At long last the primary elections are here. Although the Wyoming Constitution makes no mention whatsoever of primaries, these have evolved into the Cowboy State’s main political event.
On Tuesday, August 18, Republicans and Democrats will be going to the polls separately to select those candidates who will represent their respective parties on the constitutionally-mandated Election Day in November. But since Democrats account for less than 1/8th of Wyoming’s 339,655 registered voters, their candidates will stand little chance in November.
Only the bluest districts of the state (Laramie and Jackson) have enough voters to elect the occasional Democratic candidate. In all the other House and Senate Districts as well as the statewide races, the Republican candidate who is nominated this Tuesday will practically be a shoo-in.
This is nothing for Republicans to gloat over. Even though the Democratic party still hovers just above the arbitrary line that separates major parties from minor parties, the distinction has become largely non-functional. And that’s not a good thing.
For our Democratic friends, it means that they have been stripped of their ability to make choices.
In 62 races for seats in the State House of Representatives, not a single one of them offers a choice in Democratic candidates. Instead, 16 races feature a solitary uncontested candidate on the Democratic primary ballot. And in 46 districts Democratic voters will have no one to vote for at all.
The Senate side is just as dismal. Out of 16 active races, there are zip, zero, nada Democratic choices. Democratic voters will have an opportunity to vote in only six of them. And those six votes will be Soviet-style - having only one candidate on the ballot.
These bleak prospects for Democratic voters only get bleaker at the county level. In Uinta County, for instance, Democratic voters have no choice available for commissioner, coroner, attorney, sheriff, clerk, treasurer, assessor, or clerk of district court.
So much for the party of choice.
Were I a Democrat, I would be livid that the party has failed so miserably to represent my platform in electoral politics. Given their penchant to protest, I don’t understand why my Democratic friends are not picketing their party leaders. They have imploded a once robust party and lost two-thirds of their base since the high-water mark.
For our Republican friends, the fact that Wyoming has become a de facto one-party state has different consequences.
For one, the Democratic leopards who have fled the party in droves have largely found their way into the Republican Party without changing their spots. This means that the policy differences which used to be contested across party lines are now being contested within the GOP.
A second consequence of the one-party state is that, lacking candidates of their own, Democratic operatives have little need to spend their money on campaigning. This frees up significant cash to influence the Republican primary.
Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie), for instance, has turned her guns on as many grassroots conservatives as she can corral under the banner of the Freedom Caucus. Her husband, Nate Martin, stars in a football-themed Antifreedom Caucus Facebook ad that must have cost a pretty penny. A good many of those pennies may well have come from funds controlled by Liz Storer (D-Jackson).
And both Provenza and Storer have been at the center of ginning up and making political hay out of a perfectly legal, ethical and formally put-to-rest fake controversy about the hand delivery of campaign donations.
None of this monkey business is illegal under Wyoming law. But what IS illegal under Wyoming law is for the Republican Party to spend money to counter the interference of Democrats in Republican primaries.
That ought to give our legislators pause.
The Wyoming Legislature has enacted a series of laws that have rendered the constitutionally mandated election day moot.
Meanwhile, those same laws have given power to the state to control August’s non-constitutional election in a way that hamstrings one party while giving free rein to another.
Is this what the people of the state of Wyoming wanted when they required the legislature to “pass laws to secure the purity of elections, and guard against abuses of the elective franchise” (Art. 6, Sec. 13)?
Is our current primary arrangement consistent with the constitutional requirement that “All general elections for state and county officers, for members of the house of representatives and the senate of the State of Wyoming, and representatives to the congress of the United States, shall be held on the Tuesday next following the first Monday in November of each even year” (Art. 6, Sec. 17)?
We have a November election in name, but not in substance.
Regardless of how next Tuesday pans out, it is high time to address that fundamental problem.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com
