Dear editor:

The recent 2024 primary election was in ways reminiscent of the Johnson County War. As background, the range wars occurred between 1889 and 1893 in Wyoming. Cattle companies were run by wealthy elites centered in Cheyenne and had control in Wyoming.  Tension grew between those cattle company elites and the small ranchers/farmers/ordinary people over open range rights and what the elites saw as their right to run things in Wyoming and their right to Wyoming itself. The elites started by spreading rustling lies about some small ranchers, such as Ella Watson, Jim Averell and most famously Nate Champion. The elites brought it to a head by hiring out-of-state gunmen to invade Johnson County in an attempt to put small ranchers in their place by making examples of Watson, Averell and Champion through hangings and the culminating shootout at Nate Champion’s place. The elite’s tactics brought the ire of the small rancher and farmers, who banded together and intervened, which led to the surrender of the elites and their gunmen. None of the elites were ever prosecuted.

Similar overtones to the recent election:

• The establishment elites in Cheyenne and Park County were losing influence, power and control to common people, in particular the legislators and candidates aligned with the conservative, populist Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

• The targeting of particular conservative legislators with negative radio ads and misleading mailers, specifically about our Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams and Sen. Tim French.

• The use of out-of-state, establishment lobbying firms by the establishment elite’s candidates. Some establishment elite candidates in Park County spent over $10,000 on these out-of-state firms in an attempt to wrestle back power and control. See for yourself by visiting the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Campaign Finance Information System (wycampaignfinance.gov/WYCFWebApplication/GSF_Authentication/Default.aspx). You can pull up a candidate’s financial disclosures to see who/where their money came from, how much they raised, and how they spent it.  Some interesting reading. As the saying goes; “birds of a feather…”

• The grassroots rallying to their hard-working populist, conservative candidates with activism, small donations and time. 

• A major win for the people with the defeat of the establishment elite’s candidates resulting in a major balance of power shift in Cheyenne to the populist Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

We are fortunate to have our local “champions” in Rodriguez-Williams, French, Nina Webber, Paul Hoeft, Sen. Dan Laursen, Rep. John Winter and others. They are standing up to the power and money of the establishment elites and special interests in Cheyenne and Park County for our benefit. Echoes of times past … still today.

Jim Vetter

Cody