Editor's Note: This article was originally published February 17, 2024 during the Wyoming Legislative Budget Session.
The bill was
House Joint Resolution 2. It was written by Representative and UW law
professor, Democrat Ken Chestek of Laramie, Wyoming. Essentially, the bill
would include Wyoming in a petition for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution
to ban what Democrats call dark money in politics. Dark money, as it is defined
by Ken Chestek and his political action group Wyoming Promise, is campaign
money given to mostly Republican candidates by political action
committees--many of whom do not have to release their donors to the public. The
same donations exist for Democrats, it's just that Chestek's group doesn't
usually target them.
Chestek claimed, in a floor speech to introduce his legislation, that these
campaign donations are made possible by a United States Supreme Court decision,
Citizens United. The decision plainly said that money is free speech; and as
such, political contributions made by corporations are as well. The decision
had the result of allowing conservative organizations to compete with Democrat
funding operations such as the Democracy Alliance, Arabella Advisors and
others; who, for years have funneled vast sums of money to a litany of left
wing causes and candidates.
Chestek's resolution failed to receive a ⅔ vote in the Wyoming House of Representatives. During
Wyoming's budget session, any bill aside from the budget must receive an
introduction vote of ⅔ before it can even be discussed. That evening, the Wyoming Caucus, a
group of far-left Republican legislators, pounced by sending out a blistering email to
their followers chiding conservatives for voting against the bill. One such
email, purporting to be a recap of Day 2 of the legislative session said:
“These bills
were designed to address real threats to the election process such as reporting on
campaign finances and allowing Wyoming to make its own laws around whether
anonymous out-of-state actors can send mailers attacking politicians in
Wyoming. The members of the Freedom Caucus had the chance to create laws that
would enforce their stated positions, but they declined to do so.”
In other words, according to the Wyoming Caucus, limiting free speech and
preventing Wyoming Citizens from participating in the political process is
somehow part of the conservative ethos. Furthermore, their insistence that
anonymous political writings are somehow illegitimate is laughably
preposterous. I’m not surprised that Barry Crago and Clark Stith have forgotten
the importance of the Silence Dogood Letters or the Federalist Papers—both of
which were written anonymously.
That email, and several like it, was composed by Rebekah Fitzgerald in the
Wyoming House of Representatives Speaker Pro-Tempore's office--located on the
gallery level of the House in the Wyoming Capitol. Rep. Clark Stith, the WY
Speaker Pro-Tempore, is a vocal member of the Wyoming Caucus.
The 31 Representatives that make up the Wyoming Caucus have average voting
records that demonstrate that they side with Democrats 85% of the time. Stith
himself votes with his Democrat colleagues 80.16% of the time. Not a
conservative record, to say the least.
How do I
know that the emails in question were written in Stith's office? Because I
watched the Wyoming Caucus’s paid political consultant, lobbyist and PAC
treasurer Rebekah Fitzgerald walk in and out of it numerous times for a solid
week. That, and Cowboy State Politics obtained several videos of her doing so.
It is clear that Stith’s office is her base of operations.
To my knowledge, there are no other lobbyists working in the Wyoming Capitol
that have access to a House leadership office except Stith’s, nor should they.
The reason members of House Leadership have offices in the first place is to
conduct the business of the Wyoming House of Representatives, not to conduct
political campaigns.
In Wyoming, it is against the law for a candidate for public office to campaign
on government–either city,
county or state–property. It's for good reason too. Essentially, it would amount to using
the power of whatever office for political purposes. Fitzgerald works for the
Wyoming Caucus PAC and thus is campaigning for them in the Wyoming House of
Representatives.
A lobbyist works and advocates for private parties and causes. In the House
chamber, it is against the rules to wear any clothing that depicts a political
message. Often, activists wearing shirts for one cause or another are asked to
leave the gallery or to cover up the message. It must certainly be, and is,
against House rules for a lobbyist to set up shop in an office in the People’s
House, no matter what the cause.
If that weren’t enough,
Rebekah Fitzgerald isn’t just the Wyoming Caucus’s political consultant. According to the Wyoming Secretary
of State’s website, since
March of 2023, Fitzgerald has been the treasurer of the Wyoming Caucus
Political Action Committee. It is a committee formed for the sole purpose of
fundraising for the most liberal members of the House. Considering her
position, it’s clear that the
Speaker Pro-tempore’s office is also being used for political fundraising.
There are only two people who could have given Rebekah Fitzgerald access to
that office: Rep Clark Stith or Wyoming Speaker of the House Albert Sommers.
Back to the emails. They are the work of Fitzgerald and her company R5
Strategies Group. According to the Wyoming Secretary of State's website,
Fitzgerald is a registered lobbyist for R5 Strategies and another political
group called “Wyoming FREE.” Wyoming FREE is a political
organization focused on liberal politics. Their website contains a laundry list
of articles campaigning against dark money and against conservative causes. The
treasurer of this group is Republican Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, and former Republican
Rep. Shelly Duncan is the group’s president. Duncan is also a lobbyist for the
LGBTQ activist organization Wyoming Equality. The director of Wyoming FREE is
none other than Rebekah Fitzgerald.
For a solid week, Fitzgerald and another lobbyist and political operative have been diligently working out of Stith’s office sending out emails to her mailing list and
finding new and inventive ways to attack conservatives. All of their emails
contain barely half-truths about what transpired in the House.
Truly, you’d be better off
subscribing to email alerts from the Wyoming Democrat party. At least those
folks are honest about who they are. And their lobbyist, their paid political
consultant and the treasurer of their PAC is not working out of a legislative
office.
And then there’s what Wyoming
Statutes have to say about the Fitzgerald/Wyoming Caucus arrangement. State
Statute 9-13-105 (a) clearly prohibits the use of State of Wyoming facilities
for political use. “A public official [Clark Stith], public member or public employee shall
not use public funds, time, personnel, facilities or equipment for his private benefit or that of
another unless the use is authorized by law.”
Subsection
(b) of that statute is even more clear, adding that public facilities shall not
be used for “political or campaign activity.” There is no question that Rebekah
Fitzgerald and others are engaged in political activity in the Speaker
Pro-Tempore’s office, and
that it is clearly prohibited by Wyoming law. In Colorado and other states,
violating this law would result in arrest.
The Wyoming Caucus PAC itself deserves more than a little scrutiny. It
functions opposite every other political action committee. Politicians donate to it and not the
other way around. According to the Wyoming Campaign Finance Information System,
to date, 16 members of the Wyoming Caucus have donated $24,820.51 to their own
PAC. That doesn’t include thousands donated by former liberal legislators and
failed left-leaning Republican candidates.
Clearly, they have enough campaign contributors without having to donate to
their own campaigns. The only reason the Wyoming Caucus members would do this
is that it’s an investment.
They are investing in a political endeavor they believe they’ll personally benefit from. In this
way, the Wyoming Caucus functions much more like the Democrats than the
Republicans.
JoAnn True is listed as the chairman of the Wyoming Caucus PAC and Rebekah
Fitzgerald is listed as its treasurer—both of whom have been seen in Stith’s Speaker Pro-Tempore office.
In addition, True was a registered lobbyist with the Wyoming Secretary of State during the 2024 legislative session. Lobbyists are not granted use of leadership offices. Multiple people witnessed both True and Fitzgerald using Stith's office.
It’s true that in American politics the left always accuses the right of what they, themselves are doing. Members of the Wyoming Caucus have written numerous op-eds accusing the Wyoming Freedom Caucus of engaging in “Washington D.C. style politics.”
In truth, it is the liberal wing of the Republican Party in Wyoming that is doing that very thing. It’s clear they see no problem in their paid lobbyists, PAC officials, and paid political consultants setting up shop in the People’s House. And they don’t seem to have an issue with electioneering in a House Leadership office. It’s unethical, and it’s wrong—two words that are synonymous with the Wyoming Caucus. And in Wyoming, what they are doing is against the law.