Rachel Rodriguez-Williams

Over the past four years, Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (R-Cody) says she’s fought relentlessly for pro-life legislation, Second Amendment rights, property tax reform, school choice and other conservative causes. And she wants to keep fighting: In a Monday interview, Rodriguez-Williams confirmed she will seek a third term in the Wyoming Legislature.

“I believe that Republicans in House District 50 deserve a proven, conservative legislator who’s ethical, transparent and fights for Republican values,” she said.

A member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, Rodriguez-Williams has been recognized as having a consistently conservative voting record since her election in 2020. 

In the recent Budget Session, she highlighted her advocacy of a range of legislation, including a bill informally known as Chloe’s law; it prohibits medical providers from performing surgeries or providing drugs aimed at changing a child’s gender.

Rodriguez-Williams also noted her support of a bill that would have prohibited private dollars from being used to fund Wyoming elections.  Among her constituents in the eastern portion of the City of Cody, Clark, Ralston, Heart Mountain and Sunlight/Crandall, “election integrity is really important,” she said.

If elected to another two-year term, Rodriguez-Williams said property tax reform and relief will remain “at the top of my list.” The Legislature passed a number of measures aimed at providing relief this year, but the largest was vetoed by Gov. Mark Gordon and others are temporary.

Rodriguez-Williams also hopes to build on the recent Wyoming Education Savings Accounts Act, which offers households up to $6,000 a year to help pay for students’ education outside of the public school system. The new law covers students from pre-kindergarten through age 21 — but only if they’re in a household earning 150% or less of the federal poverty level. Lawmakers included more limited assistance for households earning up to 500% of the poverty level, but Gordon used a line item veto to limit the funding to those at 150% and below.

For her part, Rodriguez-Williams wants funding offered to all families.

“I would like to see school choice be universal, not a welfare program,” she said.

Rodriguez-Williams opposed the two-year, $10.6 billion budget passed by the Legislature last winter, and she wants to ensure that the supplement budget considered in next year’s General Session is focused on dire needs.

Other topics on her radar include prohibiting foreign ownership of Wyoming land and taking steps to address illegal immigration; she expressed particular concern about an influx of fentanyl and other illicit drugs.

“Right now, every state is a border state,” Rodriguez-Williams said. “And there are consequences to that, that Wyoming will see when it comes to elections, when it comes to public health issues. And so we really need to be prepared as a state for what other states are encountering.”

Rodriguez-Williams was first elected to the House in 2020. Her experience includes time as a law enforcement officer in California, as a community prevention professional in Cody and as the leader of a couple faith-based nonprofit organizations in Park County.

The official filing period for partisan and municipal offices opens May 16 and runs through May 31.

Lawmaker’s old campaign site taken over by antagonist

Anyone who tried accessing Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams’ campaign website in recent weeks wound up someplace very different. Instead of getting a rundown of the Cody Republican’s views on the issues, visitors to WilliamsForHD50.com were sent to a page soliciting donations for Planned Parenthood.

Rodriguez-Williams used the domain during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, but online records indicate her registration lapsed last year. And that apparently allowed one of her antagonists to purchase it in February.

While the person’s identity is unknown and their motivations unclear, Planned Parenthood is an outspoken advocate for abortion access; the national organization’s views stand in sharp contrast to Rodriguez-Williams’ efforts to restrict and prevent abortions in Wyoming.

“I consider it an attack,” she said of the domain takeover.

“It’s not only against me,” the lawmaker added. “It’s against the 82% of constituents in House District 50 that voted for me in the [2022] general election.”

Campaign finance records show Rodriguez-Williams hired Sylvestri Customization to create her website in 2020, and historical registration records indicate the marketing agency managed the domain on the lawmaker’s behalf.

Maintaining ownership of a .com domain involves paying a fee of roughly $12 to $25 a year. If the registration lapses and the fee goes unpaid for more than 60 days past the expiration date, the domain eventually goes back into the pool of available names and anyone can purchase it.

Registration records archived by WhoisXML API indicate WilliamsForHD50.com expired and was up for grabs for a brief period in 2022, but Sylvestri Customization reacquired it amid Rodriguez-Williams’ run for a second term.

The registration apparently lapsed again in June 2023, which means the domain likely became available sometime in August. Months passed with no takers, but someone bought the domain on Feb. 24, amid the Legislature’s Budget Session.

Website owners are not required to publicly reveal themselves, and whoever acquired Rodriguez-Williams’ former domain opted to shield their identity through a service offered by their registrar, GoDaddy. Using a form provided on GoDaddy’s website, a Tribune reporter attempted to contact the owner on Friday and Wednesday morning, but no one responded by press time.

Whoever the owner is, they’re actively tracking the situation: Earlier this week, they stopped referring WilliamsforHD50.com visitors to Planned Parenthood. Instead, they started sending web traffic to a Cowboy State Daily article about the domain snafu.

As for those wanting official information about Rodriguez-Williams’ campaign, they can soon visit her new site, which will be hosted at williams4wyoming.com.