Former Wyoming Rep. James Byrd, D-Cheyenne, announced Tuesday he will run for U.S. Senate.
Byrd served in the Wyoming State House of Representatives from 2009-2019.
“I had hundreds of people pestering me to get back into politics,” Byrd told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.
Byrd said that insistence followed him because he always did the job for which he was elected: representative. He sat down with people and listened to them, he added.
“Whatever we do should be beneficial to the public,” Byrd said. “At the end of the day, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Following In His Mother’s Footsteps
Byrd is the son of former Wyoming legislator Liz Byrd. A good dose of humility sent Byrd to his mother’s kitchen during his first election.
“I thought I could do it on my own,” he said. “I lasted two weeks.”
He said he showed up to his mother’s house, hat in hand, and sat down at her kitchen table.
“Mom,” he said. “You used to kick everyone’s butt. How did you do it?”
Byrd said his mom moved everything to the side of the table and told him to get out some paper.
“She said, ‘Write this this down. Write this down,’” he said. “She was waiting for me (to come to her), even though she had all the answers."
Byrd said among the many lessons his mother taught him was how to communicate with people. It became invaluable, he said.
Face-Off With Hageman
U.S Rep. Harriet Hageman, a Republican, announced her run for the U.S. Senate in December after current U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis announced she would not seek re-election.
Both Lummis and her counterpart in the upper chamber, U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, have endorsed Hageman for the seat. So has President Donald Trump.
Wyoming is a supermajority Republican state, with all three congressional delegates in the GOP, all five statewide elected officials in the executive branch, and all but eight of 93 state legislators.
Byrd said he is not fazed by a Wyoming Republican who has been endorsed by President Trump.
“They don’t scare me,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And their end game is self-effacing. It’s not for benefitting the people of Wyoming. It’s, ‘What can I get out of this?’”
Hageman previously told Cowboy State Daily she will continue to fight government overreach, the war on coal, policies against fossil fuels, bad water policy and environmental over-prosecution.
To face each other, both Byrd and Hageman would have to win their party’s nomination in the primary election, which is Aug. 11.
New Energy Technologies
Byrd said he believes Wyoming is one of the few states that can change things on a national level, if the state leverages the opportunities it has.
“Because we have a small population, whatever changes we need to make to social and economic structures, we can pivot faster than just about any other state in the country,” he said.
One of his primary focuses in Washington, D.C., would be on embracing new energy technologies for the state, he said, adding that he is “a guy who understands business and history.”
Much of Wyoming’s tax base is supported by energy.
“Put this in all caps: I love coal,” he said. “I am not against fossil fuel industry. But turning back to fossil fuels and coal is a turn back in time. You forget one of the most important components — the buyers of those energies are companies who have to answer to shareholders who do not want to invest in companies that are wreaking havoc on the environment.
“If I’m a CEO and I want to keep my job, who am I going to listen to? The White House or my shareholders?”
Byrd said Wyoming missed a golden opportunity during his tenure in the state House of Representatives when he advocated for investing a portion of monies from fossil fuels into research for new energy technologies.
“We were in a position to not just develop the next technologies, we were in a position to own those technologies,” he said.
Now, he said, his focus will be on keeping Wyoming people employed and getting back in the forefront of the conversation for emerging energy technologies.
Jobs in the coal mines will eventually vanish, he said. The people who work in those mines will have no residual training to jump over to another energy sector.
“It’s another thing we are failing to do — make our working individuals competitively not just vertically within an industry but horizontally across industries,” Byrd said.
A Wyoming Democrat in the Senate Seat?
Byrd said he is running for U.S. Senate because Wyoming needs better representation in Washington.
“I find it absolutely distasteful that an elected person would walk off the stage in front of their constituents, no matter what,” he said. “I will never walk off of a stage.”
Last month, Hageman cut short a town hall session, walking off the stage to boos and shouts after fiery exchanges over recent ICE killings in Minneapolis.
Last March, more than 500 people packed into the Gryphon Theatre at the Laramie Civic Center for a town hall hosted by Hageman. Cowboy State Daily reported that at least 75% of those in attendance opposed her, a startling dynamic in the deeply Republican state of Wyoming.
Hageman remained on stage for more than 45 minutes and told the audience that they were behaving in an embarrassing manner.
Byrd said he will represent the people of Wyoming to Washington, not Washington interests to the people of Wyoming.
He said voting across the aisle has always been important in Wyoming, a state where Byrd, a Democrat, is in the minority.
“You want to be successful,” he said. “You want to get things done when you’re in the super minority. You have to find people to support your idea.”
Byrd’s team says it will release further campaign announcements and a campaign calendar, including a formal campaign rally in the next week.
Kate Meadows can be reached at kate@cowboystatedaily.com.
