After being forced to pay a fine to Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Buchanan to protect the names and addresses of the members of Wyoming Gun Owners, WYGO is taking our fight to federal court.
Just hours ago, Wyoming Gun Owners served Secretary of State Ed Buchanan and Attorney General Bridget Hill — along with multiple members of their staff — with a four-count federal lawsuit alleging that Wyoming’s new campaign finance law is blatantly unconstitutional and the state’s enforcement of it must be stopped!
Since this sham investigation first started, I told you that the Board of Directors for Wyoming Gun Owners would never surrender your information to Ed Buchanan or Bridget Hill.
And when we paid the fine to the state just two weeks ago, I told you that this wasn’t the end of this fight. The truth is that we’re just getting started.
You see, we always knew that just because this ‘investigation’ — which was leaked to the FAKE NEWS MEDIA before we even heard about it — was a clear act of political revenge after WYGO members crushed so many establishment candidates, didn’t mean that Ed Buchanan wouldn’t do everything in his power to destroy us.
After all, Ed Buchanan is the very definition of ‘The Swamp’ in Cheyenne. And since he’s reportedly considering a run for higher office, he hopes that attacking WYGO will earn him good will from the PAC’s and billionaire donors in Jackson Hole.
And so while our legal team fought back against the civil penalties that Buchanan and Hill were seeking to enforce against us, the board immediately began preparations for a federal lawsuit against them, in the event that they wouldn’t follow the Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court precedent that has addressed this issue!
Frankly, we didn’t have any choice.
If the State of Wyoming is allowed to FORCE organizations like Wyoming Gun Owners to divulge the names, addresses and donation amounts of our members — it would END our ability to fight for the Second Amendment at election time!
Help WYGO fight back! Please make a generous donation NOW!
And that’s EXACTLY why this investigation was filed by a greasy lobbyist in the Capitol in the first place — because the moderates can’t afford to let Wyoming Gun Owners expose anti-gun Republicans and their votes against the Second Amendment at election time if they want to hang on to power!
I can’t say I’m surprised. The establishment has never taken the kind of beating that they took last fall at the hands of WYGO members and other gun owners across the state.
Despite the direct intervention of Governor Gordon, former Governor Mead, then-current Senator Enzi, former Senator Simpson, multiple PAC’s and money from multiple billionaires from Jackson Hole, anti-gun moderates were CRUSHED last fall after WYGO exposed their records.
The results were incredible, as gun owners:
>>> Threw Senator Michael Von Flatern out of the Senate, for being a lead sponsor of FIX-NICS legislation that would enable liberal judges to confiscate your guns before you’ve been convicted of a crime.
And to be clear, the 63.4% to 36.3% defeat was a complete humiliation for Von Flatern, who had been in office for sixteen years!
>>> Defeated Representative Bill Pownall in the House, for being the lead sponsor of FIX-NICS gun control legislation in the lower chamber.
And just like Von Flatern, after WYGO exposed Pownall’s actions in Cheyenne, gun owners crushed him on election day by a jaw-dropping margin of 50.4%-29.6%!
>>> Fired Representative Dan Kirkbride, the House Judiciary Chairman who was actively working to advance FIX-NICS legislation through ‘his’ committee.
Kirkbride, who had been in office for close to a decade, was easily defeated by a margin of 46%-53.7% after WYGO told everyone in his district about his betrayal!
>>> Crushed Representative David Northrup, who was trying to get into the Senate even though he freely admitted that he wanted to mandate waiting periods on gun sales in Wyoming!
Even though we spent most of our budget exposing the politicians above, we made the stretch for a devastatingly effective radio ad over the last ten days of the primary election cycle. Northrup gathered just 27.6% of the vote.
And I’m only scratching the surface as pro-gun candidates like Sen. Anthony Bouchard, Sen. Tim Salazar, Rep. Dan Laursen, Rep. Bob Wharff, Rep. John Beard and others won hard fought primaries in races where WYGO exposed their opponent’s support for gun control.
As a 501c4, WYGO is allowed to expose the voting history, public statements, answers to candidates’ surveys on gun rights and anything else we know about where a candidate stands on the Second Amendment.
And that’s what we did; using direct mail, radio ads, digital ads, whiteboard videos and much more!
We are not allowed to directly advocate for or against a candidate. That’s why WYGO has never told you or any other gun owner who to vote for. We give you the information that we have — information gun-grabbers would rather stay secret — and you get to decide what to do with it.
WYGO has never crossed that line.
We know it. Governor Gordon knows it. Secretary of State Ed Buchanan knows it. And Attorney General Bridget Hill knows it. But that’s not stopping them from seeking revenge.
Which brings us to where we are today.
Wyoming Gun Owners doesn’t hope to just file a throw-away lawsuit to send a message and then retreat, sulking in silence. We hope to TOTALLY OVERTURN Wyoming’s abusive campaign finance law and make sure that the State of Wyoming NEVER tries to limit the 1st Amendment freedoms of WYGO — or anyone else — ever again.
Help us finish this fight — please make a generous donation TODAY!
That’s why we’re so proud to announce that the Institute for Free Speech, the nation’s leading voice for 1st Amendment freedom at election time, is representing Wyoming Gun Owners in this case!
Even better, the Institute for Free Speech’s Director of Litigation is Alan Gura. Gun owners will remember the name Alan Gura as the lawyer who successfully argued both the District of Columbia v. Heller AND McDonald v. Chicago before the United States Supreme Court in 2008 and 2010.
So as you can see, WYGO is committed to doing everything we can to defend our 1st Amendment right to expose anti-gun politicians. Afterall, if we lose our 1st Amendment freedoms, we’ll have NO ABILITY to defend our 2nd Amendment freedoms!
And I hope that you’re committed to this fight, as well.
Over the last nine months, WYGO has racked up thousands of dollars in legal fees and that was before we filed a lawsuit against the State of Wyoming in federal court.
Frankly, I’ve always known that this was a side-goal of the establishment powerbrokers who are coming after us: even if we defeated their complaint, it would cost us a lot of money.
And now that we’ve taken this case to federal court, we need to be ready. That’s why I hope that you’ll agree to a very generous gift of $500, $250 or $100 right away.
I know it’s a lot, but there is a lot at stake right now. If the State of Wyoming can go around attacking political opposition with the power of the Secretary of State and the Attorney General’s office without being held accountable, ALL of our freedoms will suffer!
If you care about the 1st Amendment — please donate TODAY!
If you care about the 2nd Amendment — please donate TODAY!
If you’re outraged that Governor Gordon is allowing Ed Buchanan and Bridget Hill to try to force us to turn over our donors’ personal information so they can be harassed by the radical left using ‘cancel culture’ tactics — please donate TODAY!
Power hungry politicians (and the lobbyists and PACs who depend on them for their survival) can’t allow organizations like Wyoming Gun Owners to expose them and threaten their careers.
They thought that they could simply weaponize Ed Buchanan (a willing participant, to be sure) against us and shut us down through crippling financial penalties and the fear of further reprisals.
But these petty tyrants have NO IDEA how committed the members of Wyoming Gun Owners are to defending our Second Amendment freedoms!
Now, they are about to find out. Please donate TODAY!
For Freedom,
Aaron Dorr
Policy Advisor
Wyoming Gun Owners
P.S. Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Buchanan and Attorney General Bridget Hill gave us an ultimatum: surrender the names and addresses of WYGO members or pay heavy fines for exposing anti-gun politicians during last year’s election cycle!
It’s outrageous. And that’s why WYGO has teamed up with the Institute for Free Speech and have just sued the Buchanan and Hill in Federal District Court!
But we need your help, and we need it now.
Help us send a message that WYGO will NEVER stop fighting for the Second Amendment!