Both the Wyoming and Idaho Freedom Caucuses joined the D.C.-based national network of far-right political blocs two years ago, but they’ve since traveled two very different roads.
After a successful August primary, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus is poised to take control of the state House in November. Meanwhile, its Idaho counterpart has splintered, leaving original members fighting with a new collection of lawmakers being recruited by the State Freedom Caucus Network.
Opinion
The Gem State schism has grown so petty that the two factions are squabbling over who owns the rights to the Idaho Freedom Caucus logo.
“If all this sounds improbable, well, it isn’t,” Randy Stapilus, who covers Idaho politics, wrote in an Idaho State Journal op-ed. “Given the nature of what underlies these groups, it’s probably better seen as inevitable. The other states with Freedom Caucuses are on notice.”
Still, of the dozen network members, the Idaho Freedom Caucus is the only one that has thus far imploded. Is it an outlier, or a warning sign to extremists who have banded together to take over their respective statehouses?
The answer will help determine if Wyoming’s Freedom Caucus can successfully make the transition from a group of obstructionists to a functional governing body that’s able to pass its own agenda.
A loose-knit Wyoming Freedom Caucus formed in 2016 with roughly a half-dozen members, modeled after the GOP’s U.S. House Freedom Caucus that started a year earlier. There was little movement in its ranks until about 20 Republican incumbents and candidates met in Story in September 2020 to vent their frustration over their inability to ban abortion and eliminate gun regulations. They shared fundamental beliefs in smaller government, minimal taxes and a bare-bones state budget.
In 2021, the Freedom Caucus had about 18 members who could reliably be counted on to vote as a bloc. After the 2022 election, the caucus grew to about 26.
It was six votes short of the majority at the time, but its new-found strength was a wake-up call to “traditional” conservatives who formed the Wyoming Caucus in response.
Then a dramatic shift in legislative power occurred this year. Thanks to the requirement that bills must have two-thirds support to be introduced in the budget session, on opening day the Freedom Caucus killed 13 committee-passed measures that would have normally sailed through the process.
The war between the two groups began in earnest, and the battleground was the Republican primary election in August. The Freedom Caucus had a net gain of three House seats and is strongly positioned to obtain a clear majority in November.
The Freedom Caucuses in Wyoming and Idaho joined the State Freedom Caucus Network in 2022. Leaders made separate trips to D.C. to learn more about the network’s tactics, which emphasized an us-versus-them divide between members of the populist state caucuses flying under its banner and the demonized “RINOs” — Republicans in name only.
The Wyoming group hasn’t accomplished everything on the national network’s long list of priorities, including a ban on teaching “critical race theory.” But far-right lawmakers successfully sponsored abortion bans currently on hold pending court action, as well as anti-transgender bills and the diversion of state public-school funds to private and religious schools.
By contrast, the short history of the Idaho Freedom Caucus reads like the playbook for a team bent on self-destruction. The Idaho caucus is much smaller than Wyoming’s, which allows anyone to join. According to Stapilus, the 12 Freedom Caucus members in Idaho had to be vetted and invited, but they couldn’t agree on their mission, and several didn’t like their organization’s subservient relationship with the network.
A secretly taped recording of a fractious meeting was leaked to the public last May. Squaring off were the Idaho state director for the State Freedom Caucus Network and a caucus co-chair who backed moderate positions of the speaker of the House. Both sides were angry and couldn’t wait to break away from each other.
In a newsletter earlier this month, the Idaho Freedom Caucus outlined its beef with the national network and the director, who was described as “more in line with the [network] than Caucus members, making the ongoing situation untenable.” The caucus claimed the network ordered it “to be dissolved and re-formed on the conditions that it alter its self-governing structure, rewrite its bylaws, and adhere to a rigid D.C.-driven agenda.”
Sounds like a whole lot of freedom going on, doesn’t it?
The national caucus network cut off financial and administrative support, and the former director was tasked with forming a competing state Freedom Caucus, according to the Idaho Freedom Caucus newsletter.
But Stapilus wrote that the feisty original group, now down to seven members after resignations and primary losses, isn’t going away. The caucus declared it will “follow its own path,” and hired a former state senator as the new director.
Like Wyoming, Idaho’s far-right made significant gains by defeating more moderate opponents in the GOP primary. But it’s uncertain whether those wins will translate into a chance to control the Idaho House, or if the feud will continue to sap the group’s power.
Wyoming’s Freedom Caucus, to my knowledge, hasn’t been handicapped by such disputes. The members’ common bond seems to be the need to control the House, support senators who align with Freedom Caucus positions and elect more of their own to state offices, including the governorship. Chuck Gray, a member of the caucus when he was in the House, was elected secretary of state in 2022.
I don’t see a backlash here against the network’s leadership, largely because its campaign strategy has helped elect new Freedom Caucus members. The bare-knuckled tactics the network encourages, including mailers that opponents charge lied about their voting records, were key to several victories.
“I took 22 hit pieces in the mail and 10 text messages against me, and that negativity works,” Rep. Dan Zwonitzer of Cheyenne, a Wyoming Caucus member who lost his bid for an 11th term, told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. He added it’s “the new normal, and that’s what bothers me.”
There have always been negative campaigns, but the 2024 Republican primary sunk to a new low in many districts. As its members try to build coalitions to help them govern, the Freedom Caucus should remember how the ex-Idaho director framed its work before the rebellion: “We can save the nation one state at a time, and the State Freedom Caucus has the formula.”
National groups have resources to help, but sometimes the reward isn’t worth the pain of complying to unbending rules, especially ones at odds with legislators’ views of their own state’s priorities.
I wonder why more Republicans aren’t worried about the clash between those who want to rigidly adhere to the extreme-right platform of the Wyoming Republican Party and the traditional conservative wing. It’s the perfect recipe to tear a political party apart.
An example of what can happen when a state caucus refuses to follow an unwanted national “formula” is only one state to our west. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus should take that lesson to heart, especially since it’s following orders from the same master that led to the implosion in Idaho.
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