• State law prohibits political parties from financially backing one of their candidates over another before the primary election. The GOP says that’s unconstitutional.

By Maggie Mullen, WyoFile.com

The Wyoming Republican Party filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging the constitutionality of a state law that prohibits political parties from financially backing one of their candidates over another until primary voters decide on a nominee. 

The long-anticipated suit comes two months before a hotly contested primary election where party officials want the freedom to endorse certain Republicans. 

“The Wyoming Republican Party brings this suit to protect its First Amendment Rights of free speech and free association,” the complaint states. 

It is a misdemeanor for a political party to expend any party funds “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. 

“This unconstitutionally censors the WYGOP,” the complaint states. 

At the party’s state convention in April, GOP Chairman Bryan Miller announced the organization was mounting such a legal challenge, which coincides with newly adopted party bylaws that establish a framework to vet, endorse and financially back Republican candidates ahead of the primary. 

For several years, the Wyoming Republican Party has argued that because it is a private group, state laws ought not to govern its organizational structure and internal business. Opponents, meanwhile, say the organization can’t ignore the law, particularly since the party has public duties such as filing vacancies in elected offices like secretary of state or schools superintendent. 

The dispute has resulted in several court cases and more than one controversy. Just last week, a judge ordered the party to follow state law in its local leadership elections. Thursday’s federal lawsuit is the latest development. 

Historically, the party would back whichever Republican won in the primaries. But more recently, the party has been more selective in supporting candidates after they’ve won in August. The party, for example, only donated to certain Republican nominees ahead of the 2024 general election, according to campaign finance data. 

Now, as the lawsuit describes, the party “would like to contribute amounts determined by its leadership to one Republican candidate in various competitive, opposed primaries whom the party determines is most aligned with the WYGOP’s platform.”

“But this is prohibited by [state law,]” the complaint states. 

The party also says it would like to spend money publishing and distributing voter guides ranking and expressly endorsing candidates based on their alignment with the GOP platform. It also seeks to publish that guide online. 

Those actions are currently illegal, the lawsuit states, but such statutes are unconstitutional. 

“The State of Wyoming has no compelling interest in preventing a political party from expressing a preference among its own primary candidates or in dictating how a political party allocates its private funds among such candidates,” the complaint states. 

The law also burdens the party’s associational rights by displacing its “internal decisions about how to support its preferred candidates with a state imposed rule of neutrality during the primary,” the party argues. 

The complaint points to a recent example highlighted by WyoFile in 2024, when a political action committee affiliated with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus returned thousands of dollars to the Crook County GOP after an election-code complaint was filed. 

The lawsuit, filed Thursday, names Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray as a defendant in his official capacity as the chief elections officer.

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.