CHEYENNE — Seven of the 10 Republican candidates running to become Wyoming’s next U.S. House candidate courted a largely Christian audience Tuesday in Cheyenne, with statements on their faith, and their different approaches to education, family rights, and abortion policy.
The Wyoming Family Alliance is an advocacy group that strives to advance biblical, generally faith-based policy objectives. The group’s president posed a series of questions at a packed event Tuesday evening in The Metropolitan Downtown, to these seven GOP candidates:
State Senate President Bo Biteman, former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, philanthropist and conservative thought leader Steve Friess, Casper-based combat veteran Kevin Christensen, Army Ranger David Giralt, Secretary of State Chuck Gray, and Moran rancher Frank Chapman.
Casper businessman Reid Rasner, former Democratic lawmaker Keith Goodenough, and Richard Dodson – a second former Democrat in the GOP race – did not attend the event.
In a field that big and a race that red, it’s difficult to stand out. But the seven candidates displayed some variations of approach.
Biteman, who emphasized that he’s a family man, a “self-made man” and a hard worker, surfaced as a stickler for small government.
“The role of government is… to protect your rights. Period,” he said.
Christensen leaned on his combat experience and his Wyoming roots.
Friess pointed to his work helping to prepare executive order proposals ahead of the first Trump administration. He acknowledged that he wasn’t born in Wyoming, but spoke of his move to the state 26 years ago as a conversion of sorts, that also coincided with his baptism into the Christian faith.
Gray cast himself as a fighter and pointed to his decade in state government and pro-life maneuvers he undertook in 2017 and 2019.
Balow leaned on her trial-by-fire, of keeping Wyoming schools open for nearly all of the COVID-19 pandemic and fighting for parental autonomy during the massive social shifts that followed.
Chapman took a warm philosophical approach to some of the cultural issues while castigating bureaucratic bloat.
And Giralt articulated concrete plans on multiple issue points. He also pointed to his parents’ legal migration from Communist regimes, as well as his experience in both the military and as an advisor to federal policymakers.
‘Media’ And ‘Insiders’
In response to a question about the role of faith in governing, Gray aired his long-wrought grievances about the media, Gov. Mark Gordon, an undefined group of “insiders,” and the role of the Wyoming Attorney General.
He quoted a fictional character in an adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo, saying, “God sees everything.”
“That’s the way I live my life,” said Gray. “No matter whether it’s difficult, no matter the attacks from the media, and no matter the attacks from the insiders, the governor – the highest official in the state of Wyoming who the Attorney General serves at the pleasure of – I’ve been guided by truth and I’ve gotten policy done.”
Tanks Are Gonna Roll
In response to that same question, Christensen spoke of leading 234 cavalry squadron soldiers into combat as they invaded Iraq.
That was just one time he shared his faith openly, said Christensen, who described leading all the soldiers in prayer, moments before “tanks are gonna roll.”
Friess turned to Christensen and said, “that was fantastic.”
For his own answer to the faith question, Friess said, “our moral convictions are the center of who we are” and office-holders are accountable for their own actions.
Balow said God is her “everything,” but emphasized cordiality toward people across different faiths, especially while working collaboratively with them.
Giralt said he and his wife are practicing Catholics, and God is the foundation that will see this nation through the next 250 years.
Chapman said lawmakers should not only act with faith, but defend the faith exercise rights of others.
Biteman, a history buff throughout the evening, harkened to how America’s Founding Fathers actually felt about faith in government, saying the Constitution was made for a moral and religious people.
On Parental Rights
All seven candidates said they’d work to defend the family as an institution, and parental rights.
Giralt kicked off the answers by saying America should keep males out of girls sports, and that the federal government should not let its agencies “be an environment for social experiments or social change.”
The nation should block taxpayer funds for transgender surgeries and treatments, and he’d oppose federal funding for those efforts, said Giralt.
Chapman echoed the sentiment and said it’s time to cut administrative bloat in education and eliminate the federal Department of Education.
The other six candidates, answering a later question, all said they wanted to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education as well. Biteman said the federal government could transfer that agency’s money toward paying down the federal debt instead.
Biteman reiterated a staunch small-government, constitutional rights stance across multiple questions.
Government’s role is “not to be involved in the family, good or bad, especially at the federal level.”
He referenced Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which confers specific powers onto Congress.
Those are, to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, pay debts - uniformly across states - and to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
“Everything after that is clearly reserved to states and the people,” said Biteman. “Especially the families. Government should not be involved period.”
Gray countered, saying “there’s a role for the federal government to support (school choice) education savings account programs.”
Gray echoed Giralt’s call to protect women’s and girls’ sports.
He took Giralt’s call to block federal funding of transgender surgeries a step further.
“We have to ban the transgender surgeries,” said Gray. “Not just… the funding of the transgender surgeries.”
Christensen mirrored Biteman’s small-government approach to the issue, and urged families to be accountable and strive for high values within themselves.
Friess lent credence to Christensen and Biteman’s small-government approach, but said, “we’ve gotten to the point where it’s so intrusive, you’ve got to start passing law to nip and tuck around the edges and get (the overreach) under control.”
Balow pointed to her defense of parental “empowerment” during her tenure as Wyoming’s superintendent, and said her work there prompted Gov. Glen Youngkin, of Virginia, to tap her as his top educator.
“Do what you did in Wyoming, in Virginia,” said Balow, adding that she and Youngkin fought to scale back educational intrusion into parents’ roles.
On What The House Can Do About Abortion
The seven candidates all cast themselves as ardently pro-life.
Friess said he became pro-life in seventh grade when Joe Biden came to speak to his assembled school. Biden attested to being a devout Catholic and said life begins at conception, but indicated he wouldn’t impose his religious beliefs on others, Friess recalled.
“I think that was the moment I became pro-life,” said Friess. “I saw the utter inconsistency in saying one thing and enacting policies going the other way.”
Friess said that he worked with a group of capable Washington D.C. attorneys ahead of the first Trump administration to prepare executive orders for the incoming president.
One, which Trump signed, was an expansion of the “Mexico City policy” — a global ban on federal global aid going to fund abortions, he said.
“That was my contribution to the battle there,” said Friess.
The Mama, The Planner
Balow said she’s an adoptive mother, and expressed gratitude for the women who “chose life” for her children. She noted that she volunteers on the board of directors for the Wyoming Children’s Society, and said she also supports the group financially.
“This is what the pro-life movement looks like in action, and this is what I’ll take to Congress,” said Balow.
“How did we reach a place where our culture can celebrate choice— the choice to end a life --yet think it’s unbearable to place a child for adoption to be loved by a family?” she asked, adding that her pro-life convictions would hold in congress, and that tax dollars and policies should not back abortions.
Giralt discussed a concrete plan for pro-life moves in the House.
Firstly, he said, he wants to back a bill outlawing the mailing of abortion drugs. Secondly, Giralt he wants to solidify into standing law a recurring budget amendment barring federal funding for abortions.
“It’s used as a negotiating bargaining chip,” said Giralt. “That should no longer happen.”
The Attorney, The Minimalist
Chapman said that as an attorney, representing a person who had caused an accident in which a 3-week-old child was killed was “absolutely the worst experience of my life.”
He became tearful as he spoke of the case.
He said that when kids are born, “we need adoption,” and “we need to support them.”
He agreed aloud with Giralt’s two policy plans.
Biteman also said he’d vote for those two policy plans if elected to the House.
Beyond that he said, the U.S. Supreme Court made abortion a state’s-rights issue with the 2022 overturn of Roe vs. Wade.
It’s up to the Legislature, where his time is waning, to grapple the issue, and probably change the Wyoming Constitution, said Biteman.
The Wyoming Supreme Court on Jan. 6 ruled that a health care autonomy clause in the state Constitution confers a fundamental right to abortion access.
Biteman pointed to his staunch pro-life record in the Legislature, where he championed numerous pro-life bills.
University Of Wyoming
Gray also pointed to his time in the Legislature, and his 2017 sponsorship of House Bill 182. That bill, which became law, directed medical staffers performing abortions to inform patients “of the opportunity” to view an ultrasound of the child and hear his heartbeat.
Biteman, who was in the House then, had voted in favor of that bill as well.
Gray said in 2019 he heard a “rumor” that the University of Wyoming “was funding abortion in their student plans” and he asked the Legislative Service Office to ask UW if that was happening. UW “admitted to it,” and “we put a nice little rider” on UW’s budget threatening to claw back money if it continued that practice, said Gray.
The student health care plans were then funded through premiums students paid, not public money from the Legislature. Buying insurance through the university was voluntary for all students, except some international students.
As for Congress, Gray said, “we need to have a national pro-life policy.”
Sure, But Science Is your Friend Too
Christensen said he believes life begins at conception, and it is a matter of faith.
But science also backs that assertion, he said, and state leaders should be prepared to carry pro-life policies on a scientific as well as a faith basis to defend the cause from claims that it’s based on dogma alone.
And he urged societal revival.
“As pro-life as I am, let’s be as pro-mom and baby as well,” he said. “We have to break the cycle of what’s causing us to be in the situation where abortion is being used as a form of birth control,” Christensen said, adding that families should strive for accountability, faith and values.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
