Bextel brings a baseball bat to Lovell but few facts to back up her swings

Constitution Party candidate Rebecca Bextel takes aim at teachers, school boards, government agencies and local districts while dismissing challenges to her claims

Rebecca Bextel wants Wyoming voters to know she is coming for the governor’s office with a baseball bat, and she doesn’t particularly care who gets in the way.

During a lengthy campaign appearance in Lovell last week, the Constitution Party candidate for governor took swings at teachers unions, school administrators, school boards, county commissioners, state agencies and even cemetery districts. She promised to clean house, expose corruption and challenge nearly every corner of Wyoming’s government.

What she offered considerably less of was evidence to support some of her sweeping accusations or specific plans for carrying out her promises.

“I’m showing up with a baseball bat and swinging for the folks of Wyoming,” Bextel told the gathering. “I don’t give a crap about teachers unions, unions, associations, county commissioners, Wyoming municipalities. I don’t care about any of that crap.”

The declaration established the tone for an evening during which Bextel repeatedly portrayed herself as the only candidate willing to stand up for ordinary Wyoming residents, while treating questions and disagreements as attempts to undermine her campaign.

Bextel, a Jackson resident who said she moved to Wyoming from Alabama 22 years ago, described her upbringing in a missionary family, her financial struggles and eventual success in business. She emphasized that she is not a career politician and considers serving as governor a personal sacrifice.

But as the questions began, her confrontational style became the evening’s dominant feature.

Teachers become a target.

Perhaps the sharpest exchange came when a retired Wyoming teacher challenged Bextel’s repeated criticism of teachers unions.

Bextel had already accused Republican gubernatorial nominee Eric Barlow of being afraid of teachers unions and criticized Gov. Mark Gordon for vetoing legislation involving the collection of union dues.

Asked directly whether teachers were overpaid, whether schools were overfunded and what she had against teachers unions, Bextel turned to student achievement.

“I have a problem with the fact that we spend almost more than any other state. Our children are at the bottom of the pile,” she said.

The teacher challenged her characterization, pointing to Wyoming’s ACT performance.

Bextel responded, “We’re at the bottom of the pile, folks. Don’t let this man lie to you.”

When pressed for supporting statistics, Bextel did not produce figures establishing that Wyoming students were near the bottom nationally. Later in the meeting, she searched for education statistics but still did not provide a specific ranking to substantiate her claim.

At one point, when the teacher offered to look up ACT results, Bextel replied, “I don’t care about ACT scores.”

Wyoming is not at “the bottom” in education. In fact, Wyoming’s 2025 ACT composite score of 19.1 ranked fourth among the 17 states that administer the ACT statewide to essentially all students (now ranked second in 2026). Wyoming also placed among the top five in English, reading, math and science within that group.

That comparison matters. Wyoming tested virtually its entire graduating class, not just a smaller group of students who chose to take the ACT because they were planning to attend college. ACT itself advises comparing states with similar testing participation.

A simple list of all 50 states can be misleading. Several states with much higher average ACT scores tested fewer than one in 10 graduates. Their averages reflect a self-selected group of college-bound students, while Wyoming’s score represents students across the entire state.

Wyoming also fares well on broader measures. The Wyoming Department of Education also reports that Wyoming fourth and eighth graders scored above the national average in both reading and mathematics on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called the Nation’s Report Card.

Wyoming’s ACT composite was just three-tenths of a point below the national ACT average of 19.4. But the more meaningful comparison is with states that test nearly every student. By that measure, Wyoming is a top four state, not a state near the bottom.

The candidate also accused teachers unions of corruption.

“Because they’re some crooks. They are in it for themselves,” she said when asked why she opposed them.

She argued that unions had fought against parents’ ability to direct public education dollars toward private schooling and other alternatives.

Instead, she pointed to her experience homeschooling her children and her own academic success as evidence that traditional public education needs reform.

Republican Candidate Barlow

Bextel reserved some of her harshest criticism for Eric Barlow, the Republican nominee for Wyoming governor. While defending her own Constitution Party nomination, Bextel insisted that she remains “100% Republican.”

Bextel called Barlow a “pretend Republican” and accused him of being afraid of teachers unions. She alleged that, during last year’s vote on an educational savings account, or school-voucher, bill, Barlow left the legislative floor and hid “behind a desk or a door” rather than face the vote. She said she had spoken with an eyewitness, though she did not identify the person or provide documentation.

She also blamed Barlow for Wyoming’s broader problems, saying he had “14 years” in the Legislature and that Wyoming was “going downhill.” When an audience member said Barlow had not been in charge, Bextel replied that he had been “certainly driving the bus” in Cheyenne. She argued that he was not the person she would trust to negotiate Wyoming’s water compacts.

Bextel also accused Barlow of refusing to sign the Wyoming Republican Party platform after an audience member raised that point, and Bextel agreed, saying, “That’s right.” She further claimed Republican Party officials had to carefully word their statement after Barlow won the nomination, saying they could congratulate him for securing the nomination but could not endorse him outright.

On other issues, Bextel said Barlow would “say whatever he can say to get elected,” referred to “the Barlow Democrats,” and dismissed a health-care concern as “an Eric Barlow fake-ass talking point.” Near the end of the event, as several people began leaving after expressing frustration with her tone, Bextel told the remaining audience, “Now that we’ve flushed out all the Barlow supporters, vote for me.”

When asked about running under the Constitution Party banner, Bextel said she supported all 23 planks of the Republican platform and the Constitution Party’s three principles of “life, liberty, and private property rights.” Asked whether she would remain in the Constitution Party if elected, she said she had not decided. Asked how the party affiliation would affect her governorship, she answered, “It won’t.”

Local school boards
aren’t spared

Bextel’s criticism extended beyond teachers to the people elected by Wyoming communities to oversee their schools.

She promised a broad examination of school spending, administrators, buildings and governing boards.

“Every single thing is under review when I get in there. Period,” she declared.

When asked whether that included local school boards or the State Board of Education, she answered, “All of it is under review as far as what I have control over.”

When the retired teacher pointed out that local school board trustees are elected by their communities and that he regularly attends meetings of both area school boards, describing the trustees as good people who care about their schools and communities, Bextel was unimpressed.

“That doesn’t mean anything to me, sir,” she replied.

“I’m not going to agree with you that all the school board people are good people,” she said.

Her willingness to criticize local officials without demonstrating familiarity with their work became a recurring theme.

Libraries, cemeteries and property taxes

 Bextel strongly encouraged voters to support Proposition 1, the proposed constitutional amendment providing a 50% property tax exemption for residential property.

Bextel argued that Wyoming’s multibillion-dollar state budget and substantial savings should make it possible to replace lost property tax revenue.

“We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem,” she said.

But when asked specifically how she would prevent the Lovell Library from closing if property tax revenue declined, Bextel offered no immediate funding mechanism.

“We’re going to look at the Lovell Library,” she replied.

The candidate also questioned whether library funding was being spent properly, without presenting evidence of mismanagement by the local library.

She then pointed to cemetery districts elsewhere in Wyoming, saying, “There are cemetery districts with substantial reserves, including amounts of half a million dollars.”

Bextel did not identify the districts, explain their financial obligations or establish that the reserves were excessive. 

Promises without particulars

The same pattern appeared during discussions of water rights, railroads, health care and economic development.

Bextel criticized the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, alleging that it favors wealthy landowners and fails to protect public access. She described a specific disputed access route in Lincoln County, but her broader accusation against the agency was not independently established during the meeting.

On water policy, she promised changes to the Wyoming Water Development Commission, only to encounter a local water official who said the commission was doing valuable work in the Big Horn Basin.

On railroads, Bextel acknowledged that she had not thoroughly studied the industry.

“I don’t have any answers for you right now because I haven’t done a deep dive into the railroad industry,” she said.

On corner crossing, she likewise acknowledged that she did not yet have an answer.

A question of respect

The confrontation eventually prompted another audience member, a woman who had recently moved to Wyoming from Washington state, to speak up.

She said she valued Wyoming’s tradition of respect for neighbors, private property and differing opinions, and objected to Bextel’s treatment of the retired teacher.

“I found your tone to be offensive,” she said.

Bextel’s response was brief: “I don’t care.”

When the woman suggested that a candidate for governor should care about how she treats Wyoming residents, Bextel doubled down and characterized the objection as a liberal tactic designed “to silence people who speak the truth.”

“I don’t give a crap what you think about how I talk to that man,” she said. “I’m going to stand for the people of Wyoming.”

Although Bextel was already well known in Wyoming for distributing campaign-donation checks to four Republican House members shortly after the House adjourned on February 9, those who attended her Big Horn County town hall last week will likely remember her combative, no-holds-barred campaign style.