An incumbent Wyoming state House representative who says it’s time for more fiscal restraint is now running for a seat in the upper chamber against a Sheridan County business owner who says it’s time to exchange ideology for good policy.
That Sheridan County seat, Senate District 21, won’t have an incumbent in the Aug. 18 primary election, since it belongs currently to Senate President Bo Biteman, who announced last week that he’s running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives instead.
Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that he wants to win that open seat.
He faces Melissa Butcher, who is a Dayton resident and Ranchester and Sheridan business owner.
Both are vying for the Republican nomination, which means the Aug. 18 primary election will pit them against each other.
This marks a movement by Wyoming Freedom Caucus members, including Pendergraft and House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, seeking to build their numbers in the state Senate.
About Pendergraft
Elected in 2022, Pendergraft, 64, is serving his second term in the Wyoming House of Representatives. He ascended in 2025 to a significant post: Becoming one of seven House Appropriations Committee members. That committee gets the first chance to edit the governor’s draft of the state’s two-year budget — before the full Legislature and later negotiation committees can do so — and it oversees other spending measures.
He made the decision to run for state Senate “several years back, actually,” Pendergraft said in a Tuesday phone interview. “I’ve been kinda just hanging back, waiting for Bo (Biteman) to finish what he needed to do or wanted to do. I didn’t want to run against him.”
Pendergraft said his goal in going to the Senate, which has half as many legislators and therefore more potential for individual impact, is to build a better relationship between the House and the Senate.
“That’s been an issue for several years,” he said. He believes he’s cultivated the relationships to do that, Pendergraft added.
It’s difficult to say why the Senate and House have some discord, he said, adding, “The people on the right, it just seems we have a tendency to bite and devour one another.”
For example, there was a past rivalry between lawmakers who preferred bills backed by the Wyoming Gun Owners group and those who preferred policies Gun Owners of America supported.
“And I have the ability, I believe, to be able to cross some of those lines and work with people on both sides of that issue… and get us working on the same page instead of trying to shoot each other in the foot,” he said.
His top objective in the Senate would be getting that chamber “to financially constrain” itself.
In the recent budget session, the Joint Appropriations Committee advanced a budget draft that was $171.4 million below Gov. Mark Gordon’s recommendation. The House offered its own draft at $170 million below the governor’s recommendation, while the Senate ended $1.4 million below the governor’s recommendation.
Though the House came out looking more conservative by the numbers, disputes surfaced over whether its cuts were all legitimate, or some would increase the 2027 “supplemental” budget.
Pendergraft indicated the House fought harder for savings, starting from the committee’s leaner budget draft – while the Senate lacked the “stomach for actually working on any genuine cuts.”
All of this, he emphasized, contrasts a backdrop of long-term forecasts showing a potential coming deficit.
“We need to cultivate that true Republican spirit of low taxes, small government in the Senate; and it’s not there right now,” Pendergraft said.
Those Headlines
Pendergraft garnered headlines last year when he said he wanted to defund the Wyoming Business Council, which is a state agency that gives grants and loans to businesses and communities in the name of economic development.
Pendergraft and other appropriators advanced language to defund and dismantle the agency in January, but that effort fizzled — mostly — in the full Legislature. Still, the budget ended with just one year’s funding for the Wyoming Business Council instead of the typical two – while many lawmakers vowed to reform it.
Pendergraft still wants to defund the agency and indicated that reform won’t fix it because its whole premise is improper.
“I believe it is wrong in its bedrock,” he said. “The idea that we take tax dollars and pick winners and losers and redistribute it is not only wrong, but it sets up a situation where it would be very easy – and I’m not saying it exists; not pointing a finger anywhere – it would be very easy for corruption to creep in.”
Pendergraft chaired a subcommittee last year geared toward vetting the Wyoming Department of Health budget.
His takeaway from that, he said, is that the federal government imposes too many faulty requirements on Wyoming.
“And if there’s going to be any real change, it has to be at the federal level,” he said. “And, quite frankly, I’m not going to hold my breath.”
He told Cowboy State Daily’s Jake Nichols on Wednesday that many of the Joint Appropriations Committee’s more controversial maneuvers to reduce the budget this year had an “Overton window” factor, of poising the House better for negotiations it wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
“You’ve never had a session before with serious conservatives in there,” Pendergraft said. “That’s the difference.”
Where You From
Pendergraft said he was born in Casper and raised in Sheridan and has lived “all over Wyoming.”
He served 10 years in the U.S. Army, is a combat veteran, and has a career history in construction. He’s now retired.
Pendergraft is married and has three kids and 11 grandkids.
Not Enough Listening
Melissa Butcher, 58, told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday phone interview that she’s running for Senate District 21 because “I don’t think there’s enough listening that is happening at the Legislature level.”
She also feels Wyoming has “wandered down this road of ideology versus really focusing on the issues people think are important to their lives, to their businesses, to their families,” she said.
For example, said Butcher, she wants to avoid sweeping property tax measures and focus on targeted exemptions to help people who are truly suffering under their property tax strain.
A proper framing of the issue should seek a method that “genuinely helps homeowners, especially those who need the most help, but on the other side of that, what is sustainable for our communities in the long-term.”
Residential property taxes in many Wyoming regions soared after COVID-19, as out-of-state homebuyers flocked to Wyoming. The Legislature in response enacted a 25% property tax cut for Wyoming homeowners, applying to the first $1 million in home value.
Pendergraft had urged lawmakers to keep an earlier, stronger form of that bill.
Property tax revenues feed local services like law enforcement, fire and ambulance, as well as local school districts. Some counties have complained of budget shortfalls since the cuts went into effect.
“My background is really about listening to people, helping them frame the issue in a way that makes it actionable, and then bringing those concerns to Cheyenne,” said Butcher; “and trying to find real solutions to those problems, and not this ideological framing that creates an us-versus-them, right-and-wrong answer mentality.”
Butcher said she supports the compromise effort to reform the Wyoming Business Council.
“The results may vary throughout the state, but certainly here in District 21 the Business Council has been instrumental in several key projects,” said Butcher.
Like business, government should always be seeking ways to improve itself, she said, calling auditing programs and finding effective methods “absolutely essential.
“But I don’t think that burning it down is the answer to that,” Butcher added.
Some Background
Butcher works in “public process facilitation,” or helping businesses and entities engage with government or permitting processes so they can reap the most potential benefit.
She helped a uranium mine north of Moorcroft, for example, hurdle Environmental Protection Act regulations and other public interfacing — and it’s now an operating mine, said Butcher.
She and her husband also run a Ranchester bakery and café that has a pastry outlet in Sheridan, and a campground in Ranchester.
Butcher said she grew up in Wyoming and believes her values are conservative and aligned with those of the Republican party.
“I could shoot off my mouth about a bunch of different priorities,” she said, “but I honestly want to listen to my community and see what their priorities are.”
But, she added, “restoring public trust” in the Legislature and being accountable are among her top priorities. So too is protecting Wyoming’s valuable industries like coal, oil, natural gas, agriculture, and tourism, she said.
Butcher said she also values “protection of our institutions – like the University (of Wyoming).”
She said she disagreed with efforts to pull funding from the university.
Pendergraft and others championed a $40 million cut from UW’s block grant, which reflects roughly a 10% cut to its state funding, but a lesser cut to its overall funding which Pendergraft has pegged at 4%.
Strategies that help a business are good analogies for effective conservative governance, she said.
Butcher is married and has one stepdaughter.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
