The Wyoming Legislature’s Republican supermajority doesn’t mean everybody gets along at the statehouse. A deep divide in the GOP spurred by the far right, with few Democrats to balance things out, has made lawmaking a contentious and dysfunctional process. By telling voters whether lawmakers supposedly possess or lack “integrity,” a new organization could help give the far right even more control.
Opinion
That doesn’t mean Honor Wyoming, which is about a year old, will be successful. I hope it isn’t, because I think it would be a disaster for the state. The lawmakers it has praised as the best in Wyoming are not actually focused on governing, but on national hot-button social issues like abortion, banning books and anti-LGBTQ bills.
These are legislators who made the 2024 budget session a hot mess — one of the worst in state history. Wyomingites will pay the price for their ineptitude for a long time, and they deserve to be given the boot.
But Honor Wyoming, despite its recent arrival, definitely gives the House Freedom Caucus and like-minded Senate candidates an opportunity to build momentum leading into the Aug. 20 primary election. The organization, like many political groups, produces a ranking of lawmakers, in this case one that places them into one of three categories — “Top Hand,” “Fence Sitter” and “Clown” — based on how they voted on certain bills. Other factors are adherence to party platforms and the U.S. and Wyoming constitutions.
Honor Wyoming’s “Brand Book” doesn’t give the designation of Top Hand, which denotes high integrity, to all of the legislators who generally vote as a bloc for Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ positions. But all 20 lawmakers in the House who received that label do belong to the Freedom Caucus. No members of the “traditional” conservatives or moderates in the competing House Wyoming Caucus made the grade.
Three Republicans were deemed Fence-Sitters. Thirty-one other GOP members and all five Democrats in the body were dubbed Clowns.
There’s also no question where Honor Wyoming stands politically in the Senate, where far-right members aligned with the Freedom Caucus are in the minority by a small margin. Ten hardline conservatives were named Top Hands. Three were Fence-Sitters and 18 senators, including both Democrats, were Clowns.
Honor Wyoming’s style is similar to a group that operates in neighborning Idaho. It’s no coincidence that Honor Wyoming and the Citizens Alliance of Idaho both exploit the rhetoric of integrity and local values. When Citizens Alliance for Idaho began in 2021 they used slick advertisements on social media that introduced them to voters just like Honor Wyoming did here.
“Personal freedom, integrity, fiscal responsibility, economic prosperity and environmental stewardship are foundational to our way of life,” Honor Wyoming declares on its website.
“Our goal is to bring honesty and integrity back to Idaho politics,” states the Idaho group. “Our confidence in being so transparent comes from our strong belief that our values represent the best of Idaho.”
The major link to both groups is John Guido, a former California resident who now lives in South Dakota. He was co-founder of the Idaho organization and is now lead organizer of Honor Wyoming. He has worked with “more than 40 of the most effective pro-liberty organizations across America,” according to Honor Wyoming’s website.
Another connection is GOP Idaho Rep. Heather Scott, one of the most far-right lawmakers in her state. According to the Idaho Capital Sun, she received the highest ranking from the Citizens Alliance this year. She is frequently embroiled in controversies, from waving a Confederate flag at a parade to supporting a militia group that seized an Oregon federal elk refuge in 2016.
Scott was the keynote speaker at Honor Wyoming’s inaugural event in Jackson. Ozzie Knezovich, a former Washington sheriff who recently moved back to Superior, Wyoming, attended and said Scott “basically gave her stump speech” that preached conservative values.
What sticks out in Knezovich’s mind more than Scott’s words is that none of Honor Wyoming’s leaders would answer his question about whether they were a Republican or Libertarian group.
“They call other Republicans ‘RINOs,’ or Republicans in name only,” the former sheriff told me in a phone interview. “[Honor Wyoming] wants to replicate what they did in Idaho in Wyoming, but they’re doing it under false pretenses. These people are not Republicans, they’re Libertarians.”
I tried to obtain a response from Honor Wyoming about Knezovich’s claim but was not successful.
“How can you argue with a group that says they’re about Wyoming and cowboy values?” Knezovich asked. “The truth is they wouldn’t know a ‘cowboy value’ if it bit ‘em in the ass.”
When Citizens Alliance filed corporation documents, it listed a Boise UPS mailbox as its office. Honor Wyoming used a UPS box in Cheyenne, but switched to Kevin Lewis’ home address after Rep. Mike Yin (D-Jackson) pointed out that a P.O. box isn’t an office under state law. Lewis — an unpaid lobbyist for Honor Wyoming — was a top staff member for Cindy Hill, a Republican and former state superintendent of public instruction.
Honor Wyoming’s four board members have Wyoming ties, but all moved here from other parts of the country: Jimmy Anderson from Maine, Carol Armstrong from Washington, Blair Maus from California and Kerry Powers from Montana. (Full disclosure: I am a New York native who doesn’t agree with the “we don’t care how you do it back home” philosophy that some native and long-term residents favor.)
Still, I can’t help thinking that several Freedom Caucus members who were named “Top Hands” recently moved here, including Rep. Jeanette Ward (R-Casper), who calls herself a “political refugee from Illinois” and campaigns on sticking to Wyoming values. Ward uses her Honor Wyoming high integrity rating in her advertisements.
Honor Wyoming, a nonprofit, is the latest website to rank lawmakers according to how they vote on certain bills. The mysterious organization has spent thousands on social media ads and billboards, but little is known about who is writing the checks or calling the shots. (Screenshot/honorwyoming.org)
Honor Wyoming doesn’t have a political action committee and I have no idea if it plans to, but Citizens Alliance of Idaho does. In this year’s primary its PAC spent nearly $400,000 to promote far-right candidates. It’s worth watching to see if similar action is repeated here. That much money could have a huge impact on Wyoming contests.
As weird as Wyoming campaigns can get when candidates try to “out-conservative” each other, I hope we don’t get as loony as Idaho is. They have so many Republican factions battling, it’s hard to keep up.
Remember Heather Scott, the queen of Idaho’s far right who was invited to speak to Honor Wyoming? In a bombshell that rocked Idaho politics, Maria Nate, head of Idaho’s State Freedom Caucus Network — not to be confused with the Idaho Freedom Caucus — recently accused Scott of not being conservative enough.
In a two-hour secretly taped recording leaked to InvestigateWest, a nonprofit Washington state news outlet, Scott and Nate traded barbs and a few F-bombs over Scott’s support of a moderate Republican for House speaker. “Just remember who the enemy is,” Nate warned Scott, a long-time ally.
I’m not sure which enemy she’s referring to, but InvestigateWest found that Nate’s desire to keep Scott in line was about pleasing a Libertarian-leaning political group that planned to spend $1.1 million on candidates. If more far-right legislators weren’t in charge, the group threatened to pull out of Idaho completely.
Now that’s some real political intrigue, but it’s not political integrity. If Honor Wyoming duplicates that level of inner-GOP fighting, expect future fireworks at the Capitol in Cheyenne.
We need elected officials who listen to the people of Wyoming, not political operatives.
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