GOP at odds with senate candidate

Historically speaking, political parties tend to support their winning candidates from a primary election as they move forward to the general.

Not this time, though, according to Senator Ogden Driskill, who is accusing the central committee for the Crook County Republican Party of going against its own bylaws in an effort to tacitly support his write-in opponent.

At this time, the central committee has not officially endorsed anyone for Senate District 1.

Driskill, however, argues that the party’s failure to support his candidacy is de facto support for the campaign on behalf of one of his opponents in the primary, Roger Connett.

Lack of Support

“They have declined to support me,” Driskill says, noting that central committee chairman Jeff Burian is also the chair of the “Roger is Right” write-in campaign.

As this write-in committee represents the only other candidate whose name has been thrown into the proverbial hat, Driskill argues that withdrawing support for his own campaign means it’s quite literally Connett or nothing.

“They are supporting Roger. Whether they’ll actually come out and say it, that’s de facto what they’ve done,” he says.

By doing this, Driskill argues that the central committee is not following the wishes of the party itself, which is made up of all the registered Republicans in the county. The party members already made their wishes known through their votes at the primary ballot, he says.

“What they’ve done is gone against the wishes of the voters and they’ve decided that a select group of people should be who chooses the Republican candidate and the Republican representative, not the voters,” Driskill says. “I think that’s pretty tough.”

As for why the committee has decided not to support him, Driskill says, “They’re arguing that my election was not a real election because there were three of us and I didn’t get over 50% of the vote. They will not acknowledge my win,” he says.

What makes it worse, he continues, is that, “This has been the process and they’ve supported it for the last at least 30 years, probably 40 years. Our Republican primaries are very often three- or four-way races for legislative seats.”

As a long-time supporter of the local Republican party, Driskill is upset by this decision.

“I will tell you that I’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars for the party and I have forwarded legislation and voted on legislation based on their advice. I find it really offensive that when it comes time, after I’ve supported them for decades, they would withdraw their support from someone who has been a solid supporter.”

Staying Neutral

For his part, Burian does not feel that it is his place to comment on the issue, having only taken on the chair for the central committee a week ago.

“At this point, and in my position, I don’t really want to make any statements,” he says.

He refers readers instead to the letter to the editor from Nancy Morgan included in this issue as a more “appropriate” summary of what happened at last week’s meeting of the central committee, stating, “I need to remain neutral.”

Committee Vote

The issue began a few weeks ago, according to Driskill.

“The county party got together and distributed $25,000 to candidates around the State of Wyoming,” Driskill says.

“There was none [distributed] in Crook County other than that they gave $250 a piece to the electeds at the courthouse that were running. But for everyone else, it was a no.”

Driskill didn’t find this surprising, as neither he nor Representative Chip Neiman will have an official competitor on the ballot. In fact, he says, it followed party policy to the letter.

“They’ve always had a policy of not giving money if you had a write-in opponent, and I support that and I believe in it and I told them so,” he says.

However, he continues, the central committee also moved to give a donation of $1500 to Dan Laursen of Powell, who also has a write-in candidate running against him.

“That opened the door that they were going to support people that have write-in opponent. When I got that list, I was appalled that, out of all the tens of thousands of dollars that we raised in Crook County, they were unwilling to support one of their candidates in a contested race in due fashion,” Driskill says.

The senator called then-chairman Brad Marchant and requested a meeting be held to discuss the issue. It wasn’t about the money, he says – it’s the principle.

“I told them that, ultimately, the money was pretty irrelevant. It was more of a gesture than a necessity, but that I did expect that they would support me,” he says.

At that meeting, Brad Marchant resigned as county chairman.

“That put Jeff Burian in as chairman, and Jeff Burian along with Ted Davis, who is a committee person, are heading the write-in campaign against me,” Driskill says.

Driskill says he considers it to be an “ethical lapse” for, “A county chairman to actively sit and oppose who the Republican voters of northeast Wyoming have chosen as their candidate.”

“I clearly won in Crook County. The voters have spoken and I really thought that, one, the county party should support me and, two, that he should step back from his opposition.,” he says.

“He declined to do both, and then they declined to take a vote because they didn’t have a quorum. So they then held a secret ballot and I have no clue what the totals were, and the party came out and said that they declined support of any kind, either endorsement or monetary, of me going forward.”

Burian confirms that precinct people were asked for their views, but says it doesn’t technically count as a vote.

“I contacted my precinct people – I sent them an email – and explained the situation and got my responses,” he says. “I can’t give you the exact results because I promised my people everything would be confidential.”

However, the outcome of the vote, he says, was that, “The body determined that they would rather not make any kind of endorsement or financial [donation].”