After one year relatively free from controversy, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus had its first budget session derailed by scandal and blowback. It passed just one of 10 priorities.
With more members, the hard-line alliance say they’d be more effective. But moderate Republicans are looking to do some recruiting of their own. Caucus chair Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams is adamant this won’t be the group’s last year in power.
“Big Government Republicans are teaming up with Democrats to infiltrate our primary,” she told KHOL. “It won’t work. We’re not going anywhere.”
The state Freedom Caucus gained a majority in the House for the first time in 2024. But critics point out that primary saw just 27% voter turnout.
“If the public is as mad August 18th as they were at the start of the session,” Teton County Democratic Sen. Mike Gierau said, “that’s going to kind of be the end of it.”
Lawmakers and political observers on both sides of the aisle say this budget session was the first big leadership test for the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, the state-level version of a movement in Congress.
Former Teton County GOP Chair Mary Martin said what showed was inexperience.
“They didn’t know how to play,” she said. “You don’t just come in like a mad hatter.”
Members “deflected” the check controversy and showed an unwillingness to listen or compromise, she said, and that is out of step with Cowboy State politics.
“It is the antithesis of what Wyoming is,” she said.
It’s also spurring a backlash from moderate Republicans, who are actively campaigning to unseat them and forming groups like an anti-freedom caucus PAC formed by Casper attorneys.
Kat Reuckert, the current Teton County GOP chair, said the caucus might be too mean to be effective.
“I appreciate people who have a strong political backbone. But they don’t need to come across like turds,” she told KHOL.
Defining success
Caucus supporters said their actions succeeded in capturing people’s attention. Rep. John Bear of Gillette, a former caucus chair, said it was a numbers game.
“Until you have 16 limited government senators, you’re never going to have a Freedom Caucus budget passed,” he said.
But other observers say the Freedom Caucus picked the wrong fight for big cuts to the budget increases for University of Wyoming and near-elimination of the Wyoming Business Council. Rep. Mike Yin, a Jackson Democrat, said it chose “bad priorities.”
Rep. John Bear attends a county commissioner meeting in Teton County in 2025.
Pushing local issues and finding compromise are parts of every budget session. But working with the further right bloc made for “probably the hardest week I’ve ever spent in the legislature” for nine-year lawmaker Gierau.
He said he heard overwhelmingly from constituents who opposed the group’s cuts.
“The state of Wyoming finally, for once, got to see what the Freedom Caucus vision for the state of Wyoming was. They laid it out. And the state of Wyoming in one clear loud voice said, ‘No, this is too much, too far.’ That was their high water mark,” he said.
The Senate promptly reversed the cuts and restored the governor’s recommendation.
Sen. Dan Dockstader, Republican of Afton, and Rep. Andrew Byron of Hoback, agreed.
“We have a situation where there are some extreme agendas going on out there and what we really need to do though is settle down and just simply run a state,” Dockstader told KHOL.
“I think it was one of the least successful sessions in terms of where leadership in the House wanted to go,” Bryon said.
That’s not to say there weren’t local wins. The budget did pass. And a public school spending overhaul is bringing more spending power to Teton County. But debates in the house stretched late into the night.
Yin said it was the longest short session he could remember. He praised the budget’s passing and more money to schools.
“And we stopped a lot of bad bills,” he said.
Room for compromise?
Yin said he’s used to working across the aisle as minority floor leader. But that wasn’t possible with the Freedom Caucus.
Rep. Liz Storer (D-Jackson) on the House floor during the 2026 legislative session. (Sophia Boyd-Fliegel / KHOL)
“I’m hoping that we can do more bipartisan work in the future and not kowtow to people who say ‘it’s my way or the highway.’”
Bear pushed back. He said the caucus was trying to right a ship they inherited from years of poor leadership.
“It was not an easy task because the big government had control for so long,” Bear said. “What we were doing was trying to slow the growth of government.”
The solution, he said, is more allies in the Senate.
The Gillette Republican also addressed concerns that the Caucus works too closely with Washington, D.C. One of their staffers is paid by the national freedom caucus, he said. But they don’t direct legislation.
“Directives from them, no. Suggestions from them, yes,” Bear said.
The Freedom Caucus is still responsible for governing in the interim.
At least one of Teton County’s delegates, Representative Liz Storer, said she can find ways to work with them.
“I have been able to cross the aisle and work with, actually, the Freedom Caucus and more problem solving Republicans.”
She tried to amend a controversial housing mitigation bill during this session and is looking forward to now tackling drunk driving enforcement.
“Being a legislator actually can be fun,” she said. “It’s just when it comes to some of these knee-jerk culture war issues and the budget that the Freedom Caucus kind of operates in lockstep and it’s hard to find common ground with that.”
