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State Sen. Wendy Schuler (R-Evanston) is not known as one of the people who incited the Wyoming Capitol riot.
The mild-mannered, second-term senator from Uintah County is typically a voice of compromise and reason in an increasingly divided and infighting Congress.
And Schuler had had enough of the infighting and posturing. She “kind of felt it” when she wrote a critical column in Wednesday’s Uinta County Herald summarizing the recently concluded legislative session and criticizing some of her fellow legislators, she said of the Cowboy State. told The Daily. for their “lack of professionalism and integrity”.
“It was a really frustrating situation,” she said of the recently concluded 2024 session. “We killed a lot of things we shouldn’t have killed.”
Listen to voters, not people outside the state.
The Second Amendment advocacy group Wyoming Gun Owners went after Schuler during the session for opposing House Bill 125, which would end Wyoming’s gun-free zones.
“Gun owners in Wyoming, they’re going to come after me, I don’t care,” Schuler said. “The people here in Wyoming are the most important people. Some people show up at the Capitol once a year from out of state, but I don’t really care.”
WyGO was founded by Sen. Anthony Bouchard, a Cheyenne Republican, but is currently run by Iowa-based lobbyist Aaron Dole. WyGO members have been accused in the past of using aggressive tactics and attacking members of Congress with inappropriate messages regarding the bill.
Doe said he found Schuler’s comments a source of “great amusement.”
“WyGO apologizes for nothing,” Do said. “Thanks to our relentless grassroots pressure, WyGO was able to pass the Stand Your Ground law, why our members threw dozens of RINOs into the dustbin of Wyoming political history, and How we were able to get two landmark gun control bills on Governor Gordon’s desk this session.
“We look forward to continuing our fight for freedom and bringing RINOs like Schuler to the polls.”
there is no going back
Mr. Schuler unsuccessfully tried to introduce an amendment to the bill that would have required anyone attempting to bring a concealed weapon into a public school to notify the school district’s superintendent in writing. Her amendment failed by a vote of 24-6.
“Mr. Schuler is whining because WyGO opposed his terrible amendment to HB-125, which would have created a de facto gun registry here in Wyoming,” Doe said.
Schuler supported his vote against the bill, saying he wrote it based on voter input, just as he wrote it without nearly all votes. She said she is compiling feedback she receives from voters to help guide her voting.
“There were literally emails saying, ‘Please don’t vote for (HB) 125. School safety is already in place. We’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make schools safe, and we don’t need this.’ We received hundreds of letters,” she said. “So I listened to them.”
She believes some members of Congress are becoming too sensitive to outside influences and attitudes toward elections.
“I don’t think you need someone in Washington, D.C., anywhere to write down how you vote,” Schuler said. “My constituents, they are the ones that matter.”
Other disappointments
Schuler also noted that a bill from the Joint Interim Committee on Travel, Recreation, Wildlife, and Cultural Resources that would have increased nonresident fishing license fees died without being introduced, and that Wyoming’s bill to increase nonresident fishing permit fees for children by age 6 died. She was also disappointed that her personal bill, which would have required her to attend school, also died.
“It didn’t matter whether we needed the money or not,” Schuler said of his fellow senators’ vote on the first day of the session.
A two-thirds majority is required to introduce non-budget bills during the budget session.
Schuler said in a conversation with his colleagues that many people are either told how to vote by outside organizations or vote blindly on things that increase government revenue and spending. He said he had come to the conclusion.
“I didn’t have an answer that I thought was good enough in my head,” she says.
Party politics?
Schuler believes there is too much Republican politics in Congress. Her biggest priority, she said, is not to stick to the party platform, but to represent the wishes of voters.
The pledge to vote on the Republican platform with at least 80% of the votes cast is widely seen in Republican circles as a litmus test for loyalty to the party.
“Most of the people I talk to here understand that very well,” she said. “The party platform doesn’t mean as much to me as it does to the people.”
“Silent Majority”
She said “extremist” voices, which do not represent the majority of Wyoming’s residents, have undue political influence over what she considers the “silent majority” represented in other parts of the state. I believe that I am exerting power.
Schuler said he is prepared to campaign by knocking on the doors of other candidates during the next election season to combat the issue and is optimistic that Congress can improve in the future. She noted how traditional Republicans took back the Uinta County Republican Party from far-right leadership last year in a similar “transformational” effort.
“I think that’s what the majority of people in Wyoming want,” she said. “I think it’s a very small number of people who are vocally extremist on either side, and they actually probably don’t represent 80% of our population.”
Her preference is for long-term residents to “run” and run for office.
“I think we fell asleep driving a little bit in this beautiful state and weren’t as involved as we should have been,” she said.
Out-of-state thinking
Shuler said much has changed in Wyoming politics since he first joined the legislative fight in 2018. He sees less cooperation and compromise on legislation and a more fragmented organization overall.
“I hope that in future elections, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, we continue to try to find people who have common sense and a sense of reason,” she said. “It’s about listening to the voters rather than other things that are involved.”
Schuler, a fifth-generation Wyoming resident, said she is concerned about how many new Wyoming residents are running for office. She believes most of these people don’t make an effort to understand Wyoming’s culture or the beliefs of their neighbors.
“I’m not saying that people who have moved here in the last couple of years can’t assimilate and understand the Wyoming way of doing things, but I don’t think they always do that,” Schuler said. Ta.
She wants people to serve on local boards and city councils before running for office above Congress.
“I don’t think they (voters) want someone they barely know who’s just spouting the right things,” Schuler said. “I’m not a big fan of extremism.”
Schuler won both Republican primaries by wide margins. If she chooses to run again, she would be up for re-election in 2026.
“They’re going to keep me for two years, and some people might not like that,” she said. “But I can live for two more years with a happy and cheerful face.”
leo wolfson It can be accessed at leo@CowboyStateDaily.com.
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