"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place." — James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788
James Madison wrote those words two hundred and thirty-eight years ago.
He was not writing about Wyoming. He was writing about human nature — the inevitable tendency of institutions to protect themselves at the expense of the people they serve.
He could not have imagined a Wyoming sheriff issuing press statements about ballot measures. But he would have recognized it immediately. And he would not have been fooled.
Before Wyoming voters accept institutional opposition as civic leadership, by such groups as community colleges, they deserve three facts — each sufficient to collapse the case against Proposition 1.
Fact one: Wyoming's state government funds approximately 56 percent of community college operating budgets.
Community colleges collect only about 4 percent of total county property tax revenue.
When LCCC's board, for example, warns of devastation from homeowner relief, it is defending 4 percent of its income while the state holds $11 billion in mineral trust reserves.
That is not a funding crisis. That is a negotiation — and Wyoming homeowners should not be the ones who lose it.
Fact two: Proposition 1 applies only to primary residential properties.
Commercial property, industrial property, mineral extraction, and data centers are untouched.
The institutions warning of catastrophe are describing a world in which the entire property tax base collapses overnight.
That world does not exist.
What exists is a targeted exemption for Wyoming families living in their own homes, and nothing more.
Fact three: A $17 billion Google data center campus is coming to Laramie County, joining Microsoft, Meta, and other major operators already generating nearly $7 billion in Wyoming economic activity.
The claim that Wyoming cannot absorb $125 million in property tax relief — while sitting on $11 billion in mineral trust funds and a $17 billion commercial investment arriving on its doorstep — is not a fiscal argument.
It is a refusal to look at the books.
The campaign against Proposition 1 is not spontaneous civic concern.
It is organized, funded, and actively polling Wyoming voters to identify which fear-based arguments land hardest.
I know this because I was polled this week — a text survey complete with a commercial advertisement embedded to fund the platform.
Every question circled the same theme: do you believe government services will have to be cut if property taxes are reduced by half?
That is not a fiscal survey. That is a campaign finding out how frightened Wyoming voters can be made to feel.
Follow the money.
The county governments warning of catastrophe collect the property taxes.
The community college boards opposing relief receive those taxes.
The sheriff's associations predicting public safety emergencies are funded by those taxes.
Every institution lined up against Proposition 1 has a direct financial stake in the outcome — and not one of them is required to tell Wyoming voters how much they are spending to protect it.
Follow the money. It leads directly back to yours.
Renowned economist, Frederic Bastiat, identified this pattern in 1850.
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society," he wrote, "over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
Wyoming's government institutions have constructed that moral code carefully.
It carries the language of education, public safety, and community.
But those values are now being deployed as shields by institutions sitting on reserves that would make most private businesses blush.
Laramie County holds $147 million in fund balances — growing by $37 million in a single year — then went to voters with four separate sales tax measures for services their existing taxes were supposed to fund.
Sublette County accumulated $191 million in reserves, more than five times its annual revenue.
When institutions accumulate this kind of surplus while warning of public safety emergencies, the problem is not insufficient revenue.
It is the absence of any pressure to prioritize.
The Laramie County Sheriff warned Proposition 1 would cost his department $2 million — issued before the county received the $37 million windfall that pushed its fund balance to $147 million.
The county's own documents show the actual impact at roughly $1.4 million — about 4 percent of his budget.
And nothing in Proposition 1 prevents Laramie County from covering that shortfall directly from its own $147 million in reserves.
The county has the legal authority and fiscal capacity to make any budget gap disappear before a single deputy is laid off.
The sheriff was not sounding an alarm for Wyoming homeowners. He was pulling the alarm for his own budget.
Wyoming already collects over $2 billion annually from oil, gas, coal, and mineral extraction.
What is missing is not money.
What is missing is a government that has ever been forced to live within its means.
Will Rogers said the crime of taxation is not in the taking.
It is in the way it is spent. Wyoming's institutions have had two years to prove him wrong.
They have not tried.
Vote no on their campaign. Vote yes on Proposition 1.
Fred Harrison can be reached at: Fred.Harrison@fjhlawoffice.com
