The person had already left one voicemail on Sen. Larry Hicks’ private cellphone. By the second message, the Republican senator from Baggs might inform that the caller was “loopy mad.”
“Don’t. Don’t. DO NOT f*** with our Second Modification,” the voice within the message mentioned. “This isn’t the place to f*** about with our Second Modification rights. God-given rights. We’re going to vote you out.”
Hicks wasn’t shocked by the threatening name.
“That is their intimidation tactic,” he mentioned.
On the time, the Wyoming Gun House owners had come out in opposition of a professional gun rights invoice Hicks was sponsoring. Senate File 102 – Second Modification Safety Act, which later turned regulation, prohibits state officers from imposing federal firearms rules. The gun house owners group, based greater than a decade in the past by Sen. Anthony Bouchard, R-Cheyenne, was supporting an identical invoice, Senate File 87 – Second Modification Preservation Act. However that invoice had an enormous distinction — it let residents sue cops — and it failed through the Wyoming Legislature’s 2022 Funds Session.
Hicks had drawn WyGO’s ire in years previous. However he’d by no means skilled the flood of messages that got here when his invoice was being labored in committee.
“There have been over 100 textual content messages on my cellphone,” Hicks mentioned. “Thirty-some cellphone messages on my cell. Half a dozen at dwelling. My workers mentioned there have been three or 4 at work, and a pair on workers cell telephones.
“It’s an all-out marketing campaign,” he added. “Emails, cellphone messages, textual content messages, something they’ll get their palms on.”
The deluge directed at Hicks was orchestrated by a gaggle that’s repeatedly pushed controversial gun payments on the Wyoming Legislature. Operated by far-right Iowan activist Aaron Dorr, the group campaigned towards lawmakers it labeled as average within the 2020 Republican primaries. The group drew outrage from high lawmakers for its marketing campaign techniques and have been investigated by the Wyoming Lawyer Common for failing to reveal its donors. A federal choose finally dominated that the Wyoming election regulation Wyoming Gun House owners was accused of breaking was itself unconstitutional.
There’s been a spate of media consideration concerning the Gun House owners-aligned teams, which function in a dozen states, together with a Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast, No Compromise, that spotlighted the Dorr household and their collaborators, who opponents describe as rip-off artists.
Though the gun invoice the group backed in Wyoming this yr fell flat, WyGO’s position and affect in Wyoming politics don’t seem to have diminished. Some observers say lawmakers are afraid of and beholden to the group, for worry of ending up a goal. Different lawmakers who’ve been focused advised WyoFile its members have them afraid for his or her lives.
“I’m involved about (WyGO) having extremely unhealthy followers which are rabid,” mentioned one lawmaker who had heard the voicemail left on Hicks’ cell.
“That man isn’t properly,” the lawmaker mentioned of the caller. “That man is unhinged. If he was within the Capitol, how would we really feel about that?”
The lawmaker requested to stay nameless out of worry for his or her bodily security. Particularly, the lawmaker worries concerning the prospect of a capturing on the State Capitol.
The lawmaker described a scenario through which a hearth alarm sounded within the statehouse throughout a earlier legislative session. The person wouldn’t go away the constructing for worry that it was a setup, designed to herd senators and representatives towards an awaiting shooter.
“The potential is definitely there,” the lawmaker mentioned.
Dorr, who traveled to Cheyenne a pair occasions through the 2022 price range session, declined to have interaction in hypotheticals about his members’ conduct when WyoFile spoke with him on the Capitol.
“I’ve by no means had a gun proprietor — one in all our members — go to an space past aggressive help for gun rights,” he mentioned.
Rep. Bob Wharff, R-Evanston, who WyGO endorsed, mentioned it’s unfair to fault the group for the actions of its members.
“When any individual is a member, they pay a membership payment,” Wharff mentioned. “Aaron (Dorr) is the one which speaks for Wyoming Gun House owners.”
Wharff has needed to navigate related waters, he mentioned. Previously the chief director of Wyoming Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, he as soon as needed to name and apologize to then Gov. Dave Freudenthal for an inappropriate name that one in all his members made.
Hicks wasn’t passively inundated with messages. He despatched a few of his personal. Bouchard shared a textual content thread with WyoFile, which exhibits the Baggs senator despatched him 11 messages in a 15-minute span. The messages ranged from “Why do you hate cops” to “Run sapa invoice” to “Why did you molest a toddler” — an obvious reference to experiences that Bouchard impregnated a 14-year-old lady when he was 18.
Hicks defended his actions.
“I didn’t ship 300 emails out and provides everyone his cellphone quantity,” he mentioned. “I texted him immediately.”
Hicks’ expertise as a WyGO goal seems to be the exception, not the norm. Different lawmakers who’ve been WyGO targets mentioned they weren’t topic to the identical all-out communications marketing campaign. Former four-term Sen. Michael Von Flatern, R-Gillette, was a Gun House owners’ punching bag earlier than WyGO-supported Sen. Troy McKeown, R-Gillette, defeated him within the 2020 GOP major. Although WyGO-funded YouTube marketing campaign commercials main as much as the first election listed Von Flatern’s cellphone quantity and inspired members to ring him, nobody dialed.
“They by no means known as me,” Von Flatern mentioned. “Aaron Dorr used Fb and mentioned how no-good I used to be, and blah blah blah, as a result of I wouldn’t again his quest at no cost weapons for everyone.”
Von Flatern blames his loss on WyGO’s position within the 2020 elections.
“They’ve clout, they usually use it within the incorrect method,” he mentioned. “I stood up towards them and I obtained kicked out. They needed a Trump individual in there, and I used to be by no means going to be a Trump individual. I’ve an excessive amount of pondering to do.”
The no-compromise technique WyGO employs is unapologetically brash and confrontational. After the Legislature’s 2022 price range session wrapped up, Dorr took to Fb to report on the way it went. He dubbed Hicks and two different senators “RINO traitors” — the acronym standing for “Republican in identify solely” — for pushing SF 102, which he described as a “destruction” of the Second Modification.
The invoice Hicks sponsored and that Gov. Mark Gordon signed into regulation prohibits state officers from imposing federal firearms rules. However it doesn’t permit residents whose weapons are seized by regulation enforcement officers to convey civil lawsuits towards regulation enforcement companies immediately. As a substitute, it leaves enforcement to county prosecuting attorneys.
“Take into consideration your county prosecutor, and ask your self in case you suppose there’s even an opportunity, even an opportunity that they might convey the county sheriff’s division into court docket for a (Second Modification Safety Act) violation,” Dorr mentioned in his legislative recap video. “You understand in addition to I do, county prosecutors, county sheriffs — these persons are mates.”
Hicks defined why his invoice doesn’t permit residents to sue cops.
“Consider your smaller communities round Wyoming,” he mentioned. “Some officer inadvertently confiscates a firearm in a home violence scenario. Below their regulation (the failed SF 87), (Wyoming residents) might personally sue him after which go after his employer for different bills.”
Hicks mentioned he by no means thought-about giving into the strain from WyGO to amend his invoice.
“For those who fold, they personal you,” he mentioned. “And what message does that present? In a management place I’ve to face up for the establishment.”
Hicks mentioned there are fellow lawmakers who’ve folded to WyGO’s strain to maintain a goal off their backs.
Senators Bouchard, McKeown, Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, Tim French, R-Powell, Tom James, R-Inexperienced River, and Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, cosponsored WyGO’s invoice and voted for its introduction. Non-sponsor senators Affie Ellis, R-Cheyenne, Wendy Shuler, R-Evanston, and Charles Scott, R-Casper, additionally voted for introduction.
Former Rep. Dan Kirkbride, R-Chugwater, mentioned he sensed that the WyGO strain was getting by way of to his counterparts throughout his eight years in workplace.
“I feel folks within the Legislature start to look over their shoulder, pondering, ‘Properly, if I don’t vote for this they’re going to return after me,’” he mentioned. “There’s nearly an extortion to it. A bullying ingredient.”
Kirkbride, who’s a rancher and gun proprietor himself, was defeated in 2020. WyGO-endorsed pastor and present Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, edged him within the Republican major by an 8% margin. Dorr’s group ran adverts towards Kirkbride, branding him as a gun-control fanatic.
“I used to be in workplace for eight years, and a county commissioner for eight years earlier than that … and in all that point nothing was mentioned,” Kirkbride mentioned of his gun document. “However then for 33 days proper earlier than the election, I used to be public enemy No. 1. It was extraordinarily efficient. You’ve obtained to present them credit score, it labored nice.”
Hicks is a 12-year Senate veteran who’s up for reelection this yr. Having simply notched a victory over the Gun House owners by efficiently pushing SF 102, he’s assured a Dorr-backed challenger will vie for his seat. A self-described gun man who mentioned he owns dozens of firearms and travels the world to trophy hunt, Hicks scoffed on the “gun grabber” smear marketing campaign that he expects is coming.
“Yeah, I’m a gun grabber,” Hicks jokingly mentioned. “That’s proper, I open my closet and there are such a lot of weapons in there I can’t ever work out what one to seize.
“I’m not going to again down from doing the correct factor,” he added. “I’ve obtained religion within the folks of the state of Wyoming, and if I’m incorrect, I’ve performed the correct factor.”
WyGO champions within the statehouse like Wharff have stood behind the techniques and rhetoric the Dorrs and their members deploy.
“We’re combating a battle, we’re at struggle,” Wharff mentioned. “These persons are attacking our Second Modification rights. If we don’t get up and push again — and I truthfully imagine this — if we don’t defend our Second Modification rights, all our different rights exit.”
However these methods earn fast rebukes from different fixtures on the Wyoming Legislature. Longtime lobbyist Marguerite Herman mentioned the techniques she’s seen from WyGO stand aside from these employed by another lobbyist or advocacy group.
“It’s simply pure muscle and intimidation: It’s crude, it’s artless, there’s no finesse to it in any respect,” Herman mentioned.
“Is it efficient?” she requested. “Properly, to the extent that legislators really imagine that it will jeopardize their reelection effort and to the extent that they let (the WyGO risk) information them in what they’re doing.”
The Legislature, she mentioned, isn’t doomed to “a system the place may makes proper.”
“Individuals need to be prepared to not be elected. We want individuals who will say, ‘I’m not going to compromise my rules,’ after which hope that strategy wins elections,” Herman mentioned. “I actually hesitate to castigate the citizens, however they need to be higher knowledgeable. They need to examine issues out earlier than they take them hook, line and sinker.”
