Pushing back against the Washington power grab

Growing up in Wyoming, I always appreciated our state’s sense of rugged independence and self-reliance. If Missouri is the Show Me State, Wyoming was surely the Don’t Tell Me What To Do State.

Our leaders traditionally pushed back at political control from afar, strongly believing that the best government is government closest to home: our town councils, school boards and county commissioners. Local control. Local decision-making by people who know the situation on the ground best.

Elected leaders closest to home chafed at and generally resisted any kind of mandate from Cheyenne, and on the state level, the same strongly applied to mandates from Washington, D.C. Indeed, our governors from both parties resisted, no, fought strongly against, ill-conceived decisions and programs from D.C., arguing that people from the East Coast have absolutely no idea what Wyoming is all about.

We’ve heard it a million times. “You all just stay back there in your ivory tower and let us run things the right way out West. You do not understand the Wyoming way.” And so when a decision must be made by Washington, our leaders have typically flown top officials from federal agencies to the Cowboy State to show them how Wyoming is completely different than, say, Maryland or New Jersey, and instruct them about the way things work in the West, why one-size-fits-all edicts oftentimes make no sense in a place as different from the Eastern Seaboard as can be.

With that mantra of “don’t tell us what to do in Wyoming” firmly in place, our state has developed a strong sense of balance of power. We have believed in local decisions made by local people, the school board, the mayor and council, the county commissioner who knows the lay of the land, the sheriff, the state legislator who understands the people and the local community, the governor who works for us and not them, U.S. Senators and Representatives who put local issues far, far ahead of national politics.

And so why on earth are we ceding that local power and decision-making to a far more centralized governing system? The vast majority of Wyoming voters cast their ballots in the last three elections for a system of increasingly centralized power lying squarely in Washington, D.C.

Congress has become a paper tiger, afraid to push back against the D.C. executive branch power machine out of fear of being “primaried,” an opponent chosen to run against and potentially defeat a given congressman or woman. National issues rule the day and drive the discussion. Members of the legislative branch of government would rather take their marching orders from party officials in D.C. than from their own constituents, it seems.

In the name of centralized power, we are gradually losing our rights as citizens, and a feeling of hopelessness is descending.

Our own state legislature now has a significant number of members who are telling local government that they’re simply going to have to make do with a lot less money, all in the name of “freedom” and a budget crisis that doesn’t exist. Most people believe in fiscal responsibility, but when your local library closes – a very real possibility in Lovell, when your county sheriff has to cut school resource officers or patrol deputies and when your local school district is now told by Cheyenne where they can spend their money – actually your money as taxpayers – are we supposed to like it?

Many in Washington want to sell our public lands, an absolutely terrible idea, and privatize the operation of our national parks and forests. And they’re doing so through an insidious process, chipping away at staff and needed maintenance little by little so that our agencies find it more and more difficult to operate, and as facilities deteriorate and visitor services decline, they’ll say, “See! They can’t function properly. We must turn them over to the private sector.” And there goes free access to our forests and parks.

It’s all about control, isn’t it? And where is our congressional delegation on this issue? Are they fighting for us?

If you want to know how that would look, pay a visit to Maine. A visitor can drive up and down the coast, and every time he turns off the highway to find a route to the beautiful coastline, he’ll be met with No Trespassing sign after No Trespassing sign due to a general lack of public land. I’ve been there. It’s maddening.

And if you think a hunting or fishing license or a park pass is expensive now, just wait.

Our current administration was voted into power in large part on a promise to drain the swamp, in other words reduce federal power and the bureaucrats who wield it. And yet it seems as if the swamp is growing and federal top-down power increasing.

We’re attacking nations and engaging in wars most Americans don’t want and getting entangled in foreign countries to force regime change after promises of doing just the opposite. Prices are skyrocketing as a result of the Iran War, and it’s getting tougher for millions of Americans to make ends meet. Probably a record number of people were served by the Lovell Food Pantry last Friday – a true sign of the times.

It seems like we’re helpless to do anything about it, but we’re not. People are using their voices to push back, to fight for their rights. On Saturday, more than 8 million people turned out for some 3,300 No Kings rallies across the nation, including Greybull and Cody just down the road. Much of the messaging was personal, to be sure, a stand against the current president, but a lot of it was also directed at the federal power grab. And the central message was clear: Rise up and be active in your community. Take a stand. Get out and vote. Believe it or not, the people still hold the power.

I want my old Wyoming back, where more can be done with a handshake, a listening ear and a firm sense of trust in local governance rather than a state or federal edict. Wyoming people are conservative and pragmatic, and you’d think the last thing they’d want is to be told what to do by Washington. And yes, this applies to both parties when they are in power.

I don’t want top-down power from Washington, D.C. Let’s return to the old, more balanced, locally focused way of governing. It’s truly the Wyoming way.