filing an amicus curiae brief last November, arguing to overturn a Colorado court’s decision to bar Trump from that state’s ballot for his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The Joint Appropriations Committee responded by adding a footnote to the budget.

“No moneys appropriated under this section may be expended without specific statutory authorization for the Secretary of State or the Office of the Secretary of State to commence or participate in a lawsuit commenced in a court outside Wyoming in which the State, the Secretary of State, or the Office of the Secretary of State is not a named party,” the footnote states.

The Legislature has a history of challenging the powers of the five elected state officials, but the footnote was unacceptable to members of the Freedom Caucus and their allies. That included Rep. Chris Knapp (R-Gillette), who introduced a second-reading amendment to remove the footnote.

The secretary of state’s office “needs the authority to act quickly,” Knapp told the House floor.

“I want to emphasize that our secretary of state has a vested interest in free and fair elections,” said Freedom Caucus member Rep. Jeanette Ward (R-Casper). “And if our neighboring states start doing strange things, that can affect us.”

However, Rep. Clark Stith (R-Rock Springs) said the fundamental question was: How many CEOs does our state have?

“If any of the five elected state officials can file a lawsuit and take a position for the state of Wyoming outside of our state lines … our state is not speaking with one voice,” Stith said. “It is the obligation and perhaps sometimes the duty of our chief executive to take those positions, but we cannot have five different chief executives for the state.”

Some lawmakers felt the budget was not the appropriate place for such a footnote.

Others said that if the Legislature wanted such restrictions, it should also apply them to the state auditor, the state treasurer, and the superintendent of public instruction. On third reading, the House did just that via an amendment, but in the end, none of the process restrictions made it into the final budget bill that passed both chambers.

Aftermath

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in March to reinstate Trump in Colorado’s primary, but the mailers have brought the issue back into focus for Wyoming voters just before early voting begins on July 23.

Bear supported the PAC’s mailings and encouraged WyoFile to “be aware of the mailings sent by Americans for Prosperity when handling election mail.”

Zwonitzer, meanwhile, said it is “a new low in Wyoming political history.”

“I want to believe that people read (the mailers) and say, ‘This is completely idiotic and stupid,’ but (the PAC) has to send them out because they think it’s somehow effective,” Zwonitzer said.

Reps. Larsen, Larson and Wylie had not responded to WyoFile at the time of going to press.

The primaries are on August 20.

Did a mailer show up in your mailbox? What about your text messages? Let WyoFile help you review campaign materials and track campaign activity. Send us what you have at [email protected]

This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent, nonprofit news organization focused on the people, places and policies of Wyoming.

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