Let Wyoming voters decide

Wyoming Republicans do not need a permission slip from party insiders to know who is conservative enough to earn their votes.

That is the real issue behind the state GOP’s move toward loyalty tests, pre-primary endorsements and party-backed candidate vetting. It is not just an argument over bylaws. It is part of a larger and troubling pattern in Wyoming politics: taking decisions away from local voters and placing them in the hands of a smaller, louder group that believes it knows better.

That should bother people in Johnson County and the state.

We take our elections seriously. In the 2024 primary, Johnson County had one of the highest turnout rates in Wyoming, while many other counties saw far lower participation. We studied the candidates. We showed up. We made our choices. That is how the system is supposed to work.

Now the state party is saying that is not enough.

The message is insulting. It suggests that ordinary Republican voters cannot be trusted to sort through a primary ballot without help from on high. It implies that the people are too stupid, uninformed or easily fooled to decide who best represents them.

That is not conservatism. That is control.

The hard-right, Freedom Caucus-aligned wing continues to exert major influence over the state party. The push for loyalty-based candidate vetting and pre-primary endorsements is one more sign of that influence. So is the willingness to pick a fight with Wyoming election law.

The state GOP is a private organization, and it may have legal arguments worth testing. But at this moment, Wyoming law forbids a party from putting its thumb on the scale for one Republican over another in a primary. If party leaders want to change that law, they should make their case in the Legislature, not simply declare themselves above it.

There is also an irony here that should not be missed. The very people that so often warn against outside control are bringing in high-powered lawyers from Washington, D.C., to help decide a Wyoming question. Wyoming people are told to distrust Washington until Washington is useful to consolidate power.

Voters should ask a simple question: Would the Republicans we have supported in the past pass an arbitrary purity test? Or would they be judged insufficiently loyal by people who confuse disagreement with disloyalty?

The last legislative session showed that many of their far-right ideas do not match our values. Yet a small group keeps trying to force those ideas through anyway.

Wyoming does not need gatekeepers. It needs voters. And we have already proven that we are capable of making our own decisions.