WYGO members shook the ground here in Wyoming during the 2020 Primary and General Elections, boot-stomping more than a half-dozen RINOs and throwing them out of office.
The establishment threw everything they had at us. Former Governor Gordon tried to rescue anti-gun Republicans. The late Senator Enzi did digital ads for them. Billionaires from Jackson flooded RINOs with campaign cash. It was an all-out war!
After the elections were over — after the establishment’s RINO incumbents were crushed at the ballot box — their plans to ‘get even’ with WYGO were hatched almost immediately.
Frankly, I expected it.
That’s why I wasn’t surprised to find out that the ‘investigation’ that Secretary of State Ed Buchanan launched against WYGO was leaked to the media before we were ever even notified about it!
This is how the power brokers in Cheyenne operate.
(WYGO’s Aaron Dorr (L) and Institute for Free Speech’s Senior Lawyer Del Kolde (R) outside the Federal Courthouse in Casper last month.)
Either organizations like WYGO kiss their ring and bend our knee, or they come after you with everything they’ve got!
In Buchanan’s case, he demanded a list of WYGO’s donors so that he could parade them on the state’s website and expose our members to being harassed at work and at home.
But if there was one thing that WYGO’s Board of Directors was just never going to do, it was surrendering a list of our members’ names and addresses. It would simply never happen!
So when we told Ed Buchanan to pound sand, he fined Wyoming Gun Owners $500 in accordance with the state’s brand-new campaign finance law, hoping we would just submit and pay up.
Now, it’s true that we paid Buchanan his 1st Amendment tax.
But what Buchanan and the RINOs in Cheyenne didn’t know was that WYGO was already preparing a lawsuit against the state’s blatantly unconstitutional campaign finance law — and we had to pay that fine to be able to take this case into Federal Court!
Federal lawsuits are expensive, and they move very slowly.
WYGO’s board knew that we would need help to take this case into Federal Court and so we reached out to the Institute for Free Speech (IFS) out of Washington, D.C.
The Institute for Free Speech focuses on 1st Amendment violations between citizen organizations like WYGO and the government — specifically regarding campaign finance laws.
Once the IFS reviewed the facts of this case, they agreed to help WYGO and assigned a Senior Attorney (Del Kolde) to this case.
The last year was consumed with lengthy discovery motions on both sides, interrogatories, and pre-trial motions.
But last month, I was on hand in Casper as our legal team presented our case before Judge Skavdahl, asking him to invalidate Wyoming’s campaign finance law for being blatantly unconstitutional, and in violation of recent court precedent.
As you’ve undoubtedly heard on the news or from WYGO’s email and social media program, Judge Skavdahl recently issued a ruling agreeing with Wyoming Gun Owners that the legislature’s newly minted campaign finance law violates the First Amendment!
More than that, while the judge’s ruling did not invalidate the law entirely, he did make it clear that Ed Buchanan can NEVER use this campaign finance law against WYGO in the future.
That means that WYGO’s 2022 primary election program can ROCK AND ROLL with no fear of reprisals from the RINOs in Cheyenne!
And after the legislature KILLED WYGO’s Second Amendment Preservation Act language this year — replacing it with a cheap substitute that won’t protect a single gun owner here in Wyoming — it’s clear that there’s a lot of work for us to do!
(The headline says it all! A federal judge in Casper ruled that Wyoming’s campaign finance law was a violation of the 1st Amendment and was voided!)
But at least now WYGO is free to ruthlessly expose these anti-gun traitors without having to worry about being attacked by Ed Buchanan anymore.
Thank you to every single WYGO member who helped us cover our legal fees with this lawsuit — it wouldn’t have happened without your support!
Of course, after this expensive legal battle, WYGO needs to rapidly replenish our war chest to get ready for the upcoming primary election cycle.
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Winning this lawsuit, only to be forced to sit on the sidelines for lack of funds during the upcoming primaries would make me sick!
Thank you for standing with us in our fight for freedom!
For Freedom,
Aaron Dorr
Policy Advisor
Wyoming Gun Owners
P.S. WYGO’s eighteen-month legal battle is over, as a Federal Judge recently ruled that Wyoming’s new campaign finance law is a blatant violation of the First Amendment!
Now, we’re gearing up for what we hope will be an explosive 2022 Primary Election. But to be effective, we need to rebuild our war chest. So please make a generous donation of $150, $100, $50, $25 or at least $10 today!
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