Wyoming LAP Book - Background

How Legislative Campaigns Are Financed

      Most legislators elected spent money on their campaigns. Where did the money come from?
      All legislative candidates, winners and losers, are required to file a Candidate's Statement of Receipts and Expenditures with the Secretary of State's office within 10 days after the primary and general elections. In 2003, Wyoming finally passed a law to also require pre-election reporting of campaign contributions. Candidates now must submit a report at least seven days before any primary, general or special election with contribution information current to two weeks before the election. After the election, candidates file the final report.
      Candidates must list by name, date, and amount all contributions received from individuals, political action committees (PACs) and political parties. Candidates must also list all in-kind contributions (donations of goods or services), anonymous contributions, and contributions from the candidate and his or her immediate family. Candidates do not have to provide a name or date for cumulative contributions under $25; these can be reported as "unitemized."
      Many candidates assemble a committee to run their campaign. All contributions received by the committee and all committee expenditures must be reported with the candidate's statement.
      In The Wyoming LAP* Book, we have compiled campaign contribution information for each legislator. Contribution information also is provided for the legislator's general election opponent, or primary opponent, if the general election was not contested.

Overview of Campaign Financing
      Most of the money for most Wyoming legislative races comes from PACs. This contrasts with Wyoming statewide races, as well as state and national races in most other states, where, despite the publicity given to PACs, most campaign funds come from individuals.
      PACs exist because corporations, unions, and most other organizations are prohibited by election reform laws from contributing directly to candidates. Instead, they must form a PAC, register with the Secretary of State's office, and report their contributions and expenditures within 10 days after an election. Semi-annual reports are required during non-election years. PACs that participate in federal election races must file with the Federal Election Commission.
      In 2003, Wyoming passed a law to also require pre-election reporting of campaign contributions. PACs now must submit a report at least seven days before any primary, general or special election with contribution information current to two weeks before the election. After the election, PACs must file the final report.
      PACs raise their funds from individuals associated with the interest they represent. For large corporations, this is typically accomplished with a payroll deduction from managerial employees. Depending on their contracts, union members may choose an additional checkoff with their dues or make separate political contributions. Other organizations usually solicit PAC funds by direct mail or other fundraising techniques.
      Wyoming law does not impose any limits on PAC contributions to state legislative races. Although PACs are frequently targeted as a bad influence in electoral politics, they are at least partly accountable to the public through the required reporting of their contributions and expenditures.
      Campaign finance reforms that focus solely on PACs tend to create more problems than they solve. Limiting PAC contributions leads to more PACs (to get around the limit) and promotes "independent expenditures," where groups spend money on behalf of (or, more commonly, against) a candidate without consulting the candidate's campaign.
      Also, large individual contributions, or a large sum of small individual contributions coordinated by a particular interest, may influence an elected official just as effectively as a PAC.
      The National Institute on Money in State Politics in Helena, Montana, has been compiling campaign contribution data from eight western states since 1990. Their searchable website can be found at www.followthemoney.org.
      A listing of PAC contributions to Wyoming legislative races from 1992 through 2007 is shown in the following list. PACs that contributed less than $1000 in each election cycle are not included, but are included in the legislative profiles.
      The Equality State Policy Center attempts to reconcile candidate reports with PAC reports to ensure accuracy, but cannot account for all discrepancies and missing data.

Political Action Committee Contributions

Political Action Committee 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2007

Energy, Chemical and Railroad Industry PACs

Anadarko Petroleum 0 0 0 0 0 6700 7350

Arch Coal (Atlantic Richfield) 4800 3175 5200 2225 2700 4425 3600

Black Hills Corp 0 0 0 0 0 900 2450

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway 3250 2400 4150 3450 6350 6650 12200

BP (BP Amoco, Wyoming Amoco) 17500 10900 12350 8100 6550 5600 5250

Burlington Resources 0 0 0 0 1750 0 0

Chevron 10000 5700 7900 4250 4300 200 7500

CMS Energy 0 0 0 0 2150 0 0

Coastal Chemical 4750 3100 3600 5250 2050 0 0

Devon Energy 0 0 0 0 0 2000 1000

Dupont/Conoco 2400 800 1725 0 0 0 0

ExxonMobil 11900 9300 14150 11000 6100 7300 9900

FMC (trona) 2700 1900 0 1400 300 0 0

Frontier Oil 0 0 0 0 2000 0 0

Kennecott Energy 0 0 3700 4400 6500 4600 2850

Marathon Oil 4800 1450 3100 4400 5100 2650 2500

MDU Resources (MT-DK Utilities) 1200 1300 1400 900 1200 1600 2500

Pacificorp (Pacific Power & Light) 10070 7200 8150 5050 6900 4505 3950

Petroleum Association of Wyoming 9150 6900 8650 7750 9600 11100 11250

Phillips Petroleum 0 0 0 0 7324 0 0

Questar 7250 1750 1100 1150 4100 4500 6700

RAG Mining (AMAX, Cyprus AMAX) 1600 2025 2850 3850 1500 2750 0

Texaco 5000 2550 3000 0 3775 see Chevron

Union Pacific Railroad 18500 11750 4500 9450 7100 9750 14200

Williams Companies 0 0 0 0 2150 200 200

WY Mining Association 0 0 0 0 0 2100 2650

WY Rural Electric Association 1900 1000 1950 1775 3950 4025 5275

Totals 116,770 73,200 87,475 74,400 93,449 83,355 101,325

Union PACs

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers 600 1500 1300 1250 1800 9800 11400

Int'l. Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 0 3000 2700 1450 1900 800 4400

Teamsters 10,050 550 0 0 0 0 0

United Mine Workers 1300 1000 1300 1100 1350 1700 2450

United Steelworkers 0 0 0 0 0 700 0

United Transportation Union 16,400 7100 8230 6600 10700 12200 7300

Utility Workers of America, Local 127 3530 2800 1000 1600 3500 1000 1500

Wyoming AFL-CIO 20,450 5440 7320 8885 17650 10155 12050

Wyoming Carpenters 0 0 0 0 0 3550 7750

Wyoming Conference of Electrical Workers 0 0 0 0 1200 0 0

Wyoming Public Employees/SEIU 18,100 12,150 11,200 6640 11400 8350 11000

Totals 70,430 33,540 33,050 27,525 49,500 48,255 57,850

Professional PACs

Life Underwriters 4500 3950 2050 1400 1600 0 0

WY Certified Public Accountants 2600 2950 2050 1100 0 0 1125

Physicians United to Save Health Care 0 0 0 0 0 0 3900

WY Chapter, Physical Therapists 0 0 0 0 0 150 0

Wyoming Dental 1400 200 1300 1100 1300 300 0

Wyoming Dental Hygienists 0 0 0 0 0 75 0

Wyoming Eye 2000 0 0 1050 675 0 0

Wyoming Education Association 55,690 44,250 30,100 35290 46950 36847 25010

Wyoming Medical Society 4650 2500 3800 3910 5300 4200 10123

Wyoming Realtors 3850 2000 5100 4500 17150 13500 34250

Wyoming Trial Lawyers 22,185 21,000 20,650 16600 15150 17300 17350

Totals 96,875 76,850 65,050 64,950 88,125 72,372 87,858

Other Business PACs

Affordable Housing 0 0 0 0 0 900 0

Altria (tobacco) 0 0 0 0 0 0 1500

AT&T Mountain States 0 0 1800 1400 1250 200 0

Contractors 4600 4725 10040 19950 17850 21200 22150

Credit Union 0 0 0 400 1750 2725 1925

Farm Bureau 0 0 0 0 0 0 1450

Federation of Independent Business 0 0 0 0 0 1450 250

Johnson & Johnson 0 0 0 0 0 1500 0

Manufactured Housing 0 0 0 0 0 200 0

NAIFA 0 0 0 0 0 450 0

Norwest Bank 1550 500 2000 1900 0 0 0

Pfizer (pharmaceuticals) 0 0 0 0 1800 1800 0

Qwest (U.S. West) 10,000 6900 6300 8700 6800 7900 8400

Stockgrowers 0 0 0 0 2650 2450 2700

Trucking Industry 6350 5225 6550 8325 9025 10300 9400

US Team (tobacco) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Wells Fargo 0 0 0 0 2050 1450 3200

Totals 22,500 17,350 27,065 40,675 43,175 52,525 50,975

Ideological PACs

21st Century (Equality State Coalition) (all in-kind) 2775 280 2236 5870 7919 0 0

National Rifle Association 0 9000 0 0 5400 2000 5250

Women of Wyoming 0 0 0 0 0 600 0

Wyoming Conservation 1940 626 1098 1210 2066 1148 0

Wyoming Right to Choose 0 0 0 0 0 1750 100

Totals 4715 9906 3334 7080 15385 5498 5,350

Individual Contributions
      Individual contributors to Wyoming campaigns are limited to $1000 per candidate per election (the primary and general elections count as two elections), with an overall limit of $25,000 per election cycle. Candidates and their immediate families are not subject to this limit with regard to their own campaigns.
      The largest individual contributor from 1992 through 2002 was the True family of Casper, including the late H.A. True, Jean True and their three sons and their spouses (Diemer and Susie True, David and Melanie True, and H.A. III and Karen True). The True family made individual contributions as well as contributions from their federal PAC, the True Responsible Government Committee.
      The True family's principal business interests include oil, trucking and ranching. Diemer True is a former state senate president and former chair of the Wyoming Republican Party.
      The second largest individual contributor from 1992-2002 was R.E. Holding of Cody and Salt Lake City.
      Holding owns the Little America fuel/motel/restaurant complexes in Wyoming and has large landholdings in the western states.

Equality State Policy Center
340 West B Street Suite 203
Casper WY 82601
307-472-5939
dneal@equalitystate.org

www.equalitystate.org