Anonymous site WyoRINO ranks how Republican lawmakers are — based on 10 votes

WyoRINO, an anonymous website that says it was created “to expose liberal Wyoming Republicans who violate our Wyoming Republican values,” has ranked how well Republican state lawmakers vote in line with the Wyoming Republican Party platform. The group bases its rankings on 10 of the several hundred votes that surfaced in this year’s legislative session — less than 9% of the 114 bills the Legislature passed into law.

“The time is long overdue to hold politicians accountable for big government, big regulation, big taxation laws,” says the group’s website, calling those “values that the Republican party does NOT support.”

Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland, was ranked at 40% Republican. “I will say, it doesn’t really matter to me who’s doing the scorecard. They all to a certain degree are agenda-driven,” Lawley said. She sponsored a bill this year that would have given women a mechanism to sue people who coerce them into having an elective abortion. On the fiscal side, Lawley defended the University of Wyoming and Wyoming Public Television from budget cuts during marathon budget debates.

WyoRINO assigned her a demerit for voting to restore Gov. Mark Gordon’s recommended budget as a starting point for House budget planning. The group calls such votes an abdication of legislative authority. To Lawley, her vote wasn’t about abdicating authority. It was about finding a sensible starting place for budget edits. “Throughout the session I voiced a lot of concerns relating to issues my constituents cared about, that the Joint Appropriations Committee did not sufficiently provide us information on,” she said.

House Appropriations Chairman John Bear, R-Gillette, touted WyoRINO’s 100% Republican ranking of him in a Tuesday Facebook post. “I have maintained a 100% Republican platform voting record since I was first elected in 2020,” Bear wrote. “Why? Because I agree with the platform which was created by the grassroots Republicans of Wyoming. If you don’t agree with the platform by 80% or more, should you call yourself Republican?”

Bear conceded that WyoRINO pulled a small, arguably subjective sampling of votes for its ranking, but said its outcomes still tend to align with more exhaustive analyses on other sites, like Evidencebasedwyoming.com.

Rep. Art Washut, R-Casper, was scored at 50% Republican. WyoRINO dinged him for voting to adopt the governor’s recommended budget as a starting point. Washut said he did so because the Senate had done the same, and he thought the shared starting point would help in budget negotiations. “You know, those scorecards are driven by an agenda of the group that takes them,” Washut said. “I don’t know that those rankings are particularly helpful if folks only look at the final score, as opposed to exploring a little deeper.”

Rep. Tom Kelly, R-Sheridan, received a 100% Republican rating despite leaving the session early due to a severe back injury. The site ranked him favorably on two votes and acknowledged he was excused on the other eight. “I’d say you’d have to take my score with a grain of salt. I missed most of the session,” Kelly said. But he noted the group keeping excused votes out of the equation shows it’s “being consistent with their methodology.”

On the Senate side, WyoRINO’s 10 “key” votes included opposing restoration of the governor’s budget, supporting hand counting as the standard for all Wyoming elections, supporting property tax cuts, and opposing a trade commission with Ireland. On the House side, key votes included opposing state employee raises, supporting the library book challenge bill, and supporting a requirement that all public schools show a video of human development from conception to birth.

WyoRINO did not respond to a request for comment. The term “RINO” stands for Republican In Name Only and has gained traction in Wyoming, where registered Republicans are likelier to win elections than Democrats in most legislative districts.