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Finance 3 6 25

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Today In Finance: Thursday, March 6, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

If DOGE reviewed family spending.....

Today In Finance: Thursday, March 6, 2025

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Energy

Wyoming has long prided itself on being an energy powerhouse, exporting far more electricity than its residents consume.

The state exports roughly 12 times more power than it uses, a fact regularly touted by data centers planning to build in Wyoming, who suggest their projects will help keep more of that power at home.

But beneath their hopeful rhetoric are a few hard-edged realities that haven’t been talked about as much. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Take Project Jade as just one example. "}]

The massive — or “hyperscale” —data center will come into Wyoming using an initial 2.7 gigawatts of power — roughly three times what the state uses now — and it can scale to 10 gigawatts. 

That’s almost as much power as Wyoming produces in total, according to the federal Energy Information Administration, whose most recent figures list net summer power generation capacity for Wyoming at 10.8 gigawatts in 2024.

Project Jade, meanwhile, isn’t the only large-load proposal in the queue. 

Meta, Related Digital, Microsoft — Cheyenne has 14 data centers that are either under construction or have entered definite planning stages, according to figures from Cheyenne LEADS. 

That makes grid consumption one ginormous elephant trying to squeeze into Wyoming’s electricity room. 

No one is yet sure just how to accommodate the unprecedented power needs of these data centers.

“It’s like comparing the Earth to Jupiter,” state Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s taken us over 100 years to grow the electric grid to where we are today. Over 100 years.”

Now state regulators, utilities and industrial consumers are scrambling to answer the same basic question. How can the electricity grid accommodate this kind of out-size growth without adversely affecting regular residential consumers?

For Wyoming Office of Consumer Advocate Director Anthony Ornelas, the concern isn’t abstract. 

He was blunt about saying that Wyoming’s grid is nowhere near ready to serve the kinds of loads now being contemplated. There’s nowhere that he sees as ready for a 10 gigawatt facility right now.

“I feel very confident in saying that … pretty much anywhere within the state, we are not yet able to handle that type of load growth,” Ornelas said. “It’s going to require new generation, and it’s going to require a substantial amount of high voltage or grid-level transmission build-out as well.”

So far there’s no consensus either on how to get there, even as multiple legislative committees grapple with the questions.

“It’s at the forefront of everyone’s minds,” Ornelas said. “It’s being discussed in the Corporations Committee, in the Minerals Committee, in the Revenue Committee and, I’m less involved, but also the Blockchain Committee.

"Over the past few years, there has been various types and forms of legislation intended to try to get a handle on this or address it … and I would just say there’s a lot of differing opinions depending on which interests are kind of advocating at the moment.”

The only clear consensus, so far, is that whatever solutions are adopted, they must hold regular residential consumers harmless.

Rocky Mountain Power representative Tom Carter told lawmakers during a June 4 Minerals Committee meeting that his company has been working on the problem the past several years. 

“We have conversations about legacy customers and their growth,” he said. “We have conversations around data centers and their growth and opportunities. We have conversations about growth through economic development.”

All of those are different types of loads with different types of challenges. 

For the last century, Rocky Mountain Power’s growth has been built around traditional, “zero-to-25-megawatt” customers, which range from residential consumers to small industrial users and shopping centers, which has grown at a flat rate of around 2 to 3%.

That kind of growth doesn’t trigger much investment due to the regulatory compact utilities operate under. It could mean a substation here or a short line there, nudging capacity forward as communities slowly grow. 

Hyperscale projects, meanwhile, are talking about loads that range from three to 10 times what Wyoming residents consume — a century’s worth of growth in one or two deals.

One problem with those loads, Carter said, is that they often appear speculative in nature.

“Maybe they don’t have an existing customer yet,” he said. “But they could potentially have an existing customer, whether it’s the hyperscaler space or in the economic development world.”

Regardless, there’s no existing revenue model for utilities to handle speculative loads.

“The question we have to ask ourselves, not just as a utility, but as a state, is who should carry the risk on a speculative load?” he said. “The utility does play a role in making this a reality, but we are not necessarily the driver in all economic development. 

"We have a role to play and we want to work with the state, and with this committee, and with our communities and with our customers on making sure these situations can and will move forward.”

Carter added he appreciates seeing what other parts of the state are doing, such as Cheyenne’s large-load tariff, but added that other parts of the state are different, and there “isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.”

“Let’s try not to pigeon-hole a solution,” he said. “But let’s identify ways to allow for regions and industries and organizations to find the solution that works best for them.”

One Model: Cheyenne’s Large-Load Tariff

In Cheyenne, regulators and Black Hills Energy have been wrestling with the questions surrounding large-load data centers for more than a decade.

The utility partnered with Microsoft to develop a large-load tariff designed to ensure that data centers would pay 100% of the cost of serving them power, from infrastructure to the power itself.

“The tariff allows us to provide market energy and renewable energy options to data centers without impact on retail rates and creates a clear separation where the large customer is responsible for the costs associated with the new infrastructure needed to serve them,” Black Hills Energy told Cowboy State Daily in an email. 

“While our existing residential and small business customers remain insulated,” the company adds. "In addition to our LPCS tariff, we use service agreements, facilities agreements, deposits, and other negotiated commitments to manage the energy demands of large use customers and potential customers.”  

That approach has worked well so far to insulate regular consumers in Cheyenne from rate hikes.

“Black Hills Energy’s tariff is working somewhat,” Case said. “It’s hard to say it’s not. It’s brought some large loads onto the system. It’s had the blessing of the Public Service Commission.”

But none of those loads were as big as the proposed loads working their way to Cheyenne.

“Only Tallgrass is doing that kind of load now,” Case said, referencing the company developing Project Jade. “And it’s a ways from being operational.”

Ornelas agreed the tariff has so far done a good job of “isolating those we call hyperscale or data center type loads from the remaining customer base.”

“That includes any energy they purchase from the market,” he said. “It includes any generation capacity that they choose to build or contract to have built. It also includes any upgrades or new builds of transmission facilities to transport that power.”

But the solution hasn’t seemed to work for other parts of the state, Ornelas added, despite numerous attempts at legislation to help unlock the economic potential these types of developments offer.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Federal Solutions Needed?"}]

As Wyoming officials wrestle with how to handle the “Jupiter-sized” loads coming at the state, U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, is pushing a federal fix she says is aimed at protecting grid reliability and ratepayers nationwide.

Lummis on Thursday introduced the POWER Up Act to “modernize rules for high-power grid connections, by creating “clear, uniform federal rules for how massive electricity users — anything with the load of a city like a large data center — connect to the interstate electrical transmission grid.”

Lummis’ bill would define the threshold of a large user as 100 megawatts or more. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) could adjust that figure if needed for grid reliability, the release added.

It would also let FERC handle these large loads, ensuring that data centers and advanced manufacturing facilities get the same “just and reasonable” standard that governs transmission services for power generation. 

FERC would have 18 months to issue a final rule setting standardized procedures for large-load interconnection, including hybrid facilities that pair on-site generation with grid-connected loads at a single point of interconnection.

The bill includes a carve-out for state authority, protecting state and local jurisdictions over siting, permitting, construction, retail rates, local distribution and generation.

“When a facility wants to draw as much power as a city, that is not an ordinary retail question. It is a grid question,” said Lummis. “Ratepayers need a clear process, informed by best practices, clear rules, and clear accountability. That is what this bill provides.”

America needs more power for data centers, Lummis added, as well as advanced manufacturing. It’s a matter of economic and national security. 

“The question is whether we handle that growth with clear rules and reliable planning, or with confusion and delay,” she said. “Massive demand is here, and America needs a framework that supports investment in our communities while protecting the grid and the people who rely on it every day.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mixed Reaction In Wyoming"}]

Reaction in Wyoming to Lummis’ POWER Up Act was mixed. Some warned it would weaken state control, while others welcomed it as a needed framework for massive new power demands.

Case said the bill essentially “federalizes” large-load connections like those coming to Cheyenne. 

“This has implications,” he said. “FERC hasn’t always been the most timely agency to deal with. Large loads are 100 megawatts, so way below the scale talked about by the newest data centers.”

Open access, as required by the bill, meanwhile, will increase competition and could mean utilities aren’t supplying the energy — something Case anticipates utility companies will oppose.

Rocky Mountain Power told Cowboy State Daily by email that it hadn’t had a chance to fully review the proposal, but pointed out that 

Wyoming does have an established framework for large electric loads that is designed to protect reliability and existing customers.

“We look forward to seeing how this proposal complements what the state is doing,” the statement said.

Heather Madrid, who has been circulating a petition against data centers, said she saw the legislation as “good for most places,” but added her concerns are about things like land consumption and squeezing out other businesses, and housing impacts.

“(Data centers don’t generate foot traffic and they’re ugly, fenced-off warehouses,” she said. “It’s unattractive for retail, hospitality, tourism, outdoor recreation, etc.” 

She also lamented the sense that taxpayers and voters have lost their voice “because most of our elected leaders are representing the wealthiest people in the world instead of doing their jobs, which is to protect us from them, not the other way around.”

Cheyenne LEADS Executive Director Betsey Hale called the proposed legislation a “win-win-win-win.”

“(It’s) a win for large users, a win for rate payers, a win for communities, and a win for Wyoming energy,” she said. “Uniformity in regulations and predictability in process are critical for economic growth of all large load users and for protection of existing rate payers.”

Rep. Daniel Singh, R-Cheyenne, on the other hand, sees it as much-needed clarity.

“I’m very glad to see Sen. Lummis leading on this,” he said. “She understands Wyoming’s role as an energy powerhouse, and she has consistently been ahead of the curve on the intersection of energy, technology and federal policy.

Transmission bottlenecks are real, Singh added, especially when it comes to data centers, AI facilities and other large industrial loads coming online. Clearing that up just helps Wyoming, which he sees as the “mitochondria of America.”

“Wyoming is one of the great power-producing states in the country and we should be able to move Wyoming energy efficiently to major loads across the country,” he said. “That helps our producers, strengthens the grid, and keeps America competitive.”

Naughton substation 6 18 26

<title>Wyoming Wrestles With Unprecedented Power Demand From Massive Data Centers | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Data centers with huge power needs are lining up to plug into Wyoming’s power grid. Regulators, utilities and lawmakers are wrestling with how to serve “Jupiter-size” electric loads without spiking rates for regular consumers.

Wyoming Wrestles With Unprecedented Power Demand From Massive Data Centers

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

A federal agency has an agreement with Wyoming's two tribes to run license plate reader cameras on the reservation, authorities confirmed Thursday. 

Cowboy State Daily has observed license plate reader cameras already installed on roadside posts at the north entrance to the reservation abutting Riverton, and the south entrance from the Lander side.

The license plate readers are put up by DEA (the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) through an agreement with the tribe, said U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs spokesman Joshua Barnett in a Thursday email. Barnett added that the BIA is "not part of that agreement." 

Wyoming Highway Patrol (WHP) Lt. Col. Karl Germain told lawmakers during a Tuesday committee meeting that the WHP was working with the BIA to put up the cameras. 

But Germain clarified in a Thursday phone call, saying he misspoke and was trying to highlight the cameras can be a good tool in crisis situations. 

"Highway Patrol doesn’t have any LPRs," said Germain. "We have no mechanism to purchase those or put them up." But the patrol's umbrella agency, the Wyoming Highway Patrol, manages the highway right-of-way and is responsible for authorizing camera installations, he said. 

The Select Committee on Tribal Relations, which is a state legislative panel,

discuss how state law interacts with the two tribal governments of Wyoming: the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone

There, Germain said, “Those (cameras) are obviously helpful for a number of reasons, and you know I fully recognize some of the privacy concerns of with that."  For missing person cases or Amber alerts, those cameras “can be invaluable to help recover that person in a timely manner,” said German. “There aren’t a lot of cameras in Wyoming right now. If the reservation is able to put those up, it’s just another tool at the disposal of law enforcement.”

Committee Co-Chair Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, voiced concern, calling the cameras a facet of “big surveillance.”

“It’s a big step in our surveillance society,” said Case. “Not quite as far as England where they have facial recognition all the way through London but … it feels that way a little bit.”

 the controversy surrounding the cameras. 

License plate readers are cameras, generally facing roadways, that capture images of vehicles and license 

 and log dates and times for those images. The devices can also capture images of drivers and occupants of vehicles and passersby.

Case amplified his comments in a Thursday interview, saying the license plate readers, government-accessible DNA databases, facial recognition technology and other government surveillance measures now in play would have been "appalling" to the Founding Fathers. 

"All this stuff is somewhat '1984'-ish," said Case, referring to George Orwell's dystopian novel about an authoritarian surveillance state. 

[{"type":"text","text":"This Drug Trafficking"}]

The cameras have been posted for "months" Wyoming Department of Transportation public relations specialist Cody Beers told Cowboy State Daily. 

An advocate of the license plate readers, Nicole Wagon touted them as useful and important during a Jan. 27 meeting of the Tribal Relations Committee. 

Wagon, who lost one daughter to murder and another to hypothermia amid suspicious circumstances, is an advocate for better safety measures for indigenous people.

“It’s a component to stop the violence. It’s a component to make it safe for all the community members,” said Wagon of the cameras, 

She said the Wind River Intertribal Council, which comprises executive-branch governments of both tribes, signed a resolution in 2024 to work with license plate reader efforts on the reservation.

Neither the Eastern Shoshone Business Council nor the Northern Arapaho Business Council responded to Cowboy State Daily’s 

requests for comment, however the ESBC’s spokeswoman requested more information on the topic, which 

Cowboy State Daily inquired of the BIA at that time, and the agency said on Feb. 3 that it “does not have license plate readers on the Wind River Indian Reservation” and to check with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). 

The agency’s spokesman Joshua Barnett said Thursday in a follow-up exchange that the DEA puts up the license plate readers “through an agreement with the tribe,” of which BIA is not a part.

While he did not confirm the cameras’ presence or use, DEA Public Affairs Officer Stephan Tubbs wrote in a Jan. 28 email that, “The key trafficking routes for the Mexican Cartels across our Rocky Mountain Field Division are the I-25, I-70, and I-80 corridors in Colorado and Wyoming.”

“These highways are arteries for the cartels to bring their poison — namely fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine — into and across our nation,” Tubbs said, adding that targeting cartel routes is “vital.”

“Any and all tools available need to be utilized to save American lives from the continuing deadly impact the cartels and their dangerous drugs inflict on our communities,” said Tubbs. He referred back to that statement when Cowboy State Daily sent a follow-up inquiry in May. 

The FBI, which also performs law enforcement functions and investigations on the reservation, declined in a Feb. 2 email from FBI public affairs officer Vikki Migoya to comment “about investigative techniques or law enforcement tools we might or might not use.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Criminals Or 'Complete Morons'"}]

Erick Blackburn, former chief of the Wind River’s BIA outpost, discussed the cameras on a public Facebook exchange last month.

 map showing two of the cameras stationed at the reservation’s Riverton entrance.

, they’re license plate readers,” wrote Blackburn in a comment, 

referring to AI-powered license plate technology used by several Wyoming municipalities. 

“Law enforcement can search specific license plates for ATL — attempt to locate — for Amber alerts and vehicles reported to be trafficking narcotics,” Blackburn continued. "Everyone against them is criminal themselves or complete morons!!”

Blackburn said in another comment that was the BIA chief who “oversaw the project in an attempt to apprehend the narcotics coming into Fremont County and the reservation.”

He said both tribes are “heavy in favor” of the technology and “we had to have their full approval.”

“They were sick and tired of their people senselessly dying,” Blackburn added.

Blackburn, who later confirmed he’s now retired, said the cameras are working and fentanyl overdoses have declined.

 drug dealing POS, or snatching children and trying to drive away with them, you have nothing to worry about,” Blackburn wrote.

Blackburn did not immediately respond to a message request for further comment.

Barnett said Thursday that he was told a former BIA chief may have helped the tribe with the project, on the tribal side, but the project is still a DEA and tribal venture. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Obey The Constitution"}]

Robert Frommer, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice and one of the attorneys urging stronger Fourth Amendment protections in this area, told Cowboy State Daily he’s not in favor of eradicating the cameras.

But they should be subject to the same Fourth Amendment restraints as other law enforcement tools, he said in a Thursday phone interview.

The Fourth Amendment generally bars entry into a person’s home without a warrant, for example, but has exceptions for “exigent circumstances” 

 indications that someone is being harmed inside the home.

On hearing about the cameras stationed at the reservation’s entrances, Frommer said that’s a common method across the nation so that law enforcement can track who enters and leaves a given region. 

When he reviewed Cowboy State Daily’s photographs, he said they’re not Flock brand cameras, but some other brand.

“It’s hard to feel secure and to go about your daily life when you’re always knowing that the government is looking over your shoulder,” he said. “And that’s what these ALPRs (automatic license plate readers) allow. This, kind of, pervasive monitoring of individuals.”

 on this issue would require officers to get a warrant before accessing a person’s historical location information, unless an emergency makes getting a warrant impractical. 

It would restrict the data gatherers’ conveyance of people’s historical location information to third parties.

It would require that a record is created every time someone’s historical location information is accessed, and it would require training for officers accessing that historical information.

The proposed legislation would specify that authorities can’t use unlawfully obtained camera data to prosecute someone, but they also can face civil consequences for violating someone’s rights.

[{"type":"text","text":"The technology can be easy to abuse, said Frommer."}]

“Without any kind of warrant requirement or even internal procedures, it often means that the person deciding whether to search or not is just the bored officer in the patrol car,” said Frommer. “We’ve seen abuses where police have been stalking former romantic partners, wives, ex-boyfriends; other situations where it’s been used to keep tabs on people who are engaged in political activity.”

[{"type":"text","text":"This spreads to the immigration debate, he said."}]

Frommer and his co-counsel in an April 15 lawsuit complaint against the city of San Jose, California, wrote that that city’s massive AI-enhanced surveillance camera system has cameras near immigration lawyers’ offices and health care facilities.

As for the Wind River, Frommer said that, “I understand there might be drug problems in Wyoming and the reservation. There are drug problems all over the country.

“But you can’t let the worries of the day blind you to the long-term constitutional problems of what you’re doing.”

He added, “We want people to obey the law. And if we want people to obey the law then we have to, with just as much vigor, want our officers and government officials to obey the Constitution.”

License plate camera inset 6 18 26

<title>License Plate Cameras At Entrances To Wind River Reservation Spark Controversy | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Drug Enforcement Administration has installed license plate cameras on or around the Wind River Reservation, authorities confirmed Thursday. "All this stuff is somewhat '1984'-ish," Sen. Cale Case said. "It’s a big step in our surveillance society.”

License Plate Cameras At Entrances To Wind River Reservation Spark Controversy

Crime & Courts

Two people died Wednesday after a two-vehicle crash unfolded in front of Riverton’s Walmart, drawing passersby from both sides of the city’s busiest road, North Federal Boulevard.

[{"type":"text","text":"The crash was reported around 8:15 p.m."}]

A white Dodge pickup with a crunched hood sat on its side in the middle of the road, while the mangled remains of what witnesses said had been a black Jeep sat upright nearly a half-block south of the pickup, on the northbound lane of the road.

Police, emergency medical personnel and the Riverton Volunteer Fire Department converged. People on the scene pulled one man out of the pickup. The man was bleeding.

“I asked him what the year was,” said Trent Hallada, who was walking in the area and felt debris, “possibly” hit his eye when the crash happened. “He couldn’t even say the date and year.”

Two more eyewitnesses, who both declined to be identified by name, said the driver of the pickup sat on the ground while personnel responded, but when the response calmed slightly, he tried to run.

Law enforcement officers tackled him and took him into custody, the two witnesses said.

The Fremont County Coroner’s office also responded with a transport truck. One person, who lay in the middle of the road under a tarp and closer to the black vehicle, was placed into the transport truck. Firefighters held red tarps around the person to shield public view.

The Riverton Police Department announced in a Thursday statement that “both occupants of one of the vehicles had serious injuries;” one was pronounced dead one the scene, and the second was taken to SageWest Health Care, “where they succumbed to their injuries.”

The RPD statement doesn’t describe the two different vehicles, calling them “one of the vehicles” and “the other vehicle.” But the statement, coupled with witness interviews, indicates that two people were in the black vehicle, and have both now died.

And the driver of the pickup was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and vehicular homicide, plus other related offenses, the statement indicates when coupled with witness interviews.

RPD concluded its statement with a request for anyone with information on the wreck to call 307-856-4891.

Riverton crash 6 18 26

<title>Two Dead, One Tackled And Arrested in Riverton Crash | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Two people died Wednesday evening after a two-vehicle crash unfolded in front of Riverton’s Walmart. Law enforcement officers tackled a suspect who was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and vehicular homicide.

Two Dead, One Tackled And Arrested in Riverton Crash

 In Hot Springs County, the divide in Wyoming’s active Republican political base is actually a chasm.

That breach usually falls between the GOP faction more aligned with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and the faction that tends to oppose it.  

It resurfaced Monday night at the Hot Springs County Republican Central Committee meeting, where precinct committee people and their elected officers gathered to handle regular business.

 delegate, Cheryl Aguiar, made a motion to nearly drain the party’s checking account by sending $4,000 to the Wyoming Republican Party. She didn’t explain the motion to committee leaders at the time.

Her motion failed on a 6-6 tie vote, after which five people, including Aguiar, left the meeting.

People on both sides of the controversy told Cowboy State Daily the voters’ departure left the party short of a quorum and unable to pay its other bills, including to local businesses.

Aguiar said in a Wednesday interview that she made the motion at the request of a large group to protest some members’ efforts last month to “sabotage” the party’s fundraiser dinner by hosting an alternate event on the same night, May 29.

“They literally tried to sabotage – to steal money from our yearly fundraiser; to hold an alternate event to punish the state (party),” Aguiar said. “Why come and punish the county if you’re mad at something the state (party) did?”

Aguiar said that for her part, she left the meeting Monday because the chair was letting attendees heckle and berate her – a claim Chair Joe Martinez disputes.

Multiple critics of Aguiar’s move countered in Tuesday and Wednesday interviews, calling the members’ departure childish.

“I think it’s pretty crappy to walk out on paying the bills for the (gala) that they all held,” precinct committeewoman Shurie Scheel said. “It’s one thing to be mad about it. It’s another to screw over the caterer.”

The party also owes other small businesses money, including the local newspaper, the Independent Record, for advertising, she said.

Scheel said she’s unsure if the local party will have a quorum again before new precinct committee people are sworn in next January, as it’s uncertain if the walkouts – whom she cast as sympathetic to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus wing of the GOP – will return to vote.

Scheel said she and her husband might have to pay the catering business, We Got Your 6 Catering, in the meantime.

[{"type":"text","text":"A Court Case, Two Galas"}]

 Martinez as the local party chair and Scheel’s husband, Phil Scheel, as state committeeman. The judge ruled May 29 that the other people who’d been serving as chair and state committeeman for the past 15 months – Bradyn Harvey and Russell Lewis – were elected in a manner that violated state law.

Monday’s gathering was also the first meeting after the battle of two galas.

The Hot Springs County GOP planned a Charlie Kirk memorial fundraiser dinner for May 29.

Scheel had been organizing the dinner. But she quit planning it to support an alternate “Take Back Wyoming” dinner set for the same evening.

Scheel told Cowboy State Daily she backed the alternate dinner to protest the state Republican Party’s new bylaw declaring a right to donate to or endorse some Republicans over others during the primary election cycle.

State law forbids the GOP and any other major party from taking sides among its own candidates in the primary election. The party is free to back Republicans against Democratic candidates and others in the general election, however. The state party is suing Wyoming over the primary backing ban right now, saying the statute violates the group’s First Amendment rights.  

“Take Back Wyoming: Non-Freedom Caucus Republican Candidates Shop Party,” the banner for the alternate May 29 gala says. “Supporting fair primaries and grassroots conservative values.”

Scheel told Cowboy State Daily she disagrees with the state party’s mission to overturn the state law because primary election day is “the day the voters of the Republican party choose their candidates. The party shouldn’t be choosing the candidates. The voters should.”

: “It shouldn’t be a room full of party insiders who decide who the Republican Party nominee will be, and then tell the voters who to choose. And, the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got about it.”  

[{"type":"text","text":"So We Carried On"}]

In Aguiar’s telling, Scheel and others answered a state party maneuver with “retaliation” against the county party.

Aguiar said as one voter she doesn’t like the idea of the state party sending money to candidates pre-primary either, though she thinks the party should be able to endorse candidates during that phase.

[{"type":"text","text":"For her, that’s beside the point."}]

“We had to spend – I think there were three of us that spent three solid days calling candidates” to arrange the party, Aguiar said. “We did a good job.”

The Hot Springs County GOP rejected a party leader's bid Monday to nearly drain its bank account and send $4,000 to the state party. Then five people on the losing side of the question walked out, leaving not enough voters to pay their bills.
 

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