Lawmakers press one another, secretary of state, for solutions to misleading mailers

Frustration over ugly and potentially illegal politicking boiled over into a legislative meeting Wednesday, with lawmakers who’ve been on the receiving end of attacks pressing for answers while colleagues with links to the group that sent the mailers looked on.

The debate, which took place near the end of a Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivision Committee meeting, later drew in Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who was pressed about whether his office, which oversees elections, would investigate the situation.

“I’ve had so many constituents come to me this year on the question of elections,” Sen. Bill Landen (R-Casper) said at the meeting in Evanston.

Landen is not up for reelection this year, but said that hasn’t stopped voters from asking him what lawmakers are “going to do about misleading and outright lies in mailers.”

“I wonder if you share the concern about what’s going on in our Wyoming politics now?” Landen asked Gray. “It just feels like we’re sliding down the slope. And when you have mailers like that go out, I’ve seen them in my district … and I just think, ‘Wow, we’re getting to a pretty dangerous level here.’”

Dirty campaigning is far from new to Wyoming, but voters, candidates and longtime politicos say it’s reached a new level this election cycle, particularly when it comes to political action committees and out-of-state interest groups.

One series of PAC mailers has already sparked a defamation suit . Another PAC attracted a cease-and-desist letter after it used the photograph of a Virginia man in mailers to portray a Wyoming man running for office.

As secretary of state, Gray oversees the administration of statewide elections, including legislative races.

“Political life has always, there’s always been a vibrant back and forth,” Gray said in his response to Landen, adding that he’s recently been reading about the American Civil War and early American history.

“And the idea the media tries to create that this is new, I just highly disagree with it,” Gray said.

Whether the state of affairs is unusual was one question, but another drove the committee’s discussion. Lawmakers wrestled with what, if anything, is to be done by the Legislature to address voters’ concerns about deceptive mailers and by who? By the Secretary of State? Or by candidates themselves?

Meeting

The discussion began during the public comment portion of the meeting.

“Most of you have heard in the news lately that there have been mailers circling around our state that have inaccurate claims about legislators making votes on things that we never voted on,” Rep. J.T. Larson (R-Rock Springs) told the committee.

Larson is a plaintiff in a defamation suit recently filed against the political action committee affiliated with the hard-line Wyoming Freedom Caucus. While it’s normal for politicians to complain about their opponents’ attacks, it’s rare for frustrations to culminate in defamation suits, which are difficult to prove against public figures.

The PAC has targeted non-Freedom Caucus members with mailers that accuse them of voting to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot. The Wyoming Legislature has never in its history voted on whether to keep or remove Trump from any ballot.

“I just think that we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this if we don’t address it as a state,” Larson, who testified remotely in his capacity as a candidate, told lawmakers.

His remarks came at the end of the committee’s two-day meeting. Lawmakers had mostly focused on telecommunications, electricity, housing and business fraud.

But Larson’s comments compelled the committee to address an issue where its own members have found themselves on opposing sides.

Rep. Cody Wylie (R-Rock Springs), Larson’s co-plaintiff, sat on one end of the table, while the two members of the Freedom Caucus present at the meeting — Reps. Jeremy Haroldson (R-Wheatland) and Pepper Ottman (R-Riverton) — sat at the other.

“I definitely am aware of what happened, and I find it appalling,” Chairman Sen. Cale Case (R-Lander) said in response to Larson’s comments.

“The ability of this committee to do anything about that in a timely manner for this election is absolutely zero,” Case said in reference to the primary election being about three weeks away. “But it is important to register your concerns and the concerns of people all around Wyoming.”

Case also brought up freedom of speech, calling it “a very, very powerful, constitutional right.”

In the meantime, Case said, how the courts handle the case will inform how lawmakers address the issue in the future.

Rep. Mike Yin (D-Jackson) raised a related concern about the Crook County Republican Party reportedly donating $25,000 , according to Cowboy State Daily, to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ PAC.

“I do have a concern on whether one of those groups is breaking the law and whether that’s being investigated in any way,” Yin said, before encouraging Joe Rubino, general counsel for the secretary of state, to approach the microphone to answer.

“Political party funds” are prohibited from being “expended directly or indirectly in the aid of the nomination of any one person as against another person of the same political party running in the primary election,” according to state law.

“We take all election complaints very seriously,” Rubino told the committee. “All allegations of any alleged violation of the election code very seriously, and we’ll review those when we receive them.”

Yin asked several questions about the secretary of state’s recent press release announcing an investigation into ActBlue, a left-leaning political action committee and fundraising platform, and whether voters could expect a similar investigation into the Crook County GOP’s donations.

Gray said his office would wait for the county party’s campaign finance report, and in the meantime, “we invite everybody to file complaints if there is an issue in terms of [the election code].”

People have filed such complaints in the recent past. After several were lodged last fall, Gray determined anonymous mailers attacking Reps. Barry Crago (R-Buffalo) and Steve Harshman (R-Casper) did not violate election laws, mostly on account of their timing.

Back and forth

Gray also challenged the idea that the ballot mailers on the supposed Trump vote were spreading false information.

“That is in the eye of the beholder,” Gray said. “I’ve talked to both sides of this issue. There are many people that believe that those mailers are an accurate reflection in their opinions. And there’s a venue for this to be debated. And I think many people may very well be called to the witness stand and give their opinions on every one of these mailers.”

Wylie then asked Gray a direct question.

“Did you ever see anything hit your desk where I voted to remove President Trump from the ballot?” Wylie asked.

Gray did not answer yes or no, but pointed to the budget footnote the PAC and Freedom Caucus leadership have credited as the equivalent of such a vote.

“That’s the fact pattern on what happened,” Gray said.

The two Freedom Caucus members on the committee — Haroldson and Ottman — stayed mum during the discussion aside from Haroldson suggesting, without immediate success, that lawmakers move on from the conversation.

Roughly fifty minutes into the discussion, lawmakers did just that.

“This has been a lot of fun. I don’t see that there’s a lot of resolution,” Case said.

“I will tell you, that if Mr. Wiley were running against me in my district, in a primary, and that mailer came out making that assertion, I would stand up and denounce that mailer, that that is wrong,” Case said. “What I’m trying to say is that we all share an obligation to police this individually and to hold ourselves to high standards.”

The primary is Aug. 20. Early voting is currently underway.

To learn more about Wyoming candidates for federal and legislative races check out WyoFile’s 2024 Election Guide .

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