Cassie Craven: The Wyoming I Know Is Back

I am so proud of the Wyoming Legislature. Sure, the House and the Senate had their disagreements.

But as this session comes to a close, let’s take a moment to acknowledge that we protected women’s rights, re-established our Second Amendment freedom, gave citizens property tax relief, and told the Governor “no” to more spending. We overrode the Governor’s veto so we could protect life for babies who can’t speak for themselves. We passed education choice to allow families of low income to have options they otherwise couldn’t afford, and cut the ties of bureaucracy on homeschoolers.

This session showed how much Republicans have to learn from one another. It gave me hope that Wyoming is a place of compromise and promise toward a common goal.

Sure, we could sit around and wail our tails about which is the more “conservative” body. We could cry about which gun group was better. We could measure ours, and you show me yours. Or we could all just agree that we moved the state forward this session, and we’re just getting started.

We bucked the system, stirred the pot, spoke the truth and didn’t back down. Both chambers did the people’s work. And it was damn good work.

There was a time when I decided that a life away from the city would be good for a while. I needed some wide open space with chickens and horses. I needed to be close to family for a lot of reasons. I needed to be reminded, in the COVID era, what freedom felt like again – in a small town where nobody wore a mask and you could see people’s smiles.

But times like these remind me that Wyoming is not just a place. It is a spirit and a code. Wyoming has a freedom unlike any other. Where you don’t use your blinker on a dirt road because it is nobody’s business where you’re going.

My law firm and staff are in Cheyenne, and I travel all over the state litigating daily. On any given day I could appear in a Cody, Laramie and Cheyenne court for arguments – in person or through a screen.

I feel Wyoming’s raw emotion when I speak with its people every day as a Wyoming litigator. I help them even as their families fall apart. I defend them in jury trials where they’re fighting for their lives. I represent their businesses and advise their schools. I know the pulse of Wyoming. I listen to her people and I represent her promise. I fight for the voiceless and those afraid to stand up to the system. When I don’t like the rules of the system, I fight to change them. Because that is Wyoming. Its spirit made me the fighter I am.

Back in 2020 I felt discouraged and overwhelmed at the pain of Wyoming’s people and the problems they faced. The solutions seemed so far away and the system felt stacked against us. 

The next governor’s race will be spectacular. So many promising candidates are in the mumblings of the mix. I get choked up just thinking about the promise that tomorrow will hold and the beacon on the hill we are for America.

Society eroded under the Biden administration. The time is now for a great rebuilding. It’s not every day you see a Joint Statement to Congress where both sides don’t stand up for a little boy dying from cancer. Is he dying or are we? What has happened to us? We are so broken we seem to have forgotten that we didn’t just used to believe in heroes, we believed we could each be one. Anyone can tear something down, but few take the time to build it.

This session we started to build something significant. But building anything of significance takes great risk, scrutiny and adversity. We’ve been forged through fire.

This Legislature called me home in spirit. The unity that surrounds a small Wyoming community when tragedy strikes. The smell of the air on a cool summer night under the Big Empty’s sky.  

A border and a boundary are man’s way of calling an outsider out. But we all know it is the spirit that binds us. The commitment to a way of life that is deeper than any state line a government could ever draw. I’ll see you soon wild Wyoming. 

"Powder River, Let `er Buck" Wyoming is back. And so is America.
Cowboy State Daily columnist Cassie Craven is a University of Wyoming College of Law graduate who practices law in Wyoming.