Frustration over ugly and potentially illegal politicking boiled over into a legislative meeting Wednesday, with lawmakers who’ve been on the receiving end of attacks pressing for answers while colleagues with links to the group that sent the mailers looked on.
The debate, which took place near the end of a Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivision Committee meeting, later drew in Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who was pressed about whether his office, which oversees elections, would investigate the situation.
“I’ve had so many constituents come to me this year on the question of elections,” Sen. Bill Landen (R-Casper) said at the meeting in Evanston.
Landen is not up for reelection this year, but said that hasn’t stopped voters from asking him what lawmakers are “going to do about misleading and outright lies in mailers.”
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“I wonder if you share the concern about what’s going on in our Wyoming politics now?” Landen asked Gray. “It just feels like we’re sliding down the slope. And when you have mailers like that go out, I’ve seen them in my district … and I just think, ‘Wow, we’re getting to a pretty dangerous level here.’”
Dirty campaigning is far from new to Wyoming, but voters, candidates and longtime politicos say it’s reached a new level this election cycle, particularly when it comes to political action committees and out-of-state interest groups.
One series of PAC mailers has already sparked a defamation suit. Another PAC attracted a cease-and-desist letter after it used the photograph of a Virginia man in mailers to portray a Wyoming man running for office.
As secretary of state, Gray oversees the administration of statewide elections, including legislative races.
“Political life has always, there’s always been a vibrant back and forth,” Gray said in his response to Landen, adding that he’s recently been reading about the American Civil War and early American history.
