When Mike Yin searched through a gubernatorial candidate’s campaign finance reports to see if she’d corrected a reported maximum donation violation, he found more alleged breaches of law.
Yin is the minority floor leader of the state House of Representatives. But he filed three campaign finance complaints, then one amended complaint Monday, with the Secretary of State’s Office as an individual, he said.
“My interest is in seeing the law applied evenly and the integrity of our elections protected,” wrote Yin in each of his complaint letters to Secretary of State Chuck Gray.
Late last month Yin filed complaints about donations reportedly exceeding Wyoming’s $2,500 limit for individual donors to statewide candidates, against Constitution Party gubernatorial nominee Rebecca Bextel and Republican gubernatorial contenders Megan Degenfelder and Brent Bien.
Yin offered a “cure” period for Bextel, but that window has passed.
“I withdraw the offer of cure,” wrote Yin in an amended complaint dated Monday, “and ask that the complaint be referred to the Attorney General.”
Bextel’s candidate committee reported four $1,000 donations from Susan Gore, which exceeds the legal cap by $1,500.
Bextel told Cowboy State Daily her campaign was issuing refunds to Gore. Her campaign has filed three amended reports since then, but none shows a refund to Gore.
Yin withdrew one of his charges against Bextel, that she’d broken the limit by receiving $500 too much from John Warren.
Warren is her father and not subject to the limit, Yin acknowledged in his Monday letter.
It is unsurprising that Yin would not have known of the relation: Bextel’s campaign had listed Warren among other “individual” sources in her original filing. The campaign corrected that in one of its amendments, recoding Warren as a family member.
Lastly, Yin raised new concerns about Bextel’s campaign finances.
Her campaign lists three corporations among its donors, which Wyoming law forbids. One of the amended filings reports a $2,500 donation from “Wyoming Stockman” of Wheatland.
The Secretary of State’s Office does not show an active Wyoming entity called Wyoming Stockman. It does show a “Wyoming Stockmen For Liberty” nonprofit corporation, however.
The campaign also lists a $500 contribution by Lone I Ranch, and a $150 donation from Abundance Unlimited LLC.
“The committee can resolve this count with its records; the report should show who gave the money, and if an entity did, the money should be returned,” wrote Yin.
Bextel finished a distant second Nov. 3, to Gov.-Elect Eric Barlow, who was the Republican nominee.
By winning roughly 16% of the vote, however, Bextel secured major-party status for the Constitution Party. It will have its own ballot going into the 2028 primary election.
The threshold for a major party in Wyoming is a 10% vote share in the race for governor, secretary of state, or U.S. House.
Yin told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday email that the other complaints he filed late last month, against Bien and Degenfelder, “have had no action taken on them by the Secretary of State, (nor) amendments from the campaign.”
Degenfelder’s team had called Yin’s complaint against her “frivolous” and disputed Yin’s reading of the law.
In Yin’s reading, donations to Degenfelder’s prior Superintendent of Public Instruction campaign would have counted toward the maximum in her gubernatorial campaign if given in the same election cycle. The Degenfelder team did not read the law that way.
Bien noted in his own interview at the time that there may have been duplicate entries of donations and in-kind contributions. He noted the law gives him 30 days to cure issues.
Gray said in a post-publication text message that the complaints are under review "in accordance with Wyoming law, and we will review his amended complaint in accordance with the law."
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
