When did it become politically incorrect to meet with friends? And when did sitting down with businesses and lobbyists to learn the pros and cons of a project become toxic?
You'd think it had, judging by the political outlets spinning false accusations about my meeting with Mary Throne and Jessee Defoe.
Let's clear the record.
The meeting took place in about as public a setting as exists in our part of Wyoming: the Devils Tower golf course, at its well-known bar.
It wasn't a back room, and it wasn't behind closed doors.
Over the course of the afternoon, numerous other people stopped by, pulled up chairs, and joined the conversation.
We all shared iced tea and refreshments, and I bought them.
Mary and Jessee were there as friends. Nobody was lobbying anybody.
Let me be specific, because specifics are what have been missing from these accusations.
I have never interacted with Jessee on anything having to do with Radiant. My work with her has been on charter school issues, work I'm proud of and have never hidden.
And I have never been lobbied by Mary Throne on Prometheus. In fact, I'd genuinely like to know more about that project.
If it brings jobs, investment, and opportunity to Wyoming, I want to understand it.
If it has problems, I want to understand those too. Either way, I'll ask my questions in the open, the way I always have.
But here's the part that matters most. Even if it had been lobbying, it's part of my job to listen.
Wyoming has a citizen legislature. We're ranchers, teachers, business owners, and neighbors who serve part-time and go home to the same communities we represent. We don't have big staffs or insulated offices.
The people of Senate District 1, and anyone with a stake in Wyoming's future, expect to find their senator at the grocery store, the sale barn, the ball field, or the golf course and tell him what they think.
That's not corruption. That's representative government working the way it's supposed to.
Hearing someone out is not the same as agreeing with them.
Over the years I've listened to plenty of people and then voted against what they wanted.
A legislator who refuses to hear from anyone with a viewpoint isn't principled; he's uninformed. And uninformed lawmakers make bad law.
What should concern Wyoming voters isn't a senator having iced tea with friends in a public bar where anyone could walk up and join in.
What should concern them is the effort to turn an ordinary, open conversation into a scandal. When every handshake gets painted as a conspiracy, the goal isn't accountability.
It's intimidation. The message is clear: talk only to the approved people, or we'll come after you. That's not how Wyoming works, and it's not how I work.
I'll keep doing what I've done my whole career: talking with people across the spectrum, listening to ideas I agree with and ideas I don't, and making up my own mind based on what's best for the people I represent. I'll keep doing it in public.
And I'll keep buying the iced tea.
If anyone has questions about that afternoon, ask me. Better yet, ask any of the folks who stopped by the table. They were there, and they'll tell you the same thing.
