2024 was the year we sold Wyoming to the highest bidder.
We chose to believe fancy mailers with political buzz words, flash animation on social media and really destructive untruths about political candidates. We voted based on slick advertising.
For example, we believed the false ads that former Speaker of the House, Albert Sommers, was a Chinese operative.
I’ve known Albert since Wonderful Wyoming Boys State in 1976. You can say a lot of things about Albert, but being an agent for the Communist Chinese is ridiculous. If you cut Albert, he bleeds Brown and Gold.
But, interests, with lots of money, paid for a ton of opposition research. They discovered Albert was on the Board of Directors of the State Legislative Leaders Foundation – an organization that allows all legislative leadership from the 50 state to meet, learn and shares ideas from each of the individual states. What the organization does not do is advocate for the Chinese.
But . . . many voters believed the ads. If the ad is scandalous and shiny, it must be true. Right?
Now, the secret black-money puppet masters are trying to cajole the Senate into doing their will with the same slick advertising techniques. We are seeing slimy mailers from out of state, the same cheesy animation on social media and the editorials demanding the Senate and the governor bow to the will of the almighty Freedom Caucus in the House.
We’ve asked the puppet masters behind the ads to pull off their masks. As expected, they ignored our requests. They hide in the shadows underneath the refrigerator of discourse or behind the walls of secrecy, scurrying around behind the scenes, dictating votes and policy from on high and through cell phones.
We sold our state to them. Whether through the apathy of not voting, belief in catchy slogans or the laziness of voter guides that seemed to tell us what we wanted to hear, we turned over our state.
Now, we are reaping our just rewards.
We have a legislature intent on burning down our state and its institutions. In a few short weeks, they have sought to destroy the education system, divert school finances to fund religious institutions, dismantle our law enforcement, hospitals, emergency medical services, fire departments and nursing homes, interfere in the physician-patient relationships and politically virtue signal instead of dealing with the real problems of people in Wyoming.
What about the real issues?
How big does the body count have to be before the legislature quits kicking the can down the road and deals with the death trap we call I-80? How many more tragic murder-suicides do we have to see before they take mental health seriously? How many of our children – our best and brightest assets – do we have to ship out-of-state before the legislature takes education and economic diversification seriously?
We need to look beyond the mailers' salacious sputum. We need to ignore the vapid videos and their feeble emulations of real courage. We need to shun the cackling commentaries aimed at drowning out real discussions.
In short, we need to look behind the flashy advertisements from the puppet masters, and dig for our own substance.
We need to quit listening to what we want to hear, and dig for what we need to hear. We need to tell the Senate and the governor to exercise their own independent discretion, preciously drafted into our Constitution as a system of checks and balances.
We need to support those who call out the puppet masters.
If the cockroaches who live in the political smoke-filled rooms want to stay in the dark, we have few options.
We can file ethics complaints according to the House rules, if we think people are trading their votes for political support.
If we have specific evidence of bribery, where our legislators vote on a bill based on future or past financial consideration, we can contact our local law enforcement and have them investigate the alleged crime.
Our biggest weapon in the fight for our state is outrage at the secrecy; coupled with our continuing demand for our government to be open and transparent. With the Freedom Caucus at the helm, we are all slaves to the puppet masters.
The time is now for us to reclaim our state. Let the Freedom Caucus know secrecy is unacceptable.
Tom Lubnau served in the Wyoming Legislature from 2004 - 2015 and is a former Speaker of the House. He can be reached at: YourInputAppreciated@gmail.com
