Wyoming State Senate President Opens Legislative Session with an Attack on “Fringe Parties”

The Wyoming legislature convened on January 8. According to this news story, the President of the Wyoming Senate, Tony Ross (R-Cheyenne) addressed the Senate with a speech, and in that speech he “deplored the emergence of fringe parties with extreme agendas that have an attack-only strategy.”

The parties with candidates on the ballot in Wyoming last year were Republican, Democratic, Libertarian (all of which are long-established in Wyoming), and two parties that appeared on the ballot for the first time, the Constitution Party and the Country Party.

As the story points out, the Wyoming Senate now consists of 26 Republicans and 4 Democrats. Thanks to Don Wills for the link.


Comments

Wyoming State Senate President Opens Legislative Session with an Attack on “Fringe Parties” — No Comments

  1. Senate President Tony Ross … “gave each of the 30 Senate members copies of the book, “How Do You Kill 11 Million People?” by Andy Andrews, and encouraged them to read it early in the session. The book analyzes the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust and compares that era to the current national political climate and challenges.”

    – Has anyone read this bood?

  2. As opposed to the “mainstream” agenda of the two wings of the Statist Party, I suppose? Hayek told us where that road leads.

  3. I don’t know if Wyoming has a recall process, whereas they can call for a recall election by gathering a certain number of signatures on a petition to call for an election to remove this jerkoff named Tony Ross from office, but regardless, this guy needs to go.

  4. There were 15 senate seats open this year.

    There were 9 districts with an unopposed Republican, 1 with an unopposed Democrat, two with a Republican v Democrat (the R won one, the D the other), and three districts with a Republican vs. Country election.

    One of the Country candidates claimed that out-of-state liberals had taken control of the Wyoming government.

    Senator Ross’s speech is near the beginning of the following recording of the opening of the senate legislative session.

    http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2013/audio/senate/s0108pm1.130108.1.mp3

    His speech is from 13:53-24:01, but the substantive portion begins around 17:06. I think if you will listen to the speech, you will see that the news article takes the remark out of context.

  5. Were the Jefferson folks (later Donkey party hacks) in a fringe party in 1800 ???

    Were the new folks (later Elephant party hacks) in a fringe party in 1854 ???

    How many EVIL ANTI-Democracy gerrymander oligarchs in the rotted Donkey/Elephant parties ???

    See the ROT in Europe in the 1700s — monarchs / oligarchs — just before the 1789 French Revolution.

  6. Jim Riley – you are wrong. The description in the article is correct. Ross’s comments were specific references to Anthony Bouchard’s GOP primary candidacy for Wyoming Senate against a horrible RINO and the “fringe party” he refers to is the Wyoming Country Party.

  7. #7

    http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2013/audio/senate/s0108pm1.130108.1.mp3

    His speech is from 13:53-24:01, but the substantive portion begins around 17:06. I think if you will listen to the speech, you will see that the news article takes the remark out of context.

    Why do you consider Wayne Johnson to be horrible? As the leader of the Country Party what do you care whether the Republicans nominate a “RINO”?

    Senator Ross referred to “fringe parties that are in attack-mode only.” Why do you think that was a reference to the Country Party?

  8. I did listen to the speech. I stand by my comments.

    What other “fringe parties” are there they specifically called out progressive, liberal Republicans as impostors? None other than the Wyoming Country Party.

    I donated $1,000 to Anthony Bouchard’s primary campaign against Johnson, and $500 to the Wyoming Country Party candidate Bill Hill. I live in Johnson’s senate district. He has been specifically lauded by the Wyoming Education Association as a commended legislator. He has been pushing for the fuel tax increase for his entire career. He voted against the license-free concealed carry bill that was enacted into law in 2010. I could go on. Johnson didn’t know what hit him in the primary. He paid no attention to Bouchard, raising only a couple of thousand dollars. Bouchard hit his district with several very critical direct mail pieces and only lost by 42 votes. Johnson then got very scared and raised $19,000 from the special interest groups in Wyoming to fight off Bill Hill who he defeated easily. Look up the campaign finance report for the general election and you will see an almost complete list of the powers that control Wyoming – from energy companies to state employee unions and on and on. Johnson is the poster child for what’s wrong in the Wyoming GOP, and there is a lot wrong.

  9. #9 He did not refer to minor parties in general, but “fringe parties that were in attack-mode only.”

    License-free concealed carry sounds like a litmus test issue. Certainly the way that it was presented on Anthony Bouchard’s web site made it appear so.

    Wyoming has the 2nd lowest fuel tax in the country. I could see where someone who lives near a state boundary might want to maintain an economic advantage. Any service stations on the Nebraska side of the state line along I-80?

    I don’t understand why the chairman of the Wyoming Country Party would make a personal contribution to a Republican primary candidate, which was twice as much made as the party contributed to their candidate in the general election for the same office. Is the Country Party like Working Families.

    It sounds like Wyoming would benefit from implementation of a Top 2 system. With such a strong single-party dominance, voters and candidates are going to gravitate into the Republican Party regardless of their political beliefs. This causes the primaries to become more personality based, and the campaign “issue” whether so-and-so was a “RINO” or a “liberal progressive”.

  10. Wyoming would benefit from PR in its state legislature. It shouldn’t be an outrageous idea given that the country that controls the US Congress(Israel) uses that system. For a satirical treatment, google “Israel Vows To Use Veto Power If Chuck Hagel Confirmed As U.S. Secretary Of Defense.”

  11. Jim – this isn’t hard to understand, yet you say you don’t understand. You aren’t trying, I guess.

    Bouchard’s campaign had nothing to do with personalities. The mailings were totally based on issues.

    The Wyoming Country Party candidate did not even spend the $500 I gave him.

    Wayne Johnson is a progressive, liberal. Period. He would be that whether he had a D or R after his name. Because he has an R after his name he is correctly labeled as a RINO. He is my representative in the State Senate. His voting record disgusts me. I did whatever I could to retire him. If that isn’t understandable to you, then there’s no point in continuing this silly discussion that nobody is reading.

  12. #12 Bouchard’s website was deceptive with regard to license-less concealed carry. Were his mailers more issue-oriented and forthright?

    William Hill reported $625 in contributions, $500 from the Country Party. He reported spending $350. Was there another $500 that you gave him that was not reported and not spent?

    Is Matt Mead a RINO?

    You didn’t answer my question about the Nebraska-Wyoming border and the fuel tax.

  13. Bouchard attacked Johnson on the issues I mentioned before plus a couple of others (like his vote against having a flag in every classroom).

    Wayne Johnson lives in Cheyenne, 40 miles from Nebraska but only 10 miles from Colorado. There are hardly any gas stations near either border on the Nebraska or Colorado side, but there are several in Wyoming. Make your own conclusions. Also check out this article – http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2013/01/09/news/19local_01-09-13.txt

    I suspect Bill Hill misreported the $500 as being from the Country Party. It was not. I wrote him a personal check.

    Did you see the donations for Johnson in the general election? The corporations and lobbyist groups came through with big bucks for one of their boys.

    Wyoming is really far more of a corporatist state than many believe. Rugged individualism is a myth that everyone likes to believe. In reality, entrepreneurs are few and far between, and corporate favoritism, subsides and tax breaks are the norm. The good old boy network here is as bad as anywhere in the country.

    Matt Mead is a good politician. He generally takes no firm stand on any issue. His comments on health exchanges, guns, cutting spending, etc. are generally disingenuous and ambiguous. In his state of the state message he emphasized his plan to cut spending by $60m. And then he described new special “one-time” spending of more than $100m. The “one-time” spending includes stuff like paying for forest fire fighting, not a one time thing. He pretends to be fiscally prudent while the budget continues to grow at a rate greater than population. His only firm position in the speech was that he was in favor of the 10 cents per gallon fuel tax increase which is favored by the big corporations in Wyoming, but is universally disliked by voters. Is he a RINO? It’s close. He’s not as bad as Johnson, but he’s certainly no conservative.

  14. #14 Shouldn’t it be up to the local school board to determine whether there are flags (plural) in every classroom?

    Burns and Pine Bluffs are closer to the Nebraska border than they are to Colorado. While a low fuel tax may be beneficial to border areas, it may not be as true for the state as a whole.

    Was the $350 to Montgomery Broadcasting for political ads on KFBC?

  15. Jim – I don’t care about flags in the classroom – I just reported what Bouchard’s letters were about. Burns is about equidistant from CO and NE. Pine Bluffs is on the NE border and about ten miles from CO. A large majority of voters in Johnson’s Senate district live closer to CO than NE. I have no clue how Hill spent his money.

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