PEOPLE AND PRINCIPLES

A DECLARATION

CINDY HILL

CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR

STATE OF WYOMING

MAY 2014

DEDICATION

To my husband – my rock. To my son – my joy.

To those who have fallen for the sake of freedom.

And to all those who continue to stand for Right.

CONTENTS

[ SECOND REVISED EDITION ]

FORWARD

PREFACE

PART 1 – PEOPLE

PART 2 – PRINCIPLES

PART 3 – GROWTH OF GOVERNMENT

PART 4 – ETHICS AND OPEN GOVERNMENT

PART 5 – EDUCATION

PART 6 – ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

MY PROMISES TO THE PEOPLE OF WYOMING

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v

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5

15

26

34

41

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FORWARD

Cindy Hill’s first Red Book – her January 8, 2013 Address To the 62nd

Legislature and the People of the State of Wyoming – is the defining

educational document of our time. That document set forth the roadmap to

achieving educational prominence among the states. Her second Red Book,

to which I have the privilege to contribute through this Forward, will be one

of the greatest contributions to conservatism in Wyoming history. If a book

has but one chapter, even one idea that leaves its mark, that is a gift. The

second Red Book does so much more. Cindy engages in a penetrating and

constructive analysis of what has gone wrong in state government, how to fix

it and the guiding principles that ground us and lead us forward. For this I am

personally very grateful, and I believe you will be as well. Cindy Hill is a rare

person – a force of nature. She combines raw intellect with the courage to do

what she promises, and her second Red Book shows warm summer days

ahead for government if we choose a righteous and principled path, and a

leader who will get us there.

—State Representative Gerald Gay

When our foundation begins to crumble, where should we go for advice? We

should refer to the ones who framed our foundation. In Cindy Hill’s second

Red Book she goes directly to the Founders of our great nation as a source of

inspiration and instruction on how she will govern in Wyoming. By going to

the architects of our Federal and State Constitutions, we know that Cindy will

use their wisdom to make the “right” decisions as Governor to defend our

rights, liberty and property as citizens of Wyoming.

—State Representative Lynn Hutchings

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Over the last eight years, I have had the opportunity to work with two

different Wyoming governors. During this time, I have witnessed first-hand

the many issues a governor faces. I feel that the only person who has the

character and fortitude to be our next governor is Cindy Hill. She is the only

person who can correct the course of our state government.

—State Representative Allen Jaggi

As a freshman legislator on the House Education Committee, I have had a

front row seat as I have watched Cindy Hill stand firm and strong against the

Goliath of Wyoming politics, and she prevailed. Cindy Hill is one of most

principled and honest elected officials I have ever known. I have watched her

gracefully pass through a refiner’s fire this past year, a furnace of

unwarranted adversity and affliction, emerging well-tempered, dignified and

refined, having never compromised her principles, ready to lead and do the

work of the people. She is the exact prescription for what Wyoming needs to

move forward.

—State Representative Garry Piiparinen

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PREFACE

We have been in a period of turmoil. That turmoil, while surely difficult, has

tested who we are and clarified what we want in a government. We have

seen the centuries-old hallmark of all free societies – the consent of the

governed – turned into the contempt of the governed. This is the arrogance

of power. The executive and legislative branches have shifted their focus

away from the people, and, instead, now focus on using their power to

embed themselves in their positions, keeping the people from their own

government. We have seen the worst of what our political system can offer,

but in response, and in larger measure, the people of Wyoming have shown

the best of what Alexis de Tocqueville described as the Great American

Experiment. In carrying petitions, signing petitions, financially supporting

their own constitutional challenge, through letters and censure of those

responsible, the people have proclaimed that they will not tolerate abuses

of power. What has happened serves as the greatest opportunity for

learning and restoration.

Now, Wyoming stands on the threshold of something better – an era that

demands a government that unequivocally supports, obeys and defends the

U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Wyoming, and

necessarily honors the first seven words of the Wyoming Constitution: “All

power is inherent in the people . . .” When this is the foundation of all

decisions, government cannot go awry.

This, the second Red Book, is not intended to discuss every challenge facing

the people of Wyoming. Rather, I set forth here the paramount principles to

protect the rights of Wyoming people – principles that I will follow if elected

governor. Part One of this short book examines the foundation and origin of

a free government: “All power is inherent in the people.” Part Two covers

the governing principles that will inform and direct my actions as governor

including adhering to the rule of law; honoring the separation of powers;

seeing that power is decentralized and not concentrated in the hands of a

few; defending the independence of Wyoming from the federal government;

and supporting – not defying – a vigilant electorate in the protection of

individual liberties. Part Three discusses the growth of state government

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and the flaws in the budget process that have enabled this growth. Part Four

discusses the importance of open government as the people’s check on

government and as a means of preventing the abuse of power. Part Five

applies governing principles to the education of our children. In Part Six,

governing principles are applied to the topic of economic development.

Finally, I set forth my promises to the people of Wyoming.

It is not my purpose here to lay open forensically the actions of those who

have led to a greater distrust of government. It is enough simply to say that

what has gone on was wrong and cannot be repeated. We have learned that,

even in Wyoming, power can be abused. We now know that we cannot turn

our backs on government, even momentarily, lest we lose our rights. But

while it is a time to learn from what has occurred, it is not a time to dwell

on what has happened. Rather, we must set a course of correction, guided

by founding principles, reason and experience. Let us begin our journey –

together.

We know a person best by his or her actions. The question that must be

posed to each candidate for governor is this: What did you do when faced

with a constitutional question? I have answered that question. I defended

the constitution, not only in challenging SF104, but on a daily basis, in ways

that may never be known, when no one was watching, and when I stood as

the solitary figure among elected officials.

One of the greatest compliments ever bestowed upon me, time and again,

has been that I have kept my promises. I have kept my promises, not

because it was easy, but because to have done otherwise would have been

immoral.

Cindy Hill May 2014

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PART 1 – PEOPLE The first seven words of the Wyoming Constitution declare that, “All power is

inherent in the people.” Article 1, Section 1 provides that:

All power is inherent in the people, and all free

governments are founded on their authority, and

instituted for their peace, safety and happiness; for the

advancement of these ends they have at all times an

inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or

abolish the government in such manner as they may think

proper.

Wyoming people, from all corners of our beautiful state, from all walks of life and

even from every political party, are joining together and re-dedicating themselves to

giving full effect to the first seven words of a constitution ordained and established

to secure their civil, political and religious liberties.

YESTERDAY When our state founders convened a constitutional convention in 1889, they took to

heart what Abraham Lincoln said on that solemn day 26 years earlier in honor of the great

sacrifice made by so many on that blood-soaked battlefield outside of Gettysburg. In his

Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln reminded all Americans of their birthright, their

nation having been conceived in Liberty, and challenged Americans to honor that

birthright, by dedicating themselves to ensuring that “government of the people, by the

people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

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Lincoln was reminding his generation and future generations of what Thomas

Jefferson had concluded was the proper role of government. Jefferson immortalized

his thoughts in our country’s Declaration of Independence – “That to secure these

rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the

consent of the governed.”

Our State Constitution echoed, not only Jefferson, but also another founder, John

Adams, who offered a more detailed explanation of the purpose of government:

Government is instituted for the common good; for the

protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people;

and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one

man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone

have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right

to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally

change the same, when their protection, safety,

prosperity, and happiness require it.

The Founders had learned from their study of history, reason and their own

experience that the ultimate authority of any free government must rest with the

people, and when the people entrust their power to those in government, prudent

checks and balances are necessary. They understood that an educated, enlightened

and engaged electorate is required to provide the vigilance necessary to prevent

government from overstepping its constitutional limits and infringing upon the

individual rights of the people.

Alexis de Tocqueville, in the 1830’s, wrote

about the success of democracy in

America. He witnessed the unprecedented

accomplishments of a society whose

government stayed within its

constitutional bounds. He saw a well-

ordered, prosperous society founded on

not only a sustainable structure of

government, but also on an enduring, not

transient, concept of human nature.

Individuals flourish when they

have the freedom to live self-

determined lives in the pursuit

of their own happiness using

their unique spiritual, intellectual

and material gifts provided by

nature and nature’s God.

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Tocqueville also observed that the most non-corrupt and efficient use of power was

exercised closest to the people, in the township. The emphasis on the individual and

individual responsibility accounted for the unparalleled success of the Great

American Experiment. In small communities, the people can readily observe

governmental power and will respond swiftly to its abuse, providing a sure and

natural check on government.

What the Founders knew, and what Tocqueville observed as he travelled across

America, was that a limited government, one reduced to its necessary objects, allows

individualism to flourish, and when coupled with individual responsibility, the seeds

of prosperity for the individual and society are sown – imagination, ingenuity,

initiative and innovation.

TODAY We have seen the centuries-old hallmark of all free societies – the consent of the

governed – turned into the contempt of the governed. In Wyoming, we have seen

the abuse of power – the same abuse of power manifested in Washington D.C. The

people of Wyoming have come to the stark realization that those who are entrusted

to protect their rights have violated that trust. Elected and appointed officials time

and again have resisted and even broken

the constitutional restraints placed on

them.

A notorious example of constitutional

contempt and disregard was the act of

taking away the people’s vote in the area

of education with the effect of

centralizing power, out of the reach of

the people, over one of the most

important aspects that protect our

liberties. Shortly after Governor Mead

signed SF104, the people reasserted that

all power is inherent in the people by carrying and signing petitions, by supporting a

successful constitutional challenge to a hasty and imprudent legislative enactment,

and by censuring, both formally and informally, those who had taken away the

people’s vote. If history is a guide, this year, an election year, the people will reassert

their power in the voting booth and replace those who have abused the power

entrusted to them by the people.

The executive and legislative

branches have shifted their focus

away from the people, and

instead, now focus on using their

power to embed themselves in

their positions, keeping the

people from participating

meaningfully in their very own

participatory democracy.

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TOMORROW Invoking an idea from Ronald Reagan, we are a people who have a government, not

the other way around. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people

is one that I have always defended and will continue to defend. Making government

function better for those in power invariably leads to a government that abuses

power, ignores the people and quashes their rights. The best government is not one

that always acts quickly. An upright government gives real meaning and practical

effect to the first seven words of our state constitution. The best government acts

with prudence, not haste, for in its prudence, it is transparent, accountable and

accessible to the people.

I will strive to give the people of Wyoming the government they deserve – a

government that does not focus on what is good for government, but focuses on

what is good for the people by protecting their individual rights and liberties. Most

importantly, I will strive to give the people a government that does not simply act

when it can, but only when it should, and always with a clear understanding that all

power is inherent in the people.

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PART 2 – GOVERNING PRINCIPLES Certain governing principles are indispensable to protect the people’s individual

rights and liberties. First, as reviewed in Part 1, all free governments are founded on

the authority of the people. Second, the rule of law must protect the people from

government and from interferences with the ordered liberty of the individual. Third,

due to the inherent tendency to centralize governmental control and dominate the

people, separation of powers in government is necessary to guard against the

consolidation of powers in the hands of the

few and to make government beholden to

the people. Fourth, the state must preserve

and protect its independence from the

federal government. Finally, the people

must assume personal responsibility over

their lives and act as the sentinels for limited

government, being vigilant that government

is not misused for selfish ends.

PRINCIPLE 1: THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED In Part 1, President Ronald Reagan reminded us of the relationship of the people to

the government when he said we are a people who have a government, not the other

way around. As the Wyoming Constitution states, all power is inherent in the people,

even to the extent of altering, reforming or abolishing that government.

As a people, we consent to be governed, as did our forebears, not to give up our

individual liberties, but to preserve them. When the people entrust power to the

government, they do so on the condition of adherence to the rule of law and under

In a constitutional republic,

the purpose of government

is limited to its constitutionally

enumerated objects that seek

to maximize the ordered

liberty of the individual.

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prudent checks and balances that restrain government. Often times, however, the

people do not see what the government is doing. That is why it is so important that

representatives be elected who do the right thing when no one is watching.

PRINCIPLE 2: THE RULE OF LAW Under the shelter of the constitution, we are a people who submit to the rule of law;

not to the rule of men. In Wyoming, elected officials take an oath of office promising

to “support, obey and defend the constitution of the United States, and the

constitution of this state . . .” Article 6, Section 20, Wyoming Constitution. The powers

entrusted to those in the different branches of government are not powers subject

to the whim of the government officials, but as Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in

Marbury v. Madison concerning the powers of the legislative branch, with equal

application to the other two branches: “The powers of the legislature are defined

and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is

written.” A written law can be known by the citizens, and with that knowledge, these

citizens can form plans and have settled expectations about their lives and property. In

addition, the rule of law applies equally to all and accords with our common notion of

justice. In harsh contrast, the rule of men favors some and disfavors others and accords

with our common notion of injustice. An ancient ideal, the rule of law was discussed by

Greek philosophers as early as 350 BC. Plato wrote:

Where the law is subject to some other authority and has

none of its own, the collapse of the state, in my view, is not

far off; but if law is the master of the government and the

government is its slave, then the situation is full of promise.

Likewise, Aristotle wrote that "law should govern," and those in power should be

"servants of the laws.” Rule of law implies that every citizen is subject to the law,

including the lawmakers themselves. This practical truth stands as the foe to the idea

that the ruler is above the law. It was Aristotle who called for governing leaders to be

public servants, serving the rule of law. Cicero echoed the words of Aristotle when

he said, "We are all servants of the laws in order that we may be free."

In 1776, the notion that no one is above the law was a basic belief in the founding of

the republic. Thomas Paine wrote in his pamphlet Common Sense that "in America,

the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries

the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other." In 1780, John Adams added

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Our state founders divided and

decentralized functions of the

executive branch so that those

functions would have some

independence and be answerable

not to the chief executive of the

state, but directly to the people.

the principle of the rule of law in the Massachusetts Constitution when he advocated

"a government of laws and not of men."

One can hardly support, obey and defend our fundamental laws, the constitution of

the United States and the constitution of the State of Wyoming, without a working

knowledge of them, but there is something even more fundamental than the text of

the documents. One must understand the constitutional values and principles

presupposed by the documents – ordered liberty; protection of individual civil rights;

protection of property rights; rule of law and equality before the law; respect for

individual dignity and autonomy; due process and protections against arbitrary legal

process; and limited government, to name a few.

PRINCIPLE 3: SEPARATION OF POWERS The Wyoming Constitution guarantees that the ultimate authority resides in the

people. Through a specific and deliberate constitutional structure, the people

organized a government whose powers are entrusted to elected officials.

Because simple trust is an inherently unreliable foundation upon which to build a

republic or any government, the framers set distrust as the foundation. They knew,

as did Lord Acton, that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts

absolutely.” Human nature knows no geographical boundaries – we are no wiser, we

are no more virtuous than any other people. So we must recognize, as did Jefferson,

that, “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but

bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

Likewise, John Adams warns, "There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free

government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public

liberty.” This realistic view of our human nature shapes Western political tradition,

but for some reason we have allowed ourselves to be convinced that it is unseemly

to distrust elected officials as the guarantors of our rights and liberties.

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The framers of our state constitution, motivated by distrust, included two main

structural features of the constitution to protect against centralization of power and

its potential for abuse. In Article 2, Section 1, the people are guaranteed a three

branch government, dividing the necessary governmental powers by their relation

to the law – the legislative branch makes the law, the executive branch enforces

the law and the judiciary interprets the law. In addition to separation of powers

between the branches, our constitution fragments and diffuses the executive branch

power into five elective offices – the office of governor and four independent offices.

The framers could easily have placed those four additional offices under the control

of the governor, but they did not.

The almost irresistible temptation for individuals to increase their power once in

government requires the citizens to distrust those in power. The passage of SF104

serves as an example of the impulse to

consolidate power. Here, an elected,

independent Superintendent of Public

Instruction presented an obstacle to the

unconstitutional exercise of power by the

legislative branch to take complete control

of education. In coordination with the

current governor, the legislature took away

all meaningful functions of the

Superintendent and left the people’s

elected official as a mere figurehead

managing what the State Supreme Court termed an “empty shell.” The effort was to

centralize power over education in the hands of a few and then to cede control of

education to the federal government. To these ends, the legislature consolidated all

the substantive powers and duties in a governor-appointed director of education,

making the head education official answerable to the governor, not to the people.

When the legislature and the executive branches combine to centralize and

consolidate power away from the people, the people’s rights and liberties are

threatened because then there is no distinction between those writing the laws and

those executing them. Montesquieu said: “When the legislative and executive

powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can

be no liberty.” In the recent Wyoming Supreme Court decision in Powers v. Mead,

2014 WY 15, 318 P.3d 300 (2014), Justice Davis quoted James Madison from The

Federalist on the danger of the accumulation of power in one branch: “The

The separation of powers in

government only works as a

check on power if those in

distinct branches jealously guard

their constitutional powers and

if the people jealously guard

their inalienable rights.

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accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands,

whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective,

may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” The framers of our state

constitution considered this principle of great importance and included the following

language in Article 2, Section 1:

No person or collection of persons charged with the exercise

of powers properly belonging to one of these departments

[legislative, executive and judicial] shall exercise any powers

properly belonging to either of the others, except as in this

constitution expressly directed or permitted.

PRINCIPLE 4: GUARDING AGAINST THE ACCUMULATION OF POWER A government exercises power through control of resources (money as well as

tangible and intangible assets), and control of people. If there were no difference

between life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness under a centralized government

and a decentralized government, there

would be no need to raise the alarm. But

history teaches us that there is a vast

difference. In the case of SF104, as the

epitome of abuse of power, centralizers

wanted to give the federal government

control of money, standards, content and

personal student data, but the

decentralizers insisted that the federal

government’s role be limited if given any

role at all. The centralizers want to control money by directing more and more to the

education bureaucracy and to the bureaucracy’s partners, the corporate interests

that stand to reap billions of dollars by having unfettered access to our children in

the classroom. In contrast, the decentralizers want money spent directly to benefit

students in the classroom with teachers who focus on instruction and leaders who

protect students’ personal data.

The bureaucracy becomes so prominent at all levels of government that our rights-

protecting constitutional government is overthrown in practice by what is called by

various names: the bureaucratic state, the administrative state, or the regulatory state.

The centralization and

consolidation of power at both

the federal and state levels is the

most serious threat to the liberty

and prosperity of the people of

Wyoming. To make the powerful

more powerful, the tendency

over time is for government to

consolidate power.

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Alexis de Tocqueville foretold of this of type of despotism. He said that the

bureaucracy keeps people in perpetual childhood. Tocqueville said:

The bureaucracy seeks to provide for people’s security,

foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their

pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their

industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides

their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the

care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

Thus entrenched, bureaucracy takes more and more control over the people’s lives.

In effect, the bureaucracy becomes an unelected and illegitimate fourth branch of

government, a branch with its own interests and mechanisms to accumulate power.

The accumulation of power comes with another danger. Access to the public

treasury gives those in government the means to create a perpetual power base.

Public money is steered to the most effective and organized constituent groups and

the most influential friends of those in power. This is cronyism and nothing other

than vote buying. Benjamin Franklin said, “When the people find that they can vote

themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” This lamentable situation

gives some evidence to a fundamental truth about economics and human nature

identified by Albert Jay Nock: “There are two methods, or means, and only two,

whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and

exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated

appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means.” Can our

rights, liberty and prosperity be assured when our government increasingly penalizes

the economic entrepreneur and rewards the political entrepreneur?

The unearned receipt of the income and wealth of other citizens through the coercive

power of government, as French economist Frederic Bastiat called it, is “plunder.”

Bastiat described the potential of plunder to self-perpetuate:

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men

living together in society, they create for themselves in the

course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a

moral code that glorifies it.

Without the proper checks and balances, the necessary and noble function of

government is debased and becomes, using Bastiat’s words, a “great fiction through

which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” Human greed

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and narrow self-interest is a root cause of this kind of plunder – where the working

of the levers of government “takes from some persons what belongs to them, and

gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong.”

Bastiat identifies the other root cause as false philanthropy. False philanthropy is

another tendency in government that leads to its debasement, or its immoral

excesses. This tendency is reflected in government officials attempting to do works

of charity with other people’s money. The Founders, framers and those who ratified

the federal constitution had much to say about the government dispensing charity.

Thomas Jefferson, the father of the Declaration of Independence, stated:

A wise and frugal government…shall not take from the

mouth of labor the bread it has earned. He further stated,

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent

the government from wasting the labors of the people

under the pretense of taking care of them.

PRINCIPLE 5: PROTECTING THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE STATE Federalism – the recognition that the individual states have their own sphere of

authority – is also impacted by the centralization and consolidation of governmental

power. A necessary part of our constitutional structure is that the states protect

themselves from unconstitutional encroachments by the federal government. This

struggle between federal and state authority was deliberately established as an

antagonistic relationship; not collaborative, coordinating or cooperative. The

Federalist, according to Jefferson, was “the best commentary on the principles of

government ever written.” It is replete with statement after statement assuring the

states of their sovereignty leaving “in their possession certain exclusive and very

important portions of sovereign power” [Federalist 9]; “The State governments

would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which

were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States” [Federalist 32,

emphasis in original]; “In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be

deemed a NATIONAL one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects

only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all

other objects” [Federalist 39, emphasis in original].

The Federalist included many more statements describing state sovereignty and a

limited national government, living up to historian Clinton Rossiter’s description that

it “stands third only to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself

among the sacred writings of American political history.”

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The Founders knew that decentralizing the power of the federal government, and

having it exercised by the state and local governments, closer to the people, would

go a long way to protect the individual rights and liberties of the people. The state

legislatures and executives were to have an important role to play:

It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system

that the State governments will, in all possible contingencies,

afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty

by the national authority. [Federalist 28]

The executive and legislative bodies of each State will be so many

sentinels over the persons employed in every department of the

national administration. [Federalist 84]

We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures

to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national

authority. [Federalist 85]

Again, our constitutional system is founded on federalism; thus, the states should not

be controlled by bureaucrats, administrators and regulators from Washington D. C. The

states are to be their own

laboratories of democracy and

capitalism, where local successes

can be emulated by others and local

failures can be avoided.

Unfortunately, the Wyoming

legislature and governor have found

it easier to go along to get along with

the federal government, thereby

sacrificing the rights and freedoms of

Wyoming citizens. The framers of

the U.S. Constitution and the Wyoming Constitution sought to create a government of

the people. They formed a government in distrust, seeking a balance of power among

three branches of government and between the state and federal government. The

encroachment of the federal government into state affairs upsets the constitutionally

prescribed balance of power.

The Wyoming legislature and

governor must resist the

encroachments of the federal

government. They are not to accede

to every bureaucratic, administrative

and regulatory scheme the federal

government offers or mandates.

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PRINCIPLE 6: INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY The last defense of a representative democracy is an ever vigilant electorate – the

people. All power is inherent in the people. Alexis de Tocqueville, writing about self-

governance, issued a stern warning to free people who seek to govern themselves.

Tocqueville asserted that without the opposing force of the people, the people can

easily be lulled to sleep by an all-powerful government operated by self-interested

bureaucrats:

After having thus successively taken each member of the

community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will,

the supreme power then . . . covers the surface of society

with a network of small complicated rules, minute and

uniform, through which the most original minds and the

most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above

the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened,

bent and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but

they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power

does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not

tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes and

stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing

better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of

which the government is the shepherd.

The accuracy of Tocqueville’s description astounds most readers, but more

importantly these words should remind us of what many have said – any government

powerful enough to give the people all that they want is also powerful enough to take

from the people all that they have. As Tocqueville said, “no one will ever believe that

a liberal, wise and energetic government can

spring from the suffrages of a subservient

people.” All those who live in Wyoming can

see in their own lives the ubiquitous presence

of government in even the minute details of

their lives (ladders, light bulbs, etc.). This

presence may even be well-intentioned.

Regarding these intentions, the Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman said:

“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who

create it. To make a free people completely dependent on government is to make

them slaves to a master who slowly, even imperceptibly, makes freedom disappear.”

The natural force of

government is to assume

more and more power over

the people unless and until the

people apply greater force.

14

The people should elect those who will act on principle. If elected officials follow the

guide of our state constitution and the principle of separation of powers, the people’s

vote is not taken away. When the U.S. Constitution and the principle of federalism is

honored, we will not submit to a national curriculum – represented by the Common

Core as driven by our current governor and a national assessment – nor will we

submit to greater and greater controls over education. If the principle of a

constitutional, limited government were our guide, the size of state government

would not have tripled in the past 15 years. Had we honored constitutional

protections, a state board would not have banned free speech in a government

building. If we dedicate ourselves to enduring governing principles, then greater and

greater power would not be given to boards and commissions that are not

accountable to the people, the very people whose rights boards and commissions

affect on a daily basis. It is to our detriment that we attempt to govern ourselves

without principles. The French political philosopher Montesquieu wrote that, “The

deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.”

To protect our liberties, the people must be vigilant and ready to oppose a

government overstepping its bounds. The people of Wyoming deserve a principled

and forceful governor who will be their support and active partner in protecting their

rights and opposing the tendency of government to deprive them of their individual

liberties. I have stood against the bureaucracy and those who abused their powers. I

had no choice; to fail to act is immoral. The oaths that we officials take matter. As

such, I will continue to “support, obey and defend the constitution of the United

States, and the constitution of this state,” as the guardian of the rights of the people.

15

PART 3 – GROWTH OF GOVERNMENT One of the greatest threats to the stability of government and the liberties of the

people is the growth of government. The misguided premise of government, even in

Wyoming, has been that government is necessary to regulate all activities, and thus,

it is both necessary and inevitable that

government grow. The more

sophisticated version of this type of

thinking goes like this: one must infer

that because of the growing complexity

of our society, the disparate parts of our

economic system require more

governmental direction for their

effective coordination. Those who

would have government invade even

our personal lives also argue that

greater governmental control is required to maintain social order – largely through

transfer payments in the form of entitlement benefits. These inferences are

irrational. As Robert Higgs has recognized:

Many economists, from Adam Smith in the 18th century to

Friedrich Hayek in the 20th, have argued that an open

market is the most effective system of socioeconomic

coordination, the only one that systematically receives and

responds to the ever-changing signals transmitted by

millions of consumers and producers.

“America is increasingly moving

away from a nation of

self-reliant individuals,” moving

“toward a nation of individuals less

inclined to practicing self-reliance

and personal responsibility.” The

2013 Index of Dependence on

Government (November, 2013)

16

Thus, Higgs concludes that the argument that government must grow is pure fiction

and the argument is self-defeating: while the government might be able to

coordinate to some degree economic activities in a simple economy, it could never

successfully do so in a complex and rapidly changing one. Still, government grows

under the misconception that it must. Not only does government not need to grow,

but the growth of government is destructive to both the economy and itself, with the

predictable damage to prosperity and ordered liberty.

As The 2013 Index of Dependence on Government reports, the fiscal trends of our

time – the costs associated with an increasing dependence on government by

Americans and soaring debt that threatens the financial integrity of the economy –

grew worse in 2011 and 2012. Study after study warns that the current course is

unsustainable and that the country has reached the tipping point when economic

and social collapse is possible. The Congressional Budget Office admits outright that

the current spending and increasing levels of debt are unsustainable.

Sadly, for the hardworking citizens of our state, the growth of government in

Wyoming has not counteracted that of the federal government; it has mirrored it. As

the federal government has grown, so too has Wyoming government. Two leading

factors contribute to the growth of government in Wyoming. First, over the past 15

years, Wyoming has moved from a state priding itself on self-reliance to one with an

increasing number of people dependent

on government. Second, Wyoming has

fallen prey to the fallacy that economic

and social complexities require a larger

government. The growth of the number

of lawyers in the Wyoming Attorney

General’s Office in the past four decades

tells the story: Over this period, that

office has grown from five to 65 lawyers,

and this does not even account for the increase in the number of lawyers and

assistants in the Legislative Services Office. In such an environment, the pressure to

grow government becomes stronger and stronger.

GOVERNMENT GROWTH MEASURED BY DOLLARS AND EMPLOYEES The growth of the Wyoming state government is indisputable when one examines

actual budget appropriations. Appropriations during the biennium 2003-2004 were

less than half of those for the 2013-2014 biennium.

In measuring the growth of

government in Wyoming, one

must consider (1) the amount of

money appropriated each

biennium, and (2) the ever-

increasing number of employees.

17

The cost of Wyoming state government has significantly increased in 10 years from

$2.9 billion to $4.4 billion and nearly tripled in 15 years to $8.8 billion. This

explosion in spending is shown in the chart below:

The number of state employees grew from 6,417 to 8,216 in the past 15 years,

representing 28% increase of employees. In the last 10 years, the number of state

employees rose by 20% from 6,801 to 8,216 employees. This growth does not even

account for any increases of employees at the local level. In the last five years,

Wyoming held the distinction of being the state with the third most rapid growth of

state and local employees. Only Utah and North Dakota grew the ranks of state and

local employees faster. The trend nationally saw the number of state and local

employees drop, but Wyoming did not follow suit. Perhaps the best indicator of

intent to continue to grow government is the expansion of the Herschler Building

that houses state employees along with renovations to the Capitol Building.

Combined, the total cost is estimated to be $259 million. Considering the expansion

of the Herschler Building, the refrain of those less enthusiastic about what the project

means for Wyoming has been: if you build it, they will fill it. The addition of more

state employees means the potential for not only a greater tax burden on the public,

but also a greater regulatory burden.

Whether the growth was necessary seems to be the question never asked a question

that fiscal responsibility should compel us to ask before we begin to question

whether the growth in expenditures was efficient or effective. An examination of one

18

state agency is revealing. The spending by the Department of Family Services (DFS)

shows growth of the agency itself without accomplishing its primary goals. One goal

of the agency is to move families to economic

self-sufficiency. However, as the budget for DFS

grew from $177 million in the 1997-1998

biennium to $280 million in 2011-2012, poverty

in Wyoming actually grew during that time from

11.4% to 11.9% (SAIPE Census Bureau Data,

1998–2012). Clearly, it bears closer examination

why increased spending has not achieved the

goal of reducing poverty. More fundamentally,

we might ask: What is government’s constitutional role in moving people to economic

self-sufficiency? Additionally, an inherent tension exists between agencies solving

problems and maintaining relevance. If DFS were to reduce significantly the poverty

rate, DFS would diminish its own relevance and need for funding. Thus, the untenable

situation persists that agencies are not held accountable for results, but always want

more money.

THE DROP OF WATER As an example of the spreading

influence and ripple effect of

bureaucracies, consider a single

drop of water that falls from a

kitchen faucet in Cheyenne. The

water source originates from the

High Savery reservoir near

Baggs. This water is piped over

the mountains and added to

water from wells east of Vedauwoo to a water treatment facility regulated by the

EPA and Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality. The water ultimately

comes to be stored in a water tower north of Cheyenne where every drop of water

is metered, regulated and priced by the Board of Public Utilities, under guidance and

regulation from the Cheyenne City Council. This water tower has a cellular phone

tower located on the site, and both the tank and tower penetrate the airspace

regulated by the Federal Aviation Authority. Finally, Homeland Security weighs in by

requiring lights that illuminate the tank at night.

There is always the

potential for government

spending simply to grow

agencies rather than to

deliver services efficiently.

19

Consider the number of governmental agencies whose regulations touch every drop

of this water:

1. Laramie County;

2. City of Cheyenne;

3. State Engineer;

4. Department of Environmental Quality;

5. Wyoming Game and Fish;

6. Bureau of Reclamation;

7. Army Corps of Engineers;

8. Environmental Protection Agency; and

9. Homeland Security.

Even a cursory look at one drop of water reveals a tangled web of at least nine

government agencies. Ronald Reagan spoke of a maze of regulations so complex and

confusing that individuals cannot understand them without the help of an army of

attorneys, accountants and technicians of differing specialties. This only reinforces

the perceived need for technical requirements, which leads to more technical

requirements, resulting in a stifling of economic growth. All of this growth in

government sometimes works at cross-purposes, offsetting the purposes of both

agencies. For example, using the one drop of water example, Homeland Security

requires illuminating the water tank, while another agency calls for a dark skies

initiative, designed to combat light pollution (State of Wyoming, SF 0048, 2003).

Consider another example. The United States Department of Education in its

compliance-capacity, under the federal law known as No Child Left Behind, imposed

rules and restrictions on Wyoming, which in turn, added rules and restrictions on

local school districts. Local school districts must work these new mandates into their

The rules and restrictions often flow down

from the federal government to the state and

local governments in the form of federal

mandates. In domino-like fashion, state

agencies grow their own bureaucracies to align

with the federal government, and in turn local

agencies must grow their bureaucracies

to meet the demands of the state.

20

existing structure, which require that the districts hire additional personnel to

integrate the mandates and manage the new level of complexity. This phenomenon

explains the growth of non-teachers (administrators and non-teaching staff) in

Wyoming districts. From 1992 to 2009, Wyoming student enrollment declined 15%,

but administrators and non-teaching staff grew by 35%. Putting it another way,

Wyoming has 8,841 non-teachers. If the number of non-teachers had kept pace with

student population, Wyoming would have approximately 3,000 fewer non-teachers

than what we now have. All of this means that more money is devoted to

administration and activities that do not directly involve the instruction of students.

THE CRISIS AS PRETEXT FOR GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION The first step to initiate a government intervention is to create a need. This is the

moment of “crisis.” Good legislators recognize this for what it is and respond with

caution. The need, or crisis, is often a false or at least questionable assertion elevated

to the level of an emergency. The next step is to create movement and momentum

by studying the assertion by hiring experts, generating reports and convening

government meetings with predetermined outcomes and preconceived processes

designed for those outcomes. Having paid experts to reach a conclusion of their

liking, the bureaucrats then are left to write the law that builds a system creating

rules and restrictions – and government grows. After a time, bureaucrats find that

the system does not fully address the problem imagined by the false assertion, so the

process begins again, and the process repeats. Along the way, the assertion upon

which all regulatory action is based becomes doctrine and cannot be questioned.

Bureaucrats are so doctrinaire and dogmatic that it is unthinkable to them that

anyone would question why their bureaucracy must grow. They must think this way

– their livelihoods depend on it.

Congress followed that crisis and reaction cycle

in education with the same false assertion and

reaction that created the Elementary and Secondary

Education Act, then the US Department of Education,

then Goals 200: Educate America Act, then No Child

Left Behind, then Race to the Top. What would happen

if citizens challenged the false assertions as well as

the assertion that more and more government

actually fixes those problems?

21

WYOMING STATE BUDGET PROCESS – CONTROL BY THE FEW The budget process in Wyoming is seriously flawed and this process further explains

the excessive growth in state spending. Although it should never be forgotten that

it is the people’s money that the legislature spends, this essential truth is forgotten

more quickly in Wyoming than elsewhere. Further, it is the people who must

remind those in government that every

dollar that comes into the government

comes by way of the people. Tax

revenue generated by mineral

extraction is not money that the average

citizen pays over to government. Rather,

it is paid directly by mineral producers.

As such, it does not feel like the people’s money flowing into the state coffers, but of

course it is. Because the people did not pay those taxes themselves, they are less

aware of it being the people’s money, and as a result, fewer constraints are placed

on that money. In this scheme of taxation, the legislature is freer to spend as it deems

appropriate, with minimal checks on whether the expenditures are necessary,

efficient, or effective in serving what should be the limited, legitimate end of

government. This is especially true in times of plenty. Government must work harder

to ensure that the expenditures are necessary, that they are value enhancing, and

that expenditures are known to the public. Given this view of state taxation, the next

step is to understand the budget process to see its flaws.

Even before understanding the process, the spotlight must be focused on one aspect

of Wyoming’s budget process that can lead to corruption – i.e., spending to benefit

special interests. Powerful members of the legislature, called “leadership,” most

notably the chairmen of House and Senate Appropriations Committees, know that

the power over the purse strings places them in a position to control everything. If

an agency, or an elected official, does not submit to the leadership’s will, the

leadership has the power to cut off funding. Instead of a balance of powers, the

power has been consolidated into the hands of a few. Madison described this as the

very definition of tyranny:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and

judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or

many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective,

may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

Wyoming’s budget process is

controlled by (1) a few legislators,

(2) highly placed bureaucrats

and (3) the governor.

22

We have seen the evidence of the abuse of this power, and there are many examples

that could be discussed. One lesser known example occurred in 2014. Those having

the power of appropriation thought that the deans of the University of Wyoming

should report to the legislature. They actually thought that the legislature should be

managing the University. Fortunately, this measure did not pass. But this effort

illustrates how power over appropriations leads some to believe that they should

also control the functions for which appropriations are made. The balance of power

should limit the legislature to its proper role, but those in the executive branch of

government (most notably the chief executive) must demonstrate the strength of

character to rebuff efforts to invade the province of the executive branch.

At the most basic level, in a republic founded on the will of the people, the budget

process must not be understood by only a few. To enable control over the budget

process, the budget and its intricate details, including budget narratives and program

descriptions, must be brought to full public scrutiny with processes for the public to

have access to this information and to provide input. The people’s knowledge of the

budget will act as the greatest check on this power. The light of day is the best

deterrent to abuses. The governor must join with the people in this effort and must

take the lead on bringing the budget bill to the people well before it is passed.

Power wielded by the few with knowledge over the budget has led to further abuses

through budget footnotes. Footnotes are a useful tool to clarify the spending

authorized in the bill, but they often exceed constitutional authority. Substantive

measures, and ones requiring appropriations, require stand-alone bills under the

Wyoming Constitution, but currently budget footnotes are used to bypass the normal

processes.

Understanding how the budget is created shows the flaws of the process and the

lack of institutional grounding in the will and consent of the people. First, the

Department of Administration and Information Budget Division prepares standard

Through a budget footnote,

the chairman of the all-powerful

Senate Appropriations Committee

was able to assist in securing

$4 million for his client,

bypassing normal processes

for such expenditures.

23

budgets for each agency in the summer prior to the budget session. The standard

budget is the amount that enables a department to continue to furnish the same

level of services during the ensuing biennium. Then, the agencies take that template

and modify it based upon their perceived needs, creating exception requests. After

these exception requests are made, the Budget Division puts all the budgets into a

common format and sends them to the governor. The governor meets for several

hours with each agency to discuss each budget. The governor asks various questions

about the budget; however, an inattentive governor may only scratch the surface of

the amount of money embodied in these budgets.

After these budget discussions, the governor makes recommendations on the

proposed budgets. The individual budgets and recommendations are then passed to

the Joint Appropriations Committee (JAC) of the Legislature. The JAC typically takes

a week to go over dozens of budgets. This

breeds a trust me attitude. Members of the

legislature may or may not ask questions of

the bureaucracy about the items on the

budget. Legislators rely upon the honesty of

bureaucrats to give them accurate and

complete information on the budgets.

Bureaucrats often view the budget process

as a cat-and-mouse game with the goal of

minimizing scrutiny of their budget (notice the wording – “their” budgets, not the

people’s budget). The next step is for the Legislative Services Office (LSO), itself an

unelected and expanding bureaucracy, to begin the work of writing the budget bill

following the last JAC meeting prior to the budget session.

At this point, the way the legislature considers the budget is even more disconcerting.

Recall that details about expenditures are closely held by those having knowledge.

The more information others have, the less control those in power have, and so

information is restricted to maintain control and power. Of course a completely open

process is also the key to breaking the monopoly of power that works through the

suppression of information. Limiting access to information is one way to increase

political transaction costs – those costs exacted by those in power on the individual,

thus deterring the individual’s willingness and ability to participate in the political

decision-making process.

Finally, the budget bill is introduced about a week into the budget session. In-depth

information on budgetary items is not provided. The timing, by design, favors those

This process is a consolidation

of power, placing a great deal

of trust in the hands of the

few legislators and bureaucrats

who are intimately involved in

the details of the budget.

24

with knowledge, and renders helpless those still trying to acquire knowledge. Even in

the budget session, non-budgetary items are typically considered before the budget

bill.

The budget bill is taken up at the end of the session and then rushed through due

to the limited number of days left in the session, which, of course, is the procedural

tool of the powerful to secure acquiescence. In the 2014 session, legislators

complained that they had been pressured not to ask questions. Few amendments are

offered or considered to a bill containing billions in spending.

Some legislators vote for the budget

bill believing that JAC and the

bureaucrats know what they were

doing, that they are doing the right

thing, and that they are doing it the

right way. Some vote for the budget bill

on the belief that they are powerless

not to. Some vote on the budget bill

without having read it all. What is

considered is a synthesized version of

thousands of pages of agency requests,

governor recommendations and LSO

interpretations of JAC desires. When

presented with the budget bill, the governor reviews it, sometimes line item vetoes

a limited number of items in the bill, and then signs it. The will of a powerful few is

thus brought to execution.

Also hidden from view is the process of how the budget is managed. The governor

should have the flexibility to move funds as required for smooth operations of

government. The process for transferring funds is known as the B-11 process. B-11’s

are common. They occur from 500 to 2,000 times each quarter. B-11’s are necessary

to operate the government, but B-11’s are not transparent. Transparency and an

analysis of B-11 activity could lead to better budgets. For a legislator whose

responsibility it is to handle the purse strings of state government, this process can

be very confusing and lead to an aura of secrecy.

THE ROLE OF FEDERAL FUNDS IN GROWING THE STATE BUDGET The role of federal funds in growing the state budget cannot be ignored, but it usually

is. Federal funds are given at most a cursory look as these funds are considered free

When budget sessions were created

in 1971, the purpose was to have an

in-depth budgetary process. The

2014 budget session represented

anything but an in-depth process.

There were 306 non-budgetary bills and

resolutions that were numbered for the

legislature in the 19 day session. The

budget was introduced on day six and

signed by the Speaker of the House and

the President of the Senate on day 16.

25

money. If an agency has a hypothetical unit called Big Ball of Red Tape that is

federally funded, that function is allowed to grow without legislative action even

though it may well, sooner or later, require state-funded resources for support. To

illustrate how federal programs can be added to the purview of state government

without the knowledge or consent of the legislature (and therefore, without the

knowledge or consent of the people), consider the governor’s recent entry into the

federal program to relocate refugees to Wyoming.

An internal memorandum from the current governor’s office, touted how the

program could avoid the legislative process: “We also learned that there is no need

for a bill to pass through the legislature on the issue of refugee resettlement. Instead,

the governor's office decides whether the state

wants to participate in this program.”

Could the relocation of refugees to Wyoming

really occur without legislature approval?

Could this happen without public comment

and with only a very small, select group of

people knowing about such a program? The

surprising answer is yes, and it happened in

2013, without public scrutiny and comment,

and without legislative deliberation. Only a

handful of people knew that Wyoming would

take on yet another federal program on only the governor’s signature – just one

signature – but any number of communities across Wyoming could be affected by a

program about which they and elected representatives knew nothing.

The governor thus has the ability

to grow Wyoming government

by acquiring federal funds and

adopting programs simply by

request and application and

thereby obligating Wyoming in

ways that the people might

never have imagined.

26

PART 4 – ETHICS AND OPEN GOVERNMENT The best neighbors are the ones who do not lock their doors. Why are these people

considered good neighbors? Because they have not thought of stealing, and as such,

it does not occur to them that others would steal from them. If we all had good

neighbors, there would be no need for ethical proscriptions and open government

rules.

James Madison observed that: “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor

internal controls on government would be necessary.” Madison knew what we know

– those who govern are not angels and require internal and external controls for the

people to be secure in their rights.

Corruption and abuse of power occurs in the

darkness – away from the light of public scrutiny.

To bring government out of the darkness, the

people must have the information and

knowledge of the inner-workings of their

government. Self-governance is not possible unless citizens have the information to

exercise oversight of a government that is incapable of restraining itself.

According to the Center for Public Integrity, Wyoming scores 48th in the United

States on measures of government integrity. Sparsely populated rural states like

Wyoming, they report, rely heavily on a small town, neighborly approach to ethics

and integrity based on the myth that because everybody knows everybody, a strict

open government is unnecessary. Less enforcement and transparency simply leads

to more misconduct – in the darkness. In addition, smaller states have one frailty not

Secrecy and the exclusion of

the people from government

is the most direct path

to abuse of power.

27

experienced in larger states: the urge not

to report abuses can be stronger in

smaller places precisely because the

informer will encounter the violator again

and again. Wyoming should aspire to

achieve the highest distinction in

government integrity. Sadly, there is no

current effort underway to dislodge

Wyoming from the bottom of the list.

I have seen first-hand why Wyoming is

thought of so poorly when it comes to

government integrity. Part of the answer

is the current expectations on ethics and

open government, and those

expectations are set from the top.

Unfortunately, our current governor and

some members of the legislature have

locked the doors to government, refusing

to provide information on government activities, abusing legal processes and

allowing a culture of corruption to take root.

After being sworn into office in 2011, I learned that a contractor to the Wyoming

Department of Education was sending state employees to Germany, Japan and other

places around the world for school visits – expenses paid. Often being paid salaries,

the employees visited schools for a few days and then toured the foreign country as

though on holiday. I ended the practice much to the dissatisfaction of some in the

Department of Education.

Contracts were also awarded to people with no clear deliverables. One of my first

tasks was to undertake a careful analysis of the contracts that the agency had entered

into and to end the ones that simply made no sense. As a result, I returned over

$1 million to the people of Wyoming.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST AND CORRUPTION The Wyoming legislature has conflict of interest and anti-corruption measures on the

books, but the books gather dust. Conflicts of interest do occur with some frequency,

but actions taken to address those conflicts are rare.

In its 2013 report, the Better

Government Association

ranks Wyoming as the 49th worst

state overall taking into account

such measures as conflict of interest

and anti-corruption laws, open

meeting laws and freedom of

information laws. Breaking it

down further, Wyoming was

48th worst on freedom of

information laws;

48th worst on

open-meeting laws; and

45th worst on

conflict of interest laws.

28

For example, the chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee

assisted his client in procuring $4 million by means of a budget footnote. Through

direct funding, by the device of a footnote rather than a stand-alone bill, this

appropriation bypassed the normal processes for appropriations of this kind.

Likewise, the Office of State

Lands is presently considering

a land swap in Crook County

for a priceless piece of state

land abutting Devil’s Tower

National Monument (pictured

right). The beneficiary of this

land swap is a sitting Crook

County State Senator.

Shockingly, the governor

appears to have deferred

action on the matter until

after the primary election,

taking the issue out of public

view.

Should these things be happening in state government? Of course not. But those

currently in leadership positions lack the strength of character to stop them. I will

never countenance these types of conflicts, and I was clear in my opposition to both

of them. The press plays an important role here.

TIMELY ACCESS TO INFORMATION Wyoming has a Public Records Act, but this Act does little to inform the analysis of

whether information is accessible. State officials talk about the importance of open

government, but their actions tell a different story. In real transparency, Wyoming

consistently ranks at the extreme lower end (48th) in the availability of information.

This situation is particularly odd in a state in which the state’s highest court has

recognized that freedom-of-the-press and the due process provisions of the

constitutions of the United States and Wyoming guarantee a person’s right to public

records, and absent a compelling state interest, the state may not exclude an entire

class of records from public inspection. Houghton v. Franscell, 870 P.2d 1050, 1053

(Wyo. 1994). Without information, the people would be at the mercy of government

that cannot restrain itself.

29

The Wyoming Supreme Court in Franscell quoted from James Madison as follows:

A Popular Government, without popular information, or

the means of acquiring it is but a Prologue to a Farce or a

tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern

ignorance; and the people who mean to be their own

Governors, must arm themselves with the power which

knowledge gives.

It is also worth recalling Thomas Jefferson’s admonition that every person must be

capable of reading the public papers. Jefferson knew that the facts would keep the

republic free and that the “good sense of the people will always be found to be the

best army.” My experience bears this out: when the people have the facts, they will

see through any subterfuge. While some elected officials dread John Adams’ wry

observation that “facts are stubborn things,” I take great comfort in his words.

While the free access to information is a constitutionally-protected principle that is

worth defending in its own right, the right to information has much broader

implications. Usually the denial of information is directly linked to profiteering. In my

experience, the first indication that politicians are

up to no good is when the flow of information

stops. Thus, it is axiomatic that a properly

functioning government must operate in full

public view. Corruption flourishes in the dark;

bright light is the sanitizer of government.

Wyoming recently adopted a soft deadline to

respond to information requests. Although

agencies are to provide records in seven days, as

the law is interpreted in practice, they may gain an automatic and indefinite

extension by simply informing the person seeking information that the information

cannot be provided within seven days. The governor is the leading abuser of this

provision. For example, it has taken him nearly a year to gather emails on one of his

staff members and has effectively refused to relinquish the emails of two others.

Given how our laws are put into practice, the statutory right to information is

nullified, and the current governor has created a culture in state government that

devalues, dismisses and at times completely ignores the people’s right to know.

The key to preventing

and ending corruption is

(1) a legal system having

the ability to enforce the

public’s rights and (2)

persons willing to

enforce those laws.

30

CLOSED MEETINGS AND HOSTILITY TOWARD PUBLIC COMMENT Although the intent of the Open

Meetings Act is to require decisions

and deliberations to be open to full

public view, it is one of the most

ignored laws in Wyoming. Board and

commission members often get

together informally, with enough

members present to form a quorum,

and decide what will be done without

the benefit of public scrutiny.

Government officials in Wyoming have a general and pervasive antipathy of taking

public comment. Possessed of a value system that values input from the public, I find

it alarming to see the attitude of regulators and elected officials who believe that

members of the public are a nuisance because involvement from the people requires

the bureaucrats to actually go through the process simply to arrive at decisions

desired from the outset. This is such a common experience in Wyoming that nearly

everyone who has appeared before a board or commission has experienced this

attitude all too often.

The events surrounding SF104 provide an example of this attitude as applied to

legislators. The Speaker of the House (Tom Lubnau, R-Campbell), referred the matter

to the House Appropriations Committee instead of following standard practice

directing education bills to the House Education Committee. No committee meetings

were held throughout the prior year on the topic of SF104, nor was a House

Education Committee meeting ever convened on the bill. Public comment was

allowed on one night. Two rooms were necessary to accommodate all those from the

public that were opposed to the bill and yet testimony was taken from a limited

number of members of the public.

NEEDED REFORMS Several things could be done to make government more accessible to the public, and

therefore, more reflective to the public’s consent. We must aspire to have a

government that in practice functions this way – a government that is constantly

legitimized by the welcomed participation and consent of the governed. This is

accomplished by leading on these values of openness, accessibility and the active

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respect of the people’s right to influence government. To move state government in

Wyoming forward on these values, I detail my proposals as follows:

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST AND ANTI-CORRUPTION MEASURES The Wyoming Constitution contains anti-corruption provisions. The constitution

prohibits a legislator from receiving government contracts. It also precludes a

legislator from voting on matters in which he has a personal interest. Statutes are

in place to enforce these proscriptions, but those laws place the enforcement in the

hands of those subject to violating them. The policing of legislators and executive

branch employees should be turned over to a citizen commission having full powers to

investigate and recommend prosecution of abuses. It is altogether fitting that the people

police government – it is, after all, their government.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION There are several obstacles to securing information and honoring the public’s right

to know that now occur in state government. The leading abuse is government

employees failing to produce records. The law must have teeth in the provisions

requiring timely compliance. One of the ways to deter this conduct is to award

attorney fees to the party who has been denied information. As the law stands now,

ignoring the law rewards the violating governmental agency, because the financial

burden is placed on the requesting party by requiring the services of an attorney to

enforce this right. Even newspapers are often unwilling to incur these costs, so the

Public Records Act often is not enforced. In addition, violators should be prosecuted

for ignoring existing laws. Courts have been sympathetic to the powerful

governmental officials who ignore the Public Records Act and find ways to avoid

enforcing the penalty provisions of the statute.

Some state agencies currently engage in financial coercion to block access to

information. Rather than acknowledging that it is their duty to provide records to the

public (a culture that is antagonistic to constitutional protections), these agencies

believe that providing records takes away time from other duties. As such, without

legal authority, they have been charging the public for search time or other unauthorized

fees. Agencies attempting to do this should be referred to the Attorney General for

prosecution.

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The current governor presently advocates

the adoption of the so-called deliberative

process privilege. The governor has recently

argued this position before the Wyoming

Supreme Court in Aland v. Mead. The

adoption of a deliberative process privilege

would be the greatest setback to the

availability of information in Wyoming, yet it

went virtually unnoticed by the press. Under

this privilege, government officials are

excused from turning over information that is

deliberative in nature. In the federal

government, this is the most abused way of

skirting Freedom of Information Act requests because literally everything and

anything that government does can be considered deliberative. So too, the legislative

deliberative privilege shields information that would otherwise be subject to

production. The current governor, in an effort to hide certain information, has

refused to turn over communications between a member of his office and legislators,

claiming that the communications of his employee are legislative. The governor’s

lawyer has even recently told a member of the press that the governor is not the

custodian of records of his own executive branch appointees.

OPEN MEETINGS The use of executive sessions, or closed-door meetings, has been abused. Closed-

door meetings are to be conducted in defined and narrow circumstances. To prevent

abuses, all executive sessions should be recorded so that a judge can later determine

whether the Open Meetings Act was violated by officials who conduct meetings

without the public.

Boards often have incidental or chance meetings, frequently over lunch or dinner,

in which board matters are discussed and decided. Because the public’s right-to-

know is at stake, members of boards and commissions must be educated on why it

is so important to conduct meetings in full public view and should be prosecuted for

violations. The public has every right to expect the enforcement of open government

laws. In large part, it is a matter of expectation. The expectation must be set from the

top: if the state’s chief executive finds it important for these laws to be followed, they

will likely be followed.

No matter how strong the law,

laws are only as good as the ones

vested with the responsibility of

upholding them. Recently, a

number of cases have been filed

to force compliance with the

Open Records Act, including:

Hill v. Mead

Aland v. Mead

Associated Press v.

University of Wyoming Trustees

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SYSTEMATIC, SELF-EXECUTING GOVERNMENTAL DISCLOSURES In the Franscell case, the Wyoming Supreme Court recognized that “maintaining an

open and accountable government is particularly important with respect to the

expenditure of public funds.” Systematic, self-executing disclosures that are routinely

placed online as a continuing requirement on the part of government are a reform

measure that gives knowledge to citizens and relieves those in government from the

accusation that they are hiding the inner-workings of government. This is especially

important in the area of public contracting.

The only form of honest contracting is open contracting. As such, contractors should

be required to disclose whether any member of their business organization, family

member or anyone providing services to the business is a legislator, other elected

official or employee of state, county or city government. This disclosure should then

be posted on a state website, along with the contracts themselves, without the

necessity of request by a member of the public. For example, if an economic

development authority is seeking state funding for the purchase of a building, the

organization should disclose that their lawyer is a legislator. The press could search

the data frequently to see who is getting contracts and whether conflicts of interest

are occurring. Even more basically, such a system would result in self-regulation

because the prospect of being caught results in decisions not to engage in conflicts

of interest. Further, in the event of a conflict, such a system provides the means to

expose them. This knowledge might lead a citizen commission to investigate the role

of the legislator and recommend action where appropriate.

HONORING PUBLIC COMMENT Appointing people to commissions and boards who value the views of the public and

who seek out ways to understand the impact of government action on the public is

key. But care in appointments is not enough. The chief executive must take steps to

ensure that the public is never shut out of processes. Policy changes and rules should

never be adopted without public comment. For example, in 2010, the State Board

of Education adopted the Common Core standards without public comment. This

should never have happened. When I was sworn into office I halted the

implementation of rules (Common Core) that had not been lawfully adopted and

forced the process to take public comment from across the state. As governor, I will

not tolerate an attitude of disdain for the public. My actions have proven this.

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PART 5 – EDUCATION On January 8, 2013, I delivered my Address to the 62nd Legislature and the People of

the State of Wyoming. In that document, also called the Red Book, I provided the

template for Wyoming to possess an unparalleled educational system in the United

States. I outlined three steps:

1. Set a measurable goal held steady for five to seven years;

2. Commit to data and results; and

3. Establish a cohesive system of instructional support.

During the 2010 election, I listened to the people and made the promise to focus on

instruction. As Wyoming’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, I emphasized

that the most important factor in education is

quality instruction and the teacher’s time

spent with students.

Over the past 40 years, the Wyoming

Department of Education (WDE) has lost its

instructional focus. In the mid-1970’s, due to

the bureaucracy required by federal

programs, the WDE recast employees from

their roles as instructional experts to federal program managers who monitored and

reported on the use of federal money. Over time, the Department became a

compliance-based bureaucracy with little focus on instruction.

The most important

factor in education is

quality instruction

and the teacher’s time

spent with students.

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What happened in Wyoming education is a case study of the ruinous effects of

centralization, relinquishing control to the state and federal governments.

PROOF OF CONCEPT From my experience in improving schools, I knew the right kind of intervention can

lead to remarkable progress in student learning in a short amount of time. As such, I

was committed to deliver on my pledge to focus on instruction at the district level,

as districts had requested.

In August 2011, Fremont No. 38 called for help from the WDE. The staff had just

received the school’s 2011 state reading scores and at least one grade was the lowest

performing in the state. After commitment from the school’s board, administration

and other district educators, and with federal and state directives requiring the

assistance, we sprang into action. Thus began a seven-month collaboration that

produced notable improvement in student reading performance. For example, the

cohort of students performing at 18% proficient in third grade in 2011 improved to

over 58% in fourth grade in 2012. Most other grades improved as well.

It makes sense for the state agency charged with instruction to work with teachers.

This idea has finally occurred to the U.S. Department of Education and is echoed in

recent federal policy briefings. One such briefing indicates the improvement of

schools requires state agencies have “a deep investment in supporting schools and

districts in their day-to-day work.” This change of focus was confusing to some at the

WDE because the WDE had been mired in its compliance-based orientation for so

many years. The federal briefing went on to state that school improvement efforts

failed in the past 40 years because they did not focus on teaching: “State

Departments of Education need to shift from oversight and monitoring federal grant

compliance to actively facilitating and driving interventions.”

To improve student learning, the professional development delivered in the state had

to become much more effective. During the two years of my tenure, I shifted the

state’s focus to instruction and this change produced results.

TEACHER-TO-TEACHER BEST PRACTICE TRAINING There are many delivery methods for professional development, but the most

effective is expert teachers sharing with other teachers. The concept of teachers

teaching teachers is not new and is substantiated in countless studies. In 2004, the

U.S. Department of Education developed a teacher-to-teacher training with expert

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teachers sharing best practices with

their peers; 20,000 teachers in 50 cities

attended these trainings and the

trainings were heralded as highly

successful.

Using this delivery system, a team of

Wyoming distinguished reading educators

was assembled and went on the road to

dozens of locations in Wyoming teaching

best practices in literacy, with instructional

support of the reading assessment. About 2,000 teachers, approximately 40% of the

reading teachers of the state, gathered on weekends or during the month of August

to learn and practice the instructionally-supportive component of our state

assessment.

Not surprisingly, State Assessment

reading scores in grades, third through

eighth and 11th grades, were positively

impacted. The attendees were enthusiastic

about the training and many districts asked

for teacher-trainers to come directly to their

schools. Wyoming’s teacher-to-teacher

delivery system was successful as measured

by participant evaluations, by improved

state assessment scores in reading and by

cost savings. This professional development

approach cost $180,000 while reaching

2,000, or one-fifth of Wyoming teachers. A

similar training offered by Pearson was

estimated at $2.7 million.

LEARNING FROM HIGH FLYERS One of the greatest compliments that I have received is that I listen to the people and

learn. I followed common sense and federal guidance by listening to successful

schools and districts and sharing those successes with those who needed help. For

example, Oregon Trail Elementary School has had high performance for years.

37

The principal shared this school’s keys to success: school-based, full staff decision-

making; open sharing and analysis of data; and teacher autonomy. These practices

are not found in schools that struggle.

I listened to lessons from Sheridan County School District No. 2, which consistently

outscores others in third grade reading as measured by the state assessment. The

third grade reading scores grew in 2010-11 from 75.59% advanced/proficient to

86.76% in 2011-2012. The third grade state assessment scores for special education

students in reading and math is also high at 62%, which is close to the state average

for non-special education students at 65%.

The theory underpinning the District’s literacy instruction is consistent from the

classroom to interventions including special education. The District uses Reading and

Math Recovery, Balanced Literacy Framework, and professional collaboration.

Teacher training is valued more than purchasing scripted materials.

LISTENING AND LEARNING FROM TEACHERS OF THE YEAR In keeping with my philosophy of listening to the people, I listened and learned from

teachers themselves. After all, the teacher is the heart of teaching and the greatest

influence on improving student achievement, according to eminent educational

researcher John Hattie. Expert teachers, more than any other factor, make the

difference.

IN THE INDUSTRY OF EDUCATION, GOOD NEWS IS BAD NEWS AND

FAILURE IS REWARDED The great paradox of education today is that good news is met with disapproval by

some bureaucrats, lawmakers and members of the press. The reason for this

disapproval is that failures in education build a sense of urgency to fuel change. In

turn, this change requires more and more money for consultants and programs, and

grows government and the industry of education.

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The bad news narrative is false. In fact, Wyoming students fare well on a multitude

of standardized tests.

In the 2012 state assessment, math scores went up 7%; science

went up 9%; and reading went up 14%.

Wyoming’s commitment to education contributes to Wyoming’s

business ranking, including the Pollina Top 10 Pro-Business

Rankings in which Wyoming is third in the country. One little known

fact is that the Pollina Ranking shows that, despite press coverage

indicating a high-school drop-out rate of roughly 20%, Wyoming is

first in the nation in high school completion at 91.8% (based on U.S.

Census Bureau data).

Obviously, Wyoming schools are swarming with assessments, but the legislature has

been slow to recognize the negative impact on student learning caused by reduced

instructional time. Policymakers and administrators put stock in these standardized

tests. However, on an individual student

level, these assessment results must be

taken with a grain of salt. They do not

predict the success individuals will enjoy

later in life. Nevertheless, Wyoming

students fare well on these assessments.

The failing schools narrative is unfounded.

The second peculiarity in public education

is that educational failure (as a funding

mechanism) is rewarded. Failing schools

receive federal dollars, such as School

Improvement Grant funding. This is

counter to the way business works; nevertheless, the education industry relies on the

perception of failure in order to fund high-priced consultants and ineffective

programs. According to the Denver Post, “Cost doesn’t spell success…”. The millions

spent to improve schools found that the only winners are consultants who received

35% of the $26.6 million that came to Colorado in the past two years in Race to the

Top funds. The U.S. Department of Education spent $5 billion in Race to the Top funds

and in Colorado, typical of all states, one third or $9.4 million went to contractors.

Why does this false narrative

continue despite overwhelming

evidence to the contrary?

Because those consultants,

contractors, monitors, evaluators,

marketers and others who make

money on the industry of

education must claim that the

system is failing so that they can

make more and more money.

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Failure means more money, and failure also means more bureaucratic controls. The

U.S. Department of Education under the Obama presidency circumvented the

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind), to offer waivers to

avoid the designation of schools and districts in need of improvement. This reward

for failure comes with strings. To receive the waiver, states must have a common set

of standards, a national test and a teacher evaluation system linked to student

performance. Each of these requirements grows government.

MISGUIDED TEACHER EVALUATIONS Holding high standards for teachers seems sensible. Everyone, including teachers,

desires a fair and effective teacher evaluation tool used to identify effective and

exemplary teachers and to advise misplaced teachers to seek different careers.

However, creating teacher evaluation systems at the

federal and state levels requires more bureaucracy, more

cost and reduced accountability.

As early as July 2009, the federal government began to

require teacher evaluation to receive federal Race To The

Top dollars. Teacher evaluation tied to student performance

is required to get the federal waiver. Attracted by the lure of

federal dollars, the Wyoming legislature and bureaucrats

flew into action. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent to advance federal

accountability measures. This work was predicated on the notion that teacher

performance can be measured by student performance through a standardized test.

However, there is no standardized test that fairly measures a teacher’s instructional

effectiveness. Nevertheless, accountability bills were passed in 2011 and 2012, and

committee work continues today.

THE INVERSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MORE MONEY AND BETTER RESULTS The conventional wisdom is that the more money spent on education, and the more

policies written, the better the outcomes. This is not true. From 1992 to 2009, Wyoming

student enrollment declined by 15%, but administration grew by 35%. During the same

period, spending on education increased radically. You might ask why we needed a

greater number of administrators when the number of students declined. The answer

goes back to the industry of education, not different or increased educational needs. In

fact, educational research bears out that a greater number of policies and rules yields

40

lower student achievement. When distant authorities prescribe in minute detail what is

taught, how it is taught and how it is measured, performance declines.

The same is true of funding. By dedicating more and more money to education, the

legislature has actually hurt, not helped, education. Education must be viewed as a

funding system designed to achieve a certain result, not as a black hole. A certain

amount of money is critical for educational success. In a bell-curve model, at the base

are the raw materials of education, including equipment, books, and basic buildings.

Along the way, a school must have the expertise of qualified and well-trained

teachers. Next, those teachers must use instructional best practices. The peak of

effectiveness and efficiency occurs when interventions are tied to real-time

assessments of student performance. Any funding beyond this represents over-

spending on programs that are unnecessary and distracting from the focus on

instruction. Distraction from instructional focus, leads to a decline in teacher

performance and, in turn, a decline in student performance.

WANT EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS? It should come as a relief to Wyoming

taxpayers that this state has the capacity to

become a national leader in education.

Wyoming can improve education and become

a leader, but not by creating more programs,

spending more money and submitting to the

control of the federal or state bureaucracies.

We must go back to the basics: set clear goals,

hold to a constant measure, and dedicate

ourselves to the hard work of teaching and

motivating students to do the hard work of learning.

The current governor, a non-educator, believes in the empty and expensive promises

of state and federal controls. Within days of signing SF104, just after ousting the

elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, the governor flew to Washington, D.C.

to commit Wyoming to greater federal controls of education.

The government cannot monitor, manage nor mandate learning. Expert teaching

requires personal commitment to quality instruction based upon the relationship

between the student and the teacher. The best education for our children is one in

which the teacher is personally committed and the system is locally controlled.

The Wyoming legislature has

literally spent billions of dollars to

“become a national education

leader among states.” But the

sums of money spent have not

always been directed to the one

thing that yields results –

instruction.

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PART 6 – ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

We who live in free-market societies believe that

growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment,

are created from the bottom up, not from government

down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invest

and create, only when individuals are given personal

stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting

from their successes – only then can societies remain

economically alive, dynamic, progressive and free.

– Ronald Reagan

A government that confines itself to its narrowly tailored ends and constitutionally

enumerated powers is a government that promotes economic development. The

expansion of bureaucracy has the effect of suffocating economic development.

Government does not create economic development; it can only limit and stifle it.

The greatest boon to economic development is to limit the regulatory burden that

businesses face. When Wyoming demonstrates that it is the place where businesses

face fewer obstacles in establishing or growing their business, then Wyoming will be

the economically rational choice for investment.

BUREAUCRATIC CONTROL OVER THE ECONOMY When bureaucracies are vested with the power to approve or deny permits, they

hold the power to make or break companies. These government entities have the

power to delay the issuance of a permit, making a project uneconomic. They have

the power to control who will win and who will lose in the market – one company

42

gets a permit, another does not. To this

extent, then, the bureaucracy

arbitrarily has the potential to be the

protector of some companies and

punisher of others, with no

accountability to the public.

Bureaucratic hierarchies have control

over resources that sustain them and

the ability systematically to control

those they regulate.

THE RESPONSE OF CAPITAL Capital flows in the direction of least resistance. When bureaucracies expand, as has

been the march of “progress” in Wyoming, so too does the regulatory burden placed

on businesses. It would be naïve to think that a state government that has more than

doubled in the last 12 years has not also imposed itself into Wyoming business affairs.

Complexity through over-regulation deters would-be entrepreneurs from starting

businesses and existing businesses from expanding businesses. Expanded regulations

can impose such lengthy delays in gaining necessary permits that it forces investment

dollars to go elsewhere. In my experience, these are points that seem to be

unimportant to regulators in Wyoming.

The impact of regulatory burdens is not measured as a comparative analysis between

the states. Unlike comparative tax burdens, the regulatory burden is harder to

measure because it has so many variables and because of the difficulty in

economically quantifying the variables. As

such, even though businesses know all too

well the impact of regulation, it is not a basis

of economic comparative analyses among

different states. The impact of the federal

bureaucracy, however, has been the subject

of at least some study. As reported by the

American Economic Development Institute

and Pollina Corporate Real Estate, companies in the United States are not only the

highest taxed in the world, but also the most highly regulated. Regulations are

imposed at the federal, state and local levels, often with overlapping restraints, and

these regulations result in the strangulation of business initiative. The ever-increasing

federal, state and local bureaucracies force companies to “hire armies of

We lament the lack of economic

diversification in Wyoming at

the same time we have been

growing the bureaucracy – the

agent of business suffocation.

Although we are told that

bureaucracies are created to protect

our civil liberties, they violate

liberties by imposing rules that

depersonalize those they regulate and

taking away individual differences and

initiative. They reduce everyone to

the same inefficient level.

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accountants, lawyers, safety engineers, environmental engineers, benefit analysts,

compensation analysts and a wide range of other experts to interpret and implement

the requirements.” The federal Office of Advocacy, in a 2005 report, estimated that

the annual average cost of federal regulation was $5,282 per employee for

businesses with 500 or more workers, and a staggering $7,647 per employee for

businesses with fewer than 20 workers.

In Wyoming’s current regulatory structure, most businesses must receive an array of

permits to do business. Those permit applications require a great deal of time and

expense, and then regulators take months and months to review and approve those

permits. The permit approval process gives regulators control over projects. Often

times, this simply imposes needless delays and adds to a climate of uncertainty. This

uncertainty (which leads businesses to go elsewhere) is only compounded by

requirements that seem to be ever-changing. Not every function should require a

permit, and options must exist to minimize regulatory burden.

The path forward for state government in Wyoming is clear. Wyoming must maintain

its favorable tax climate (as one of the states with the lowest overall tax burdens on

businesses) and ensure that the infrastructure is in place to accommodate business

growth. Beyond this, the most direct route to economic diversification is through the

reduction of regulatory burden on the free market. In a state that views itself as

having few regulations, one prominent provision in the act creating the Wyoming

Business Council empowers the Business Council to coordinate business permits. This

begs the question: if we are a state of few regulations, why do we need an arm of

government to coordinate business permits? Why not just eliminate permitting

requirements wherever possible?

We must examine the necessity of ever-increasing layers of regulations. This is a

matter of doing the arduous work of examining the purpose of each regulation in

consultation with those impacted by the

regulations, dispensing with the ones that are

not needed, and restructuring the regulatory

approach where possible to make for the most

rational investment climate that protects the

vital interests of Wyoming citizens. I can

assure you that this has not been the

prevailing view in state government of recent.

Wyoming has been on a centralizing and consolidating path to greater and greater

bureaucratic control over every sector of the economy. The assumption in state

The healthiest view of

regulations is a disdain for

them consistent with the

belief in a rights-protecting

limited government.

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government, as with the federal government, is that businesses must be regulated –

even supervised. Wyoming has departed with its traditional value system that the

best government is the government that governs least. Until we return to this basic

value system, the further expansion of regulatory restraints over our free-market

economy will suffocate economic development and lessen individual prosperity.

INFORMATION AND MARKET-BASED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

VERSUS THE GOVERNMENT HANDOUT – A COMPARISON The Wyoming Pipeline Authority shows how economic development can occur

through the use of knowledge of the market and information important to industry

players without growing government and creating layers of bureaucracy. More than

a decade ago, the market price for Wyoming natural gas was $1.00 or $1.50 per Mcf

less than gas sold in other parts of the United States. This was called the price

“differential” on natural gas

caused by constrained pipeline

capacity. It had obvious impacts

not only on natural gas producers,

but on tax revenue from sales of

natural gas produced in Wyoming.

The Wyoming Pipeline Authority

built a linkage between end-users

(utilities), pipelines, producers

and regulators of each state to

show the need for Wyoming’s natural gas and the ability to move it from where it is

produced to where it is needed. The Wyoming Pipeline Authority found that industry

was simply not as able as one might expect in bringing all the players together to

make pipeline expansion happen. The approach was based on information and

knowledge of the market. Of course the work was done by those with a high degree

of expertise in the industry and the Wyoming Pipeline Authority drew upon that

expertise through a combination of highly skilled (but not overly paid) staff and the

volunteer efforts of Wyoming-based experts. The key was that they did not sit around

talking about it or writing a report – they went out and performed the work.

The mission has been accomplished. Today, natural gas sold from Wyoming receives

the same amount as gas sold from other states. This has literally meant, and will

mean, the realization of billions in revenues that Wyoming taxpayers would never

have seen were it not for these efforts.

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In stark contrast to this successful entrepreneurially-based approach, the current

governor has taken the easy road to economic development. The recent Magpul

grant represents what should not be done in the name of economic development. A

successful Colorado-based company received a $13 million financial package from

the State of Wyoming to locate operations to Wyoming. The bulk of this financial package

was a gift.

What company in Wyoming would not want $13 million? The windfall to Magpul

amounted to approximately $144,000 per employee, or $23.24 taken from every

man, woman and child in Wyoming. This is not real economic growth because the

private sector is not generating the growth. Rather, the public gives $10 for every

dollar returned in tax revenue, and the government imposes unfair competitive

advantage in the market. Reduced to this level, it quickly becomes apparent that

government handouts merely benefit the individuals receiving the handouts.

Magpul serves as an example of government exceeding its limited bounds by

engaging in federal government stimulus look-alike spending. In Wyoming, this

spending serves as a panacea for what

would, without mineral income, be a

stagnant if not depressed economy. The job

of government is not to invade the private

sector. Further, it was never the purpose of

government to engage in wealth transfer

from the public to individuals and groups

using public money to give unearned

advantages in the marketplace.

Under this paradigm of government largess, government displaces competition in the

marketplace by giving undue advantages. For example, in Mountain View, a start-up

childcare facility displaced an existing childcare facility after receiving government

assistance that allowed the start-up to provide services at more attractive facilities,

at minimal cost. To make matters worse, sometimes government provides services

that could be provided in the private market. Whenever government enters into

competition with the private market, there are two unintended consequences: the

government undermines the very tax base that provides for its own support, and it

drives up the cost of the services as it is not motivated by cost control as a source of

profit.

Government money should

not confer advantages in the

private market and should

not be the means by which

some businesses thrive and

others merely survive or fail.

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Currently, economic development offices across Wyoming do not operate like the

Wyoming Pipeline Authority does, but rather, write grants for communities to obtain

free money from a higher level of government. The money they obtain seems like a

good idea at the time. But when the grant money is gone, recurring expenses remain.

For example, the Platte County Economic Development Authority obtained a grant

to build a business center in Chugwater. The building has had few paying tenants,

and sits relatively empty with upkeep, insurance and other recurring expenses,

representing a misallocation of public resources.

CRONY CAPITALISM Economist Mancur Olson has argued that nations decline when the politically well-

connected become so entrenched that the well-connected profit more from their

political connections than from their economic productivity. The course of

development of such a phenomenon is important to understand. Olson argued that

youthful political systems have weak political interest groups whose connections

have not developed to the point that businesses rely on governmental favoritism.

When political connections are weak, entrepreneurial initiative is driven to the

private market to satisfy the appetite for profit. Conversely, when political

connections solidify, the incentive is to rely on those connections because they come

with less risk and equal or greater reward. Inevitably, as businesses grow more reliant on

government, the private sector becomes weaker and, as Olson observes, nations decline.

This is what is happening in

Wyoming. The expansion of state

government and the evidence of

handouts do not indicate

economic strength. They warn of

an economy propped up by the

mineral industry with no real

efforts to place Wyoming in a

competitive position for economic diversification. Crony capitalism is evidence of a state

consuming itself. It is time to get back to the hard work of economic development.

As a policy matter, the state must make trading on government largess so impractical

as to direct economic initiative back to the private market. To do so, government

must not work as an impediment to the private market. Removing government as an

impediment is achieved by reducing regulations to bare requirements and banning

government from directive and prescriptive regulatory capacity.

A government that approaches

economic development by picking

winners and losers will never achieve

sustainable economic growth, but will

cripple the private market by habituating

reliance on government largess.

47

CONSTITUTION OF THE

STATE OF WYOMING

PREAMBLE

We, the people of the State of Wyoming,

grateful to God for our civil,

political and religious liberties,

and desiring to secure them to ourselves

and perpetuate them to our posterity,

do ordain and establish this Constitution.

MY PROMISES TO THE PEOPLE OF WYOMING

PROMISES FULFILLED

I put parents, students and teachers ahead of bureaucrats, consultants and education contractors – and I always will.

I fought against the federalizing of education, including Common Core and a national assessment – and I will always

stand for fair teacher evaluation and local control.

I fought to preserve the people’s vote, and will again, if necessary.

I made fiscal responsibility real and fought against the growth of government – and that will not change.

I fought for free speech in public buildings.

I fought against the accumulation of power in the hands of a powerful few.

I exposed corruption and ended practices that were wrong.

PROMISES TO KEEP

I will put the people first in all decisions; not special interests.

I will oppose encroachments on the people’s rights and liberties.

I will uphold the rule of law.

I will guard separation of powers.

I will prevent the federalizing of Wyoming government.

I will protect Wyoming from the intrusions of federal government agencies.

I will secure the people’s rights in self-governance, giving a government that works for them,

and is transparent, accountable and accessible.

I will stop the growth of government and the expansion of bureaucratic control over our lives.

I will guard against the accumulation of power in the hands of a few,

and will expose corruption and abuses of power.

Cindy Hill2616 Carey Avenue

Cheyenne, WY 82001

(307) 286-0479

www.CINDYHILLforGOVERNOR.com

Paid for by the Committee to Elect Cindy Hill for Governor