By Hannah Shields
Wyoming Tribune Eagle
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

CHEYENNE — In his nearly 20 years of serving in the Wyoming Legislature, there’s little left that could surprise Rep. Dan Zwonitzer. But when the Cheyenne Republican counted 17 attack mailers that were sent out to residents of his district within a span of 40 days targeting his voting record, he was shocked.

Attack mailers are not a new issue in Wyoming. They have infiltrated the Cowboy State’s elections over the past few cycles, sent from both in-state and out-of-state interest groups, as well as some of the candidates.

This year, however, the issue has reached new levels. One attack mailer targeting two freshman representatives from Sweetwater County last month even sparked a defamation lawsuit in response.

Zwonitzer said he’s seen, at most, one or two mailers targeting him in past elections — this year, he received nearly nine times that amount. Most, he said, are directed at a group of Republicans “who have historically stood up to the (Wyoming) Freedom Caucus.”

Five of the mailers were sent directly from his opponent, Ann Lucas, who was endorsed by the Freedom Caucus, Zwonitzer said. Two more were sent from the Wyoming Freedom political action committee, the official PAC of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

The remaining 10 were sent by out-of-state interest groups.

Zwonitzer said these attack ads “are filled with some lies, some mistruths, some distortions.”

“Dan Zwonitzer sides with radical union bosses over parents,” one reads.

“Dan Zwonitzer will allow men to kick women off their well deserved podiums,” reads another.

“Dan Zwonitzer created a group to destroy election integrity in Wyoming,” reads a third. On the flip side, it said, “Dan Zwonitzer is trying to weaken the elections President Trump fought to secure.”

Zwonitzer isn’t the only lawmaker who’s seen an unusual influx of out-of-state attack ads. 

Rep. Clark Stith, R-Rock Springs, said he’s been targeted by four attack ads this election cycle from out-of-state interest groups.

“This is the very first time that I’ve been faced with significant out-of-state money attacking me,” Stith said.

Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), Make Liberty Win and Students for Life of America are some of the out-of-state dark money groups that have been sending the attack ads. “Dark money” refers to the funds raised by nonprofit organizations with the sole purpose of influencing election cycles. These groups are not required to disclose the identities of their donors.

YAL is a libertarian student organization headquartered in Texas. Students for Life is an anti-abortion student organization based out of Virginia, and Make Liberty Win is a Virginia-based dark money group. 

Rep. Tom Walters, R-Casper, said he’s received four attack mailers against him this year, and he thinks “it’s getting worse.”

“It’s just not why I’m in politics,” Walters said. “To be combative and negative like that, just is unusual — especially in the high volume, and especially from the out-of-state folks that have no idea what they’re talking about.”

‘Gotcha amendments’

The American Federation for Children, a Betsy DeVos-backed dark money group, recently mailed a political attack ad that claimed Zwonitzer was against parental rights in education. The representative speculated this referred to his vote against a bill in the 2024 session that established education savings accounts. This account provides funds for families living below 150% of the federal poverty level to send their child to a K-12 private school, plus school expenses.

Zwonitzer told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle he was in favor of ESAs. However, there were added amendments to the bill that made it unconstitutional, and he ended up voting against the final product. Attorneys and the executive branch also found the bill to be unconstitutional, Zwonitzer said, and Gov. Mark Gordon made several line item vetoes before signing it.

Despite this, Zwonitzer said he’s still getting flagged for it.

“No one ever provides context,” Zwonitzer said. “They just say I voted against this bill, so I must be a bad person, without explaining why.”

There were at least seven other bills he and other lawmakers had voted against for constitutional reasons. Zwonitzer speculated that these bills were designed to be used as “cheap shots in the next campaign.”

“I mean, they weren’t legitimate bills in the legitimate process to begin with,” Zwonitzer said. “And that’s what’s really disturbing, because most people don’t follow the Legislature. They don’t understand that.”

Walters said several bills pushed by House Freedom Caucus members are being used as “campaign fodder.”

“We’re seeing that this campaign season,” Walters said. “They’re misleading what the vote was really about in so many instances, and that never used to be the case.”

Freedom Caucus member Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, said he wasn’t aware of any bills that had a hidden agenda. The ESA bill in Wyoming was modeled after passed versions of bills in other states, Haroldson said, many of which had state constitutions with provisions similar to Wyoming’s.

“I haven’t seen a bill yet — at least in the last couple sessions — that I felt was intended just to try to catch someone,” Henderson said. “I don’t believe that’s the case.”

Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, who chairs the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, said some lawmakers will claim that a bill’s amendment is “unconstitutional” to excuse their “nay” vote.

“One legislator is not the arbiter of what is constitutional,” Bear said.

The constitutionality of a bill cannot solely be determined by the Legislature, he added — there’s a system of checks and balances for a reason. The governor is able to line-item veto or refuse to sign a bill if he finds it unconstitutional. Citizens who claim that a law is unconstitutional can contest it in court.

Both Rep. Pepper Ottman, R-Riverton, a member of the Freedom Caucus, and Haroldson said it is a natural part of the process to question the constitutionality of an amendment to a bill. “That’s the beauty of the body. We should be bringing forth questions of constitutionality,” Haroldson said. “Our job is to have this steering document, our Constitution, not only the Wyoming Constitution, but (also) the federal Constitution, and we should be using that as we bring about change in our statutes.”

The Wheatland representative echoed Bear’s comments that some lawmakers “hide behind the constitutionality conversation” when voting against a bill.

Ottman said there are times when a lawmaker will vote against a bill because of a bad amendment, and it’s not necessarily because they were against the idea behind the bill.

“There’s some really good bills that somebody will amend to put an astronomical appropriation on it to make it fail,” Ottman said. “So would it look like I voted against something that I was really for? Yeah, it looks that way. But the reason I did it was because there was a horrible amendment put in there to make it look bad.”

Both Ottman and Haroldson told the WTE they were not targeted by any attack mailers, sent either by in-state or out-of-state interest groups, to their knowledge.

Working with the Freedom Caucus 

When Rep. Cody Wylie, R-Rock Springs, started his first week in the Wyoming Legislature, the freshman representative said he was approached by a lawmaker who identified themself as a member of the Freedom Caucus. The lawmaker — whose name Wylie didn’t want to reveal — told him to “vote with us 90% of the time.”

Wylie refused. 

“It made me defensive,” Wylie said. “You’re not going to strong-arm me. … That’s just against everything that we promised people when we swore our oaths.”

When the WTE asked Bear about this accusation, the Freedom Caucus chairman denied that such a thing would ever take place.

“I would push back that that statement is false, that someone would say, ‘Vote with us 90% of the time,’” Bear said. “We don’t hold that standard amongst ourselves.”

This is Wylie’s first reelection campaign, and he’s already found himself the target of political attack ads — one of which sparked the lawsuit.

An attack mailer circulated by the Wyoming Freedom PAC falsely claimed he and Rep. J.T. Larson, R-Rock Springs, another freshman lawmaker, voted to remove presidential candidate Donald Trump from the Wyoming ballot in November, according to reporting by WyoFile.com.

No such vote has ever taken place in the Wyoming Legislature.

“It’s not about policy, it’s about power,” Wylie said. “And there’s a power grab going on right now in Cheyenne.”

Bear pushed back, however.

“You can see the accuracy in our mailers, compared to those out-of-state mailers,” he said.

Several House lawmakers who have been in the Legislature for a decade said there’s been a notable shift in their ability to work with the entire body. The House is much more polarized now than it was six years ago, Stith said, when he was first elected into office.

“What’s new this campaign season is to have sitting incumbents from the Freedom Caucus attacking other Republican members of the House,” Stith said. “We haven’t really had that before.”

The Rock Springs representative speculated this will likely “make it more difficult to work collaboratively” in the 2025 general session. Bear denied such allegations of incompatibility, and other Freedom Caucus lawmakers said they’ve worked with House Democrats to bring forth amendments on pieces of legislation in the past.

“I want to be able to go and have a drink with Mike Yin after we’re done fighting on the floor,” Bear said, referring to the Democratic House minority leader. “Liz Storer (a Democrat from Jackson) and I have brought amendments together. … It was an amendment to a bill that both sets of our constituents would benefit from.”

During the 2024 budget session, however, members of the Freedom Caucus acted as a voting bloc to kill a record number of committee bills this year, WyoFile reported. When not in session, lawmakers hold committee meetings over the interim to draft bills. These bills, if passed by the committee, are the result of months of research, collaboration with state department heads and public testimony — not to mention thousands of taxpayer dollars.

Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, said this was “one of the most frustrating things” about the 2024 budget session.

“I’ve never seen a committee bill not pass introduction, and they had enough votes to keep us from getting two-thirds (required for introduction of non-budget bills),” Larsen said. “They just flushed them down the toilet. … They didn’t allow the voice of the people to be heard.”

Bear said these committee bills were dictated by legislative leadership and didn’t properly represent the will of the people, claiming that public testimony is ignored. He also said that those who did publicly testify were paid lobbyists.