Wyoming Democrats Are Going Broke And Don’t Want The Press To Report It

The Wyoming Democratic Party’s State Central Committee is operating at a loss and could be left with about two weeks worth of funding by the end of the year, its treasurer said during a Sunday meeting in Rock Springs.

In its federal and non-federal accounts, the state party had $36,580.20 as of May 1, Party Treasurer Dudley Case said at the meeting. But the party has been spending more money than it has been raising each month, which has led to a $21,795.32 loss this year.

That's about a $5,000 loss per month, in the first four months of the year, said Case.

“Needless to say that’s an unsustainable loss,” he said. “So we have to do some fundraising this year, some serious fundraising.”

By the end of this calendar year, Case estimated the party sustaining a $24,478 loss total, leaving it with about $12,000 in its accounts.

On four of the party’s accounts, the party is only “paying bank fees on them,” so Case proposed eliminating those four accounts. His chart showed $494 in bank fees for the year as of May 1.

Other expenditures for the year so far include advertising and marketing ($953.76), a contribution expense ($3,500), a coordinated campaign expense ($725), dues and subscriptions ($2,922.82), legal and professional services ($7,200), meals and entertainment ($718.56), office supplies and software ($5,451.66), payroll ($1,122.32), cellphone stipend ($1,000), health coverage reimbursement ($1,766.68), a health stipend ($2,400), payroll taxes ($16,884.61), payroll wage expenses ($40,453.65), postage ($350), processing fees ($991.97), rent and lease ($1,340), travel ($8,199.45), and utilities ($942.17).

The party is anticipating four years’ worth of increased monthly payout from the Democratic National Committee, which already comprises 65% of its total revenue at about $15,000 a month, party officials said. Monthly ActBlue donations comprise 13% of the total revenue, he said.

The party’s total contributions toward its revenue for the year as of May 1 totaled $75,980.20, according to a budget sheet Case presented.

This year the Nellie Tayloe Ross fundraiser dinner – the party’s major fundraising event – amassed $5,000 in revenue after its $12,000 in expenses, Case said, adding that “that’s a little low.”

“We are averaging $27,367.82 in average monthly expenditures,” Case said. “That’s quite high, I think.” The average revenue, conversely, is $23,257.73 per month, said Case.

As of the meeting, he projected the party would have just one and a third months of reserves if it stopped making revenue. Most organizations, Case added, profit and non-profit, strive to keep between nine and 18 months of reserves.

Case and others noted that the party hadn’t had a consistent treasurer for about five years. Case said it took him about six months to sort through the party’s finances and put together his report.

Do Not Publish This Budget

Recognizing that Cowboy State Daily was present at its Sunday meeting, the Democratic State Central Committee passed a motion formally requesting the outlet not to air its budget publicly.

The reporter had been taking photographs of the budget sheets prior to the passage of that resolution.

Erin O’Doherty, who was interim party chair at the meeting’s start, called for a halt to that.

“I’m not comfortable with the press taking pictures of our budget,” said O’Doherty. “I would formally request the media not share any of this information outside the room.”

A man seconded the motion. The call for discussion passed within about one second, and an overwhelming ‘aye’ vote resounded.

Not everyone at the meeting was on board with trying to censor the press.

“Discussion went by really quickly,” protested Kyle “El” Cameron, interim chair of the party’s labor caucus and former candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Cameron said she would like to vouch for the reporter.

It wasn’t about the reporter, countered O’Doherty. It was about limiting public access to “the whole spreadsheet.”

After consulting with its attorney and editors, Cowboy State Daily has opted to publish the party’s budget issues as it believes them to be of public interest and political importance.

Cowboy State Daily did not agree to any terms before the budget hearing. None were given.

Political parties are private entities that can go into executive or closed sessions as their bylaws allow.

The Wyoming Democratic Party’s bylaws say only party members can attend its state central committee meetings – but party leadership has vowed, both in 2022 and in a Tuesday comment to Cowboy State Daily, to keep party meetings “open” to people regardless of political affiliation.

Major political parties in Wyoming have some control over state and local governance. They nominate candidates to fill public office vacancies when one of their members leaves office mid-term.

They also raise money to back political candidates, organize events and protests, and drive political messaging.

The party’s vote to gag the budget report revives a recurring debate about the extent to which major political parties in Wyoming owe transparency to the public.

That’s Strategy

O’Doherty told Cowboy State Daily in an interview on Tuesday that her motion was about protecting the party’s strategies, and employees’ “personnel stuff.”

“If you want to have strategy, we don’t want to announce it to our opponents. We don’t want it in the press,” she said, adding that shielding people’s salaries is “just a courtesy.”

Leaked budget or not, the party still has to report its receipts and expenditures publicly according to campaign laws. Those reports feature a less-detailed breakdown, however.

The Debate

Cowboy State Daily press attorney Tom Lubnau told the outlet he believes both major parties – Republican and Democrat – should be transparent about their financial reports, though public records laws don’t require the release of a line-item accounting.

Wyoming Republican Party Chair Bryan Miller told Cowboy State Daily he found the Democratic Party leadership’s maneuver “odd,” and said, “That’s just asking for trouble.”

Miller said the Republican party presents its budget at its meetings, while the press attends.

To confirm the point, Cowboy State Daily requested the past four years of financial statements from the Republican State Central Committee.

Miller said Tuesday he would have to check with the party’s legal team and could get back to the outlet within a couple days.

Carbon County Vice-Chair Joey Correnti told Cowboy State Daily he’s unsure why Miller requested the delay and wondered aloud if it’s because the chair is new to his role. Correnti said state party leaders go through the budget line-by-line at every, publicly-accessible meeting.

State Republican Party leadership, however, is under scrutiny for its allegedly-opaque election processes, as a slate of Hot Springs County Republicans have sued it on claims that the state leaders conducted backroom processes to skew the local party’s elections after they were finalized.

Reminds Of That One Time…

The push to censor information from the press on Sunday harkens back to a debate that erupted at the Sept. 17, 2022, Wyoming Republican State Central Committee meeting in Riverton.

Republican leaders called for an executive session to hear a report on legislation. The move for secrecy ignited debate, as some in the closed meeting argued about whether kicking the public out for that reason was proper under the party’s bylaws.

A WyoFile reporter listened at the door during executive session, and reported at length on his own actions “in service of transparency;” and on the controversy that followed at the time.

Once back in public session, then-party Chair Frank Eathorne spoke in support of a motion to remove the WyoFile reporter from the remainder of the meeting.

Correnti, who then chaired the Carbon County Republican Party, opposed the motion. He spoke of the party’s duty to the First Amendment, and of its bylaws.

“This guy’s going to write whatever he’s going to write, it’s going to be completely wrong, and we are well-seasoned to dealing with that garbage,” said Correnti at the time. “But now we are making a choice to take an action that is a violation of our bylaws.”

The Republican Party’s bylaws don’t give specific direction on when to go into executive session. They say to keep meetings open to the public, except when Robert’s Rules of Order call for an executive or closed session.

Those rules at the time didn’t appear to prohibit the executive session.

Correnti clarified in his Tuesday interview that kicking out the press after the executive session would likely have violated the bylaws’ mandate of public access to meetings. He also disputed the legitimacy of the descent into executive session, since voting members were asked to share the session’s information with their own county parties afterward.

That could give the appearance of selective removal of the press, he added.

WyoFile’s stance toward party transparency hasn’t changed, chief executive and editor Matt Copeland told Cowboy State Daily in a Monday email.

“While private entities, Wyoming's two major political parties hold enormous sway over innumerable aspects of public life,” said Copeland. “As a private nonprofit in the transparency business, it's WyoFile's position that the electorate has a right to see how the Republican and Democratic parties behave and that each should conduct their business in full view of public scrutiny.” 

That’s Not The Same, Dems Say

Then-Democratic party Chair Joe Barbuto, who announced his resignation from the post May 21, told WyoFile at the time that the party’s custom was to have “open” meetings, despite a bylaw limiting meeting access to Democratic party members.

The members-only clause is “not something we would ever enforce,” Barbuto told the outlet. “Wyoming Democratic Party meetings are open to whoever wants to attend. Obviously, when it comes to voting, you have to be a member of the state central committee, but otherwise, we’ve always had an open-door policy. That includes the executive committee — when we meet, that’s open too.” 

Barbuto did not respond to a Cowboy State Daily request for comment on his 2022 statement in light of Sunday’s motion. But Wyoming Democratic Communications Director Mandy Weaver responded on his behalf, indicating that the two incidents are not the same – since no one tried to remove Cowboy State Daily from Sunday’s meeting.

“(The motion) requested you not publish slides that included the specifics of the Wyoming Democratic Party’s budget,” wrote Weaver in an email. “Wyoming Democratic Party is committed to transparency, which is why our meetings have always been and will remain open to all who wish to attend, regardless of political affiliation.”

Unlike the 2022 incident, the party asked the outlet “merely to refrain from publishing the details of our budget,” Weaver added.

Your Prerogative

Wyoming House Minority Floor Leader Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, told Cowboy State Daily that Sunday’s budget incident “could have been handled better,” but that he’s hopeful new party leadership will establish guidelines for situations like those.

The party elected a new chair, Lucas Fralik, on Sunday, along with other new officers.

“Personally, I don’t think the party has anything to hide about (the budget),” said Yin. “I think that people think that anything can be construed in any way, but I don’t think the Democrats have anything to hide.”

Whether to ignore the resolution and publish the budget is “Cowboy State Daily’s prerogative,” added the state lawmaker.

Lubnau in his own interview said that, throughout his experience as a state legislator, the Democratic caucus was always more transparent than the Republican caucus, as the former kept its strategy meetings open.

Yin said the Democratic caucus still offers that access but simply doesn’t hold many formal meetings because there are so few Democrats in the Wyoming Legislature. There are eight Democrats and 85 Republicans.

Fralik did not respond by publication time to a Tuesday-morning voicemail request for comment.

Lopsided Power Dynamic

Though both major parties have the same statutory functions to help fill government vacancies, the Republican Party has much more power currently, because all statewide elected offices and a supermajority of state legislative seats are held by Republicans.

No Wyoming statewide elected officials are Democrats.

So, the Democratic State Central Committee would not be called upon to nominate replacement candidates if a vacancy surfaced in one of those offices.

If a vacancy occurs in a state legislative seat, the county Democratic or Republican party leadership from that district would nominate the three candidates for replacement, and the county commissions that oversee the district would appoint one replacement from those.

The same process applies to county government vacancies, like coroner or county attorney.

Clarification: an earlier version of this story contained a sentence saying the party ordered the press not to report the budget, but the motion was “formally requesting” the outlet not air the budget.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.