A Riverton-based state House representative who lived outside his district for at least seven months of the past year did not file to run for reelection by Friday’s deadline after the Fremont County Clerk opined he was ineligible.
Rep. Joel Guggenmos told Cowboy State Daily in an interview last week that he did not want to do anything wrong, so he sought legal advice on the residency question.
The freshman Republican lived in the neighboring House District 33 after his landlord increased his rent by six times, then moved back into his own House District 55 in recent weeks, he said.
Secretary of State Chuck Gray confirmed Friday to Cowboy State Daily that Guggenmos did not file to run again.
Had Guggenmos attempted to file again, the authority to deny or accept him would have fallen initially to Gray.
Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese advised Guggenmos in a May 21 letter, however, that he was ineligible to run again due to the residency issue.
The Wyoming Constitution says that “no person" shall be a state representative "who has not, for at least twelve months next preceding his election resided within the county or district in which he was elected."
Guggenmos told Cowboy State Daily he will be writing a statement on his decision Friday. The outlet will update this story at that point.
The deadline to file for office spanned from May 14 to 5 p.m. Friday.
As of that time, only Carl Manning, a Fremont County School District No. 25 trustee of 34 nonconsecutive years, had registered as a GOP candidate for that seat.
No Democrats filed.
The Libertarian and Constitution Party conventions, where the two minor parties can nominate their own candidates, are unfolding in the coming days.
The Republican and Democratic primary elections are set for Aug. 18.
Guggenmos is slated to hold his House seat until his term expires in January.
He has consistently said he’s not a member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a controversial and conservative bloc of Republican House members, but he generally votes in alignment with the caucus.
Manning told Cowboy State Daily on Friday that he’s not aligned with the caucus or any inner-party faction, and is running to oppose some of the caucus’ policy maneuvers.
He said he disagrees with the “instructional silo,” for example, a measure barring school districts from sending state money earmarked for classroom instruction to other areas of K-12 funding like activities and equipment.
Its impacts are going to be “crazy,” said Manning.
Democratic Party Officials
Guggenmos' residency issues came to light earlier in May when Freese referred the question to the Fremont County Sheriff's Office for investigation in light of the pending candidate filing window.
Wyoming and Fremont County Democratic Party officials were involved in bringing the residency complaint against Guggenmos, the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office investigative report on the matter says.
Erin O’Doherty, data director for the Wyoming Democratic Party, told Cowboy State Daily that she was trying to remove lawmakers from the party’s ever-changing list of registered voters and where they live.
That’s her standard practice, so that Democratic Party canvassers don’t knock on doors of voters who are already sitting legislators, she said.
When she tried to match the lawmakers to their districts by address to ensure she’d eliminated them all, Guggenmos kept showing up in outside his district, she said.
His new address wasn’t a postal box, she recalled.
“I thought, ‘That’s kind of odd,'” said O’Doherty. “That you’d get your mail several miles in a different direction?”
There could be “perfectly reasonable things,” however, like getting mail at a family member’s house.
Still, it was unusual enough that she referred it to Fremont County Democratic Party Chair Julie Twist, said O’Doherty
Twist lives in HD55, the sheriff’s report says.
Her complaint says that Guggenmos' wife “has reportedly told members of the Riverton Garden Club that they have moved out of the district.”
“This indicates that the situation is not a misunderstanding but a knowing departure from the requirements of the law,” the complaint says.
A “local community member” reported this to the Secretary of State’s Office, says Twist’s complaint, “but did not receive a response.”
Twist passes regularly by the home under which Guggenmos registered when first representing the district and hasn’t ever seen any indication that it’s occupied, the complaint says.
She asked the authorities to investigate.
Fremont County Sheriff’s Detective Kingston Cole pulled a vehicle registration dated Oct. 23, 2025, and found it registered to 18 Blue Spruce Lane, the sheriff’s report says.
That’s within Democratic Rep. Ivan Posey’s district.
Cole requested documents from the Secretary of State’s Office, and the office sent him Guggenmos’s 2024 application for party nomination, his routine financial disclosure of this past winter and the winter prior.
In the January 2025 financial disclosure, Guggenmos listed his address as within his district, and in a Dec. 30, 2025 financial disclosure, he gave the Blue Spruce Lane address, says the report.
Guggenmos moved back into his district, onto East Madison Avenue, in late April, the report says.
Alert
Guggenmos told the Legislative Service Office last July that he had to move out of his district, the representative told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
The Legislative Service Office (LSO) is a nonpartisan staff entity for the Legislature whose staffers give law analysis but not personal legal advice to legislators.
Guggenmos also told House Majority Floor Leader Scott Heiner, R-Green River, during the 2026 legislative session that the new living situation was temporary, says the sheriff’s report.
Communications between Guggenmos and LSO are privileged and not public record, as the legislative branch has exempted itself from the state’s public records act.
But Guggenmos in a May 6 email gave LSO Director Matt Obrecht permission to speak with Cole about the situation, the now-public records show.
After that, Obrecht spoke with the detective and confirmed Guggenmos had contacted him in July to ask about the legal implications of having to move out of his district temporarily “while intending to move back later.”
Guggenmos described a situation where he might have to live outside the district “for a period of time.”
On Whether He Can Serve Out This Term
Obrecht explained to Cole a legal analysis that is also contained in a memo LSO produced in 2022 after a controversy involving the residency of then-Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne.
That memo focuses on how, and whether, lawmakers can be removed from office mid-term if they move out of their districts.
State law says representatives who move out of their districts trigger the vacancy-filling process.
But the Wyoming Constitution’s grants of powers to the Legislature and specific list of qualifications for office probably render that law unconstitutional, that analysis says.
Obrecht sent Guggenmos a memo on the topic, the report says.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
