By David Peck

Make it number five.

For the fifth time in his political career, Max Maxfield announced a bid for public office in Lovell Tuesday evening, telling a strong gathering at the Lovell Community Center that he intends to run for re-election as secretary of state in the 2010 Wyoming election.

“I’m proud that this is my fifth announcement in Lovell,” Maxfield said. “I’m proud of the fact that I’m the only statewide candidate to ever announce their intentions to run for statewide office in Lovell. When Gayla and I were setting up my campaign there was no question where we would kick it off. We don’t know if this will be our last hurrah, but if it is, it started here.”

Maxfield said that one of the most rewarding things about his career in public service is helping fund badly-needed projects in communities, especially small communities like Lovell, as a member of the State Loan and Investment Board.

“One of the proudest moments of my career was when we were able to get the CT machine for the hospital (in Lovell) and redo the radiology area. When I went home and told Gayla about that, I had tears because we had worked so hard. The health department had put that way down at the bottom of the list as far as priority goes because of the fact that it was so small here and the Powell hospital is so close and we really didn’t have the service area here. But when we went we showed ‘em that there was 100 miles that you guys had to cover to bring people back, and for anybody who has come down off the mountain or ridden in an ambulance, 20 miles is pretty far.”

Secretary of State

Service as Wyoming’s secretary of state has been a dream come true, Maxfield said. He said he realized early on that, as one of the five top elected officials, he could make a major difference.

“I fell in love with what I saw in the position of secretary of state,” he said, noting that he first ran for the office in 1994 but lost. He was later elected to two terms as state auditor and successfully ran for secretary of state four years ago.

“It’s truly something I’ve set my heart and my eyes on for a long time, and without my wife, Gayla, I would never have accomplished this.”

When he first took office, Maxfield said, he had a lot of ideas about things he wanted to do, but he found out that expectations and reality are sometimes two different things. He said he promised on the campaign trail that he would bring Wyoming into compliance with federal guidelines for voting so Wyoming’s voting system would be in line with what the federal government was asking.

“We made that happen within 11 months after I took office,” he said, adding that any of his accomplishments in office are due to the hard work of his staff.

“I’ve got the best staff, bar none,” he said. “None of the things we’ve accomplished, and I believe we’ve accomplished a great deal, could have happened without our staff.”

Maxfield ticked off a list of accomplishments during his first three years in office:

• He said the secretary of state’s Web site has received national acclaim and is interactive, allowing people to do business with his office directly via computer without having to “do the paper trail back and forth” or come into the office. He said the site has made things much more convenient in the areas of agriculture, liens and business.

• The Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office processes more than $20 million in a biennium, Maxfield said, noting that most of the business comes in $50 and $100 increments. And the staff must “turn around” the paperwork in just five days by state law.

“We’ve implemented some new ways to fast track that,” he said, “and our fiscal tracking mechanism we’ve put into place has, I think, made us more responsible in the way we report to the public.”

• Maxfield said he had no idea when he was running for office how important a role the office plays in fighting business fraud. Within three days of taking office, he said, he received calls from USA Today, Forbes and Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan because a national study showed that Wyoming was one of the top three states for illegal money laundering.

“When I got that news, I said ‘not on my watch,’” he said, and he worked with the Wyoming Legislature to enact legislation to help his office deal with some of the companies that were using Wyoming’s good name to do illicit business in the state. “And trust me,” he added, “it was happening everywhere.”

With the legislation in place, Wyoming has driven more than 4,000 companies out of Wyoming. He said his office has interacted with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which is trying to come up with an overall plan for the country on how to handle business registrations.

“And the last thing Wyoming needs is a ‘one size fits all’ from Washington,” he said. “So we’ve tried to stay ahead of it with the legislature to make sure that doesn’t happen to our state. We don’t want federal guidelines imposed on us. I believe with the legislature, with what we’ve started to do and with our commitment we can solve this problem on our own.”

It is a problem, Maxfield said, noting that thousands of companies are using Wyoming as a point of contact for money laundering.

• The secretary of state’s office has developed a new campaign finance program through which candidates above the county level may file on line, and after the filing date has passed, a citizen will be able to check a Web site in regard to campaign financing – where the money comes from, how it is spent and how much campaign money a candidate has.

Maxfield said he has several goals for his next term of office:

• Keep going after business fraud.

• Increase education in the area of scams by working closely with the media and getting the word out whenever a new scam is discovered. He said a down economy brings out the worst in scams, because people want to believe when they’re told something will improve their lives.

• Continue to investigate complaints through the new Division of Compliance in the secretary of state’s office. He said the office recently prosecuted a man in Cody on 19 counts of fraud and said the man made more than $1.6 million selling false securities to fellow church members and friends.

• Continue to “guard” Wyoming’s bucking horse symbol, noting, “The bucking horse belongs to us, and it’s really important” to fight to keep Wyoming’s trademark.

Maxfield said he would be proud to serve another four years as secretary of state.

“Every day when I go to that magnificent building, the capitol, I’m humbled,” he said. “I always feel blessed that Wyoming voters have made it possible for me to serve. People die around the world for the right to vote and it’s a treasure. And I’ll never forget that. I consider a vote to be a treasure. Today I ask for your treasure, I ask for your vote to allow me to serve as your secretary of state for four more years.

“If I’m allowed to do this I promise that I will continue to work for you and I will always honor your vote.”