Getting to the grassroots of the issue; interest high in precinct committee positions
Getting to the grassroots of the issue; interest high in precinct committee positions
By Jonathan Gallardo
Gillette News Record
Via Wyoming News Exchange
GILLETTE — For the second primary election in a row, an often-overlooked race figures to be one of the more hotly contested events on the ballot.
While a lot of attention will be directed toward the state legislature, U.S. representative, city council and county commission races, the precinct committee seats for the Campbell County Republican Party Central Committee have attracted unprecedented interest.
In May, during the two-week filing period for the primary election, 203 people filed for precinct committee seats. That’s more than 80 more filings than two years ago, and numbers that have never been seen for a race that is often empty on a voter’s ballot.
In 2020, 122 people filed for the precinct committee seats. That year, the precinct committee races were a hot topic leading up to the primary election, and two factions within the local GOP created their own guides with lists of precinct committee people to vote for.
In that election, moderate Republicans won out over their more conservative counterparts in the precinct races. This summer, voters will decide whether the party will continue in the same direction, or whether it’ll swing back to a more conservative slant.
This year, there are 144 Republican precinct committee seats for 37 precincts open: 72 men and 72 women.
While some precincts received the minimum number of candidates, most of them will be contested races. A couple of precincts — 1-15 and 1-19 — have 12 people vying for six seats.
County Clerk Susan Saunders, who has worked local elections since 1980, said this is the highest number of precinct candidates that she’s ever seen. It comes after a record-setting year in 2020.
And Campbell County is not alone. Saunders has heard from county clerks around the state who are reporting all-time highs for the precinct committee seats.
Doug Camblin, who along with his wife Charlene have represented their precinct for the past several years, said more people are realizing the importance of having elected officials who represent their beliefs, whether it’s the president, the governor or a precinct committee person.
“There are groups of people that have just really gotten active, focused on getting people of like minds to file, for all positions,” he said.
The importance of this election is not lost on Camblin, who believes it is “probably the most important election in my lifetime.”
The situation at the library has energized people on both sides of the issue to become involved. Many of those who asked the commissioners to remove certain books from the children’s and teen sections have filed for precincts. Also among the precinct filings are several librarians and people who’ve voiced their support for the library board and staff.
County elections coordinator Michelle Leiker noticed during the filing period that there were a lot of first-timers.
One of those first-timers is Ian Scott, whose first experience with the central committee was a few months ago, when he applied for a vacant seat on the county commission.
Scott found himself fascinated with all of the rules and procedures that the central committee went through in the meeting. As a result, he filed in May to represent his precinct.
“Why would you not want to know more about what’s going on in your community and how things work?” he asked.
For Scott, from the outside looking in, the central committee is politics without the politicians.
“A lot of those people that were in that meeting, these are the people I deal with every day,” he said. “These are my friends and my neighbors. And why wouldn’t I want to be part of something like that?”
Sage Bear, who’s also running for precinct committee person for the first time this year, said she’s learned a lot in the past couple of years, with her husband John being a state legislator.
“I just want my morals and my ideologies to represent them. I don’t have an agenda out there,” Bear said.
The Republican Party has been infiltrated by Democrats who feel alienated by the current state of their own party, she said.
“The Democratic party has become so extreme they don’t fit there any more, so they come to the Republican party,” she said. “They don’t really want all the Republican ideals anymore.”
The county is divided into areas called precincts. Voters in each precinct can pick who they want to represent them in the local GOP’s central committee. A precinct gets two representatives — one man and one woman — for every 250 registered Republicans who live there.
The members of the central committee elect a party chairman as well as local representatives for the Wyoming Republican Party.
When there’s a vacancy in an elected seat, the precinct committee people are involved in selecting three finalists to fill that vacancy.
The central committee also votes on party platforms, bylaws and resolutions.
Bear said while it may be “the smallest elected position,” that does not mean it’s the least important.
Darla Cotton first got involved two years ago because she didn’t like where the local Republican Party was going. She didn’t just want to complain from the sidelines, so she filed to represent her precinct and was elected.
“I believe in a lot of the Republican values, a great majority of them, but not 100%, and I think that’s OK,” she said. “I felt like that was not the direction we were headed.”
Heather Herr has chaired the local GOP since spring 2021, when she was elected with 76% of the central committee’s vote. Since then, Cotton said, things have improved.
“I do feel like it’s been better; we’ve tried to be more inclusive, while furthering Republican values, and that’s really what I want to see happen all across the board,” she said.
Camblin said he and many others believe the Republican Party is a big tent, where a broad spectrum of ideas are welcome.
But there are those who “would rather have a small, pure party, rather than a big, all-inclusive party. A small pure party has no power,” he said.
Bear said it’s a “misrepresentation” to frame this as conservatives wanting the party to be more pure, and that they just want the Republican Party to be governed by Republican ideals and platforms.
“The big tent people, they don’t really want more conservative ideas, they just want to be included more,” she said.
Vicki Kissack, former GOP chairman, will not be running for her precinct in August after several years as a precinct committeewoman.
“It’s an opportunity for me to pass the baton to others, to step back and watch it all unfold,” she said.
Kissack became chair in January 2018, and she then was elected in March 2019 to serve a two-year term. In that election, the local GOP saw a shift as more conservative candidates were voted into leadership roles over moderate candidates, put forth by a group calling themselves Frontier Republicans, by about a 2-to-1 ratio.
In 2021’s elections, the more moderate candidates won by almost a 3-to-1 margin.
Kissack said she feels good about the health of the local GOP.
“I actually think the party seems very strong right now,” she said. “I think Heather’s done a great job, she came into it not really knowing what to expect. I feel like she’s been fair, trying to be representative of the whole party and not just one side.”
Right now, the Wyoming Republican Party leans more conservative than Campbell County’s, and it has made plenty of headlines this year, whether it was censuring Liz Cheney or getting into arguments with the Natrona and Laramie counties’ Republican parties.
“We’re being controlled by extremists, extreme right-wing (people who) call themselves Republicans,” Camblin said.
Each county has the same number of representatives in the state Republican Party, regardless of its population. This doesn’t lead to fair representation, Camblin said, but the state GOP isn’t interested in changing this.
The state GOP is facing multiple lawsuits.
Kissack said all of this legal action is nothing more than an attempt to “break the party” apart by groups who want to get their own people into leadership.
“I wish that people would get back to doing the work of the party, and quit spending so much time trying to figure out how to hold each other accountable legally,” she said.
Cotton said the drama surrounding the Wyoming Republican Party is distracting from big issues that affect everyday people.
“There are some really important issues to this state that are being overlooked (by the state GOP) because of things that aren’t concerns to the general voter,” she said.
Moving forward
Cotton said she’s glad to see so many people wanting to get involved with the local GOP.
“Regardless of what your stance is, I do think it’s good there are so many people getting involved,” Cotton said.
Bear agreed.
“As more people participate, that’s for the better,” she said. “When people let things go, don’t get involved, that’s dangerous.”
Camblin said some may have “had the party on autopilot, but now they’re awake, which is a good thing.”
“We need to work together, rather than saying, I’m right and you’re wrong, or vice versa,” Cotton said. “A lot of things we agree upon, but it seems like right now, everyone’s focused on the things that we don’t.”
Bear said it’s natural for parties to “change over time.”
“What I’d like to see is there’s more education and discourse, talking about how to solve the problems, not resting on sound bites you hear from whoever,” she said. “We should really be more about solving the problem.”
Camblin said he doesn’t know how the precinct committee races will shake out this August, because everyone is energized.
Kissack said she believes the pendulum will swing back to the conservative side this primary.
“I think there’ll be a shift this year,” she said. “From all indications, there will be quite a shift again.”
Camblin said the fact that so many people have filed is proof that “the big tent is working,” because “we’ve got a lot of people from a lot of different viewpoints” trying to represent their precincts.
But the most vital part of all of this, he added, is that it’s up to the voters to decide.
“Let the voters hash it out,” he said. “That’s the important part.”
This story was published on June 28, 2022.
