Wyoming Freedom Caucus

For the Freedom Caucus in the United States House of Representatives, see Freedom Caucus.

Wyoming Freedom Caucus
Chair	Rachel Rodriguez-Williams
Vice Chair	Chris Knapp
Founded	September 2020 (2020-09)
Ideology	Paleoconservatism Trumpism Factions: Right-libertarianism
Political position	Right-wing to far-right
National affiliation	State Freedom Caucus Network
Seats in the House Republican Conference	34 / 56
Seats in the State House	34 / 62
Website
Wyoming Freedom Caucus Wyoming Freedom PAC
Politics of Wyoming Political parties Elections

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is a caucus in the Wyoming Legislature. It is generally considered the most conservative bloc in the legislature. It was formed in September 2020 by Wyoming conservatives inspired by the national House Freedom Caucus. Since 2024, the caucus has a majority of seats in the Wyoming House of Representatives.

History

Formation and early development

The caucus was formed in September 2020 in Story, Wyoming, a rural census-designated community in Sheridan County at the base of the Bighorn Mountains, by approximately 18 to 20 Republican House members. Founders Dan Laursen and Tim Hallinan said it would increase the influence of the Legislature's most conservative members and challenge Republican leaders they considered insufficiently conservative. The organization emerged from a broader intraparty conflict in which hard-line activists and candidates regularly used the label "Republican in name only," or "RINO," for traditionalist Republican officeholders.

The organization was inspired by the House Freedom Caucus in Congress. Its early priorities included opposing abortion, reducing public spending, expanding firearm rights and pressuring Republican leaders to advance socially and fiscally conservative legislation. John Bear became chairman in 2022.

National affiliation and voting coordination

Under Bear, the caucus established a partnership with the State Freedom Caucus Network, which seeks to organize similarly aligned caucuses in state legislatures. The national network employs Jessie Rubino as its Wyoming state director and, through her, provides research and access to political resources in Washington. Bear said the arrangement supplied research and contacts that the caucus previously lacked.

Rubino researched legislation and sent caucus positions and recommendations by text and email, including while bills and amendments were being debated and voted upon on the House floor. Bear described the communications as concise research summaries and said members were not required to accept every recommendation. When asked what percentage of agreement was required to retain membership, Bear confirmed that an adherence threshold existed but declined to disclose it. He said he was pleased with how frequently members voted together.

Other legislators described the system more critically. Harshman contrasted it with the tradition that each member of Wyoming's citizen legislature should exercise independent judgment. Barry Crago said it was discouraging when a bloc of 26 legislators voted identically regardless of debate. Albert Sommers said political organization need not become "authoritarian." In 2023, the caucus repeatedly divided the House by votes near 36 to 26, particularly on budget amendments.

Internal communications disclosed in later litigation showed that Rubino participated in real-time floor strategy. During a contentious floor confrontation, she texted aligned legislators, "Keep pushing - people make great mistakes when they're this mad." The messages provided direct evidence that her role extended beyond preparing background research to advising legislators on tactics while proceedings were underway.

Rubino is married to Joe Rubino, who served as chief policy officer and general counsel to Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray. Their work overlapped substantively on proof-of-citizenship and residency requirements, voter identification, election-administration rules, limits on party-affiliation changes and other legislation promoted by Gray and the caucus. Jessie Rubino analyzed and communicated caucus positions on election bills while Joe Rubino advised the state official responsible for administering elections. Public reporting identified the marriage and overlapping responsibilities but did not establish an unlawful conflict or show that either spouse participated in a particular governmental decision affecting the other's employer.

Expansion during the 2023–2024 Legislature

During the 2023–2024 term, the caucus increasingly operated as a coordinated bloc. It supported legislation limiting when voters could change party affiliation, prohibiting medication abortion, eliminating gun-free zones and ending the University of Wyoming's diversity office. Gordon vetoed the gun-free-zone and university-diversity measures.

During the 2024 budget session, the caucus used the two-thirds vote required to introduce non-budget legislation to prevent numerous committee-sponsored bills from receiving debate. Committee bills ordinarily result from months of public meetings, testimony and interim study. The defeated measures included legislation intended to preserve access to community mental-health and substance-use treatment for uninsured patients, establish criminal penalties for threatening election workers and increase nonresident fishing-license fees that support wildlife management. Critics said the caucus discarded work completed through the Legislature's interim process before the full chambers could consider its merits.

Rubino said the caucus obtained policy ideas from constituents, internal polling and members' Christian faith, which she said "drives everything" they do. The caucus also promoted "Judeo-Christian family values" as an organizational principle. Its opponents argued that public policy should remain accountable to the state and federal constitutions and to constituents of different religious beliefs, rather than to a single religious framework.

Before the 2025 session, Gordon questioned whether caucus legislators were voting for their constituents or following recommendations originating outside the chamber. He warned that they were creating a public record Wyoming residents could judge at the next election. The caucus's sweeping 2026 losses later prompted renewed attention to Gordon's warning.

2024 elections and House takeover

The caucus, Wyoming Freedom PAC and outside organizations supported candidates challenging traditionalist Republican incumbents in 2024. Make Liberty Win, a Virginia-based super PAC associated with the libertarian-right organization Young Americans for Liberty, spent approximately $370,000, largely supporting caucus-aligned candidates. Americans for Prosperity, part of the political network founded by Charles and David Koch, spent more than $343,000 across Wyoming Republican races. Its activity was not uniformly pro-caucus; it supported or opposed candidates according to its own free-market priorities and participated on both sides of the intraparty divide.

Caucus-supported candidates defeated House Speaker Pro Tempore Clark Stith and representatives David Zwonitzer, Dan Zwonitzer, Tom Walters and Ember Oakley. Another supported candidate defeated House Speaker Albert Sommers in a Republican primary for the Senate. Following the election, caucus members and reliable allies controlled at least 34 of the House's 62 seats. Chip Neiman became speaker, Jeremy Haroldson speaker pro tempore, Scott Heiner majority floor leader and Ocean Andrew majority whip. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams became caucus chair.

The caucus's expansion also involved support outside its formal endorsement list. During the House District 41 campaign, Rubino appeared in a personal testimonial for Gary Brown, identifying herself as a district resident rather than speaking formally for the organization. Brown was not on the caucus's organizational endorsement slate and was not publicly listed as a member. Rubino said he would represent the "true conservative values" of central Cheyenne. Brown subsequently voted regularly with caucus members and co-sponsored legislation with them.

House majority, 2025–2026

Five and Dime agenda

Before the 2025 session, caucus leaders announced a "Five and Dime" plan to move five bills through the House during its first 10 days. The agenda included a residential property-tax reduction, restrictions on government diversity programs, citizenship and residency documentation for voters, restrictions involving driver's licenses issued to undocumented immigrants and a prohibition on considering environmental, social and governance factors in state investments.

Several priorities addressed practices that were already prohibited or had not been shown to occur in Wyoming. State law already limited ordinary driver's licenses to applicants who could demonstrate lawful presence, while federal law barred noncitizens from voting in federal elections and Wyoming law required voters to be United States citizens. Supporters said additional statutes would prevent future changes and increase confidence, although they cited no polling or other measurement demonstrating a Wyoming-specific collapse in election confidence. Critics described the measures as national political priorities for which proponents had not demonstrated a state-specific problem. The property-tax proposal addressed a documented increase in residential assessments, but the final law was substantially narrower than the caucus's initial plan. The ESG prohibition was the only Five and Dime bill the Senate declined to consider.

The House advanced all five measures on the accelerated schedule. Four passed the Legislature, while the Senate declined to advance the investment proposal. Gordon allowed the election bill to become law without his signature but questioned the legality and "arbitrary" nature of its 30-day residency requirement. He warned that damaged identification, post-office-box addresses and other documentary uncertainties could cause clerks to reject qualified voters, and wrote that citizens must be able to vote "without undue difficulty."

The final property-tax measure differed substantially from proposals initially promoted by caucus members. Representative Landon Brown, a Republican critic of the bloc, called amendments added during the process "pure stupidity." Other Republican legislators said the caucus claimed credit for compromises developed in the Senate after its more sweeping proposals encountered constitutional, fiscal and practical objections.

Budget policy

Caucus members and allies controlling the Joint Appropriations Committee proposed major reductions to Gordon's biennial budget recommendation. Targets included the University of Wyoming's block grant, the departments of Health and Family Services, state-employee compensation, the Wyoming Business Council and Wyoming Public Media. The committee also considered eliminating or sharply reducing programs supporting rural services and economic development.

The caucus said the reductions would restrain government growth and return spending toward pre-pandemic levels. Gordon answered that Wyoming had neither structural debt nor uncontrolled spending and called the committee proposal a "demolition budget." Wyoming has no state individual or corporate income tax, maintains a constitutionally required balanced budget and relies heavily on mineral revenue. Gordon argued that importing a national "cut everything" message into that structure amounted to political theater rather than a response to debt. The proposed reductions included $40 million, about 11 percent, from the University of Wyoming's block grant; elimination of most Wyoming Business Council funding; an end to state support for Wyoming Public Media; and reductions affecting health, family services and employee compensation. Critics said the practical effects would include fewer university programs, weaker recruitment and retention of public employees, reduced rural economic-development capacity and pressure on services for children, older residents and people with disabilities.

Senate President Ogden Driskill led an effort to restore most of the proposed reductions after testimony and organized opposition from university officials, local governments, economic-development organizations, public employees and service providers. Driskill said constituents contacted him specifically to urge the Senate not to permit Freedom Caucus control of that chamber. The Legislature ultimately approved a budget only about $53 million below Gordon's approximately $11 billion recommendation, leaving more than 99 percent of the governor's proposal intact. The outcome represented a legislative defeat for the caucus's central goal of returning spending to pre-pandemic levels. Driskill later said the caucus's claims of transparency and moral superiority were inconsistent with its conduct during the session.

Election legislation

Election policy was a central caucus priority. Legislators introduced 45 election-related bills in 2025, approximately 8 percent of all proposed legislation, but only eight reached the governor. Proposals included citizenship and residency documentation, a 30-day durational residency rule, restrictions on accepted voter identification, hand-marked paper ballots, bans on ballot drop boxes and limits on changing party affiliation before primaries. Wyoming had long combined Election Day registration with immediate eligibility for new residents, a practice described by supporters as part of the state's civic tradition. A separate 2023 law ended same-day party switching by requiring voters to change affiliation before the candidate filing period. Because most Wyoming offices are effectively decided in the Republican primary and many Democratic primaries have no candidate, opponents argued that the rule reduced the practical influence of unaffiliated and Democratic voters over officeholders in heavily Republican districts.

Wyoming already required voters to be United States citizens and state residents. Supporters described additional documentary evidence as necessary for election integrity, and Rubino argued that even one invalid vote was a problem. Proponents did not identify a Wyoming election overturned by noncitizen or nonresident voting. The Heritage Foundation, a national conservative think tank, listed four Wyoming convictions in its voter-fraud database over roughly twenty-five years, none showing fraud on a scale capable of affecting a statewide result. Opponents warned that the new proof requirements could instead burden lawful students, older residents, people with disabilities, married women whose current names differed from birth or citizenship records and residents who had recently moved.

Gordon's unsigned letter noted that federal law prohibits applying a durational residency requirement to presidential voting and questioned whether the state could lawfully administer different qualifications on the same ballot. He warned that the law's documentary standards could reject qualified voters and invite litigation. The Equality State Policy Center and other organizations challenged the law in federal court, alleging vagueness and an undue burden on women, Hispanic voters, younger voters and low-income residents. The case was dismissed for lack of standing because the alleged injuries had not yet occurred, rather than by a ruling that the restrictions were constitutional.

Abortion and healthcare

The caucus made abortion restrictions a central part of its legislative program. Its members sponsored or supported near-total bans, restrictions on medication abortion and a requirement that a patient undergo an ultrasound at least 48 hours before receiving abortion medication.

Gordon vetoed the ultrasound bill. Although he described himself as opposed to abortion, he called the required examination an "intimate, personally invasive, and often medically unnecessary procedure." He objected to the absence of exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest and said requiring a sexual-assault survivor to undergo the examination could be cruel and discourage reporting. Deterring disclosure can delay medical care, evidence collection and access to legal and counseling services for survivors. The Legislature overrode his veto. Opponents described the mandate as a direct contradiction of the caucus's limited-government language because it inserted a legislatively required medical procedure into a decision protected by the state constitution.

The Wyoming Supreme Court later held that two abortion bans violated Article 1, Section 38 of the Wyoming Constitution, which protects competent adults' right to make their own healthcare decisions. On June 12, 2026, District Judge Thomas T. C. Campbell struck down the ultrasound requirement, an ambulatory-surgical-center requirement and restrictions on off-label abortion medication. Campbell found no competent evidence supporting several legislative medical assertions, no demonstrated compelling state interest for the clinic and medication restrictions and no medical utility for the waiting period. Thus, legislation enacted by lawmakers who identified constitutional government as a central principle was invalidated for violating an express state constitutional right.

Caucus leaders responded by describing members of the Supreme Court as "rogue" or "weak" judges and accusing the court of engineering its decision. Caucus members presented no evidence of improper coordination, and reporting identified none. Caucus-associated legislators later met privately to discuss reducing the five-member court to three justices and advanced proposals for Senate confirmation of judicial appointments. Opponents described the proposals as retaliation against an independent judiciary following constitutional rulings the caucus opposed.

Firearms and local authority

The caucus supported legislation permitting concealed firearms in public schools, the University of Wyoming, community colleges, state facilities and government meetings. The National Rifle Association, a national gun-rights advocacy organization, and Gun Owners of America, a gun-rights organization generally positioned to the NRA's right, supported expansion of concealed-carry rights. The University of Wyoming, community-college leaders, school districts and local governments argued that institutions responsible for students, employees and public meetings should retain authority over their own facilities. Gordon allowed the bill to become law without his signature, explaining that a veto would almost certainly be overridden. He called it a "legislative power grab" because gun-free zones were not simply repealed; authority over them was transferred from locally governed institutions to the Legislature.

Although Gordon supported expanded firearm rights, he called the legislation a "legislative power grab." He wrote that gun-free zones had not been eliminated but were instead "determined exclusively by the legislature." The law therefore displaced decisions made by school boards, colleges and other public institutions with a statewide rule preferred by the legislative majority.

Wyoming Public Media subsequently reported an analysis of similar changes in Georgia, Nebraska and Ohio. It found increases in firearm-related incidents, deaths and injuries after those states relaxed concealed-carry restrictions, with injuries showing the largest increases. Comparable post-enactment data were not yet available for Wyoming, so the analysis described a potential public-safety risk rather than a measured Wyoming outcome.

The dispute illustrated a contradiction between the caucus's stated support for local control and its repeated use of centralized state control when local decisions differed from its policy goals. Similar transfers of authority appeared in legislation governing elections, public education, libraries, land use, healthcare decisions and institutional policies that had previously been made by local governments, professional boards, institutions or individuals.

Education and social policy

The caucus supported eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government and higher education, expanding public funding for private and home education, restricting transgender participation in women's sports and regulating school and library materials concerning sexuality and gender. Opponents described these policies as transfers of authority from educators, librarians, school boards and families to state government.

Caucus-backed legislation expanded education savings accounts to provide as much as $7,000 per child for private-school tuition, tutoring, internet service and other non-public educational costs. The original program limited eligibility according to household income; the 2025 expansion removed that means test, allowing families to qualify regardless of income. The introduced version also removed requirements that participating students take state or nationally normed assessments and that providers be certified by the Department of Education; some oversight provisions were restored during negotiations. The Wyoming Education Association, representing more than 6,000 public-school employees, and nine parents challenged the program, arguing that it diverted public money to private enterprises and conflicted with the constitutional requirement for a complete and uniform public-school system. Laramie County District Judge Peter Froelicher temporarily blocked payments in June 2025. The Wyoming Supreme Court reversed that preliminary injunction in May 2026 because the plaintiffs had not yet shown irreparable personal injury, allowing payments to begin while leaving the underlying constitutional claims unresolved. The caucus called the plaintiffs a "small group of activists," although the lead organization represented thousands of education professionals.

Roughly 4,000 families applied before the initial injunction. Payments go directly to approved providers rather than as unrestricted cash to parents, making the program different from a direct $7,000 family payment. Critics nevertheless argued that removing income limits subsidized families already using private education and that reduced testing and provider rules weakened public accountability. Supporters said provider approval and allowable-expense rules supplied sufficient safeguards and that families should control the educational setting.

The caucus also claimed restrictions on transgender participation in women's sports as an organizational accomplishment. Senator Wendy Schuler, a Republican who was not identified as a Freedom Caucus member, sponsored the legislation and worked on it over several sessions. She cautioned against allowing any single caucus to claim exclusive credit, saying "it takes a village" and that legislation resulted from work across both chambers rather than from one faction alone.

Political positions

The caucus describes its principles as limited government, individual liberty, private-property rights and "Judeo-Christian family values". Independent news organizations have characterized it as hard-line conservative, right-wing or far-right. Its fiscal positions include reductions in state spending, property tax cuts and opposition to selected economic development incentives. It supports restrictions on abortion and transgender rights, expanded firearm-carrying rights, public funding for private and home education, proof-of-citizenship and residency requirements for voters, elimination of government diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and policies favoring coal, oil, natural gas and uranium development.

Critics, including Republican officials, have argued that portions of this program conflict with the caucus's limited-government and local-control language. They have cited legislation mandating an ultrasound before medication abortion, establishing statewide firearm rules for locally governed schools and public institutions, prescribing acceptable election documents, directing local library and school policies and limiting the authority of municipalities. Republican Governor Mark Gordon described the firearms legislation as a "legislative power grab" because it transferred authority over gun-free areas from local institutions to the Legislature.

List of caucus leaders

• Dan Laursen and Tim Hallinan (2020–2022)
• John Bear (2022–2024)
• Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (2024–present)

Current members

Source:

• Jeremy Haroldson (2021–present)
• Scott Heiner (2021–present)
• Pepper Ottman (2021–present)
• John Bear (2021–present)
• Chip Neiman (2021–present)
• Tomi Strock (2023–present)
• Chris Knapp (2020–present)
• Ken Pendergraft (2021–present)
• Scott Smith (2023–present)
• Bill Allemand (2023–present)
• John Winter (2019–present)
• Joe Webb (2025–present)
• Ann Lucas (2025–present)
• Paul Hoeft (2025–present)

Further reading

• Green MN, Gawehns F. From Congress to the States: Explaining the Emergence and Membership of Freedom Caucuses in State Legislatures. State Politics & Policy Quarterly. 2024;24(4):370-388. doi:10.1017/spq.2024.24