Donald Trump has his work cut out for him in 2020, leaving Wyoming staring down the possibility that in about a year, not only will one or both houses of Congress be controlled by the Democrats, but the Oval Office as well. Which means that with our deep reliance on energy policy and half of our land controlled by the Federal government, we need to start making some friends across the aisle provided we care more about our state than we do about scoring points on Twitter.
After President Trump instructed the Justice Department this past winter to support a Texas ruling invalidating the legality of former President Barack Obama’s health care law, he then correctly suggested that the GOP get serious about the No. 1 problem facing Americans: “The Republican Party will become The Party of Healthcare!” he tweeted. But within days, Republican Congressional leaders said that while they were fine invalidating the Affordable Care Act, they had no intention of working on a replacement.
This week’s announcement of the Cloud Peak Energy bankruptcy brought me back eleven years ago to when I visited the Appalachia region where my grandfather and great-uncle once mined the coal that fueled America’s industrial expansion. In much the same way that today our energy needs are shifting, years earlier America shifted its energy appetite from the anthracite coal of my father’s mines to bituminous coal, and I wanted to learn what became of the schools, main streets, playgrounds and hospitals after the coal mines were gone.
By: Dave Dodson, Contributer to CST and former candidate for U.S. Senate
The Wyoming GOP listed its three top priorities during our most recent legislative session as eliminating “party raiding” in primaries, requiring that the weight and gestation of aborted fetuses be recorded in a public record and defeating a bill to raise state revenue through a retail tax.
Dave Dodson told FOX Business’ Neil Cavuto on Friday the U.S. still has a long way to go before finalizing a trade agreement with China and that talks are not in America’s favor like many suggest.
Note: Also published in WyoFile, Casper Star Tribune, and Laramie Boomerang circa Feb 15, 2019
The current legislative initiatives advocated by Foster Friess and the Wyoming GOP to limit voters’ ability to switch party affiliation is understandable but misguided.
The proposed bills in the state Legislature — SF160 – Change in political party affiliation-2 and HB106 – Party affiliation changes — will disenfranchise one-third of Wyoming voters, and does not solve Friess’ actual problem.
By: Dave Dodson, Contributor to the Laramie Boomerang and former candidate for U.S. Senate
I was 12 years old when my sister and I walked into the South African hotel lobby with our parents and saw Richard Nixon’s face on every news magazine. My family may have been the last Americans to learn the President of the United States had resigned, as we’d been on a college study trip and had no access to news for weeks. When I asked my mother why he quit, she told me: “Because it’s not OK to lie and be President.”
By Dave Dodson, Contributor to the Casper Star Tribune and former candidate for U.S. Senate
The government shutdown that left 800,000 without a paycheck tells us nothing about our country’s differences over immigration reform and everything about our government’s inability to deal with the easy stuff. While the leaders of both political parties have tried to place blame for their collective failure at the feet of the other, Americans are smarter than that. We know the embarrassment of the last month is not about 215 miles of steel fencing but instead about systemic failure in Washington, D.C.
By: Dave Dodson, Resident of WY and former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate
Congress and President Trump must reject the political deal being suggested by some to trade an extension of DACA (the program for immigrants who were brought to the United States as children) for $5.6 billion to build a border wall; it does nothing to address our fundamental immigration issues. Such a deal will give policy makers an excuse to claim political victory while avoiding the difficult work of crafting the comprehensive solution that Americans are demanding.
By Dave Dodson, Casper Start Tribune contributor and former candidate for U.S. Senate
When you run for office in a small state like ours, you get to meet a lot of people. One of them was Frank McGowan of Cheyenne (who asked me not to use his real name), who over a cup of coffee explained to us how he’d lost both his legs in service to our country in Vietnam.
By: Dave Dodson, Conservative contributor to CNN. The views expressed in this article are his own.
"Senator, we run ads." That's what Mark Zuckerberg told Senator Orrin Hatch earlier this year during his congressional testimony when asked to describe Facebook's business model.
The 84-year-old senator was later mocked on social media for not understanding modern technology. But I'd argue that the wily senior senator understood Facebook's business quite well. Hatch was simply getting Mark Zuckerberg to say it out loud.
By: Dave Dodson, Conservative contributor to the Casper Star Tribune and 2018 Candidate for U.S. Senate.
Jim Collins, one of the gurus of modern business, identified that high-performing organizations understand the importance of “confronting the brutal facts.” Here is the brutal fact for us Republicans: America handed our party a trouncing which had little to do with Donald Trump and everything to do with what happens when the party in power doesn’t get stuff done.
By: Dave Dodson, Conservative contributor to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle and 2018 Candidate for U.S. Senate.
Sen. John Barrasso and I were rivals in a tough Republican primary fight this year, from which he emerged as the victor, for which I congratulate him.He went on to win the general election over Democrat Gary Trauner last week, which got me thinking about my hopes for Sen. Barrasso’s next term, and the goals he and I share for our country and state.
This is my open letter to him on that subject.
By Dave Dodson, contributor to The Boston Globe
Republicans spin the midterm election as a split decision and historically normal, while Democrats declare it a repudiation of President Trump. Neither is true. Walking the streets of Wyoming as a recent Republican candidate for US Senate, in the state ranked the fourth worst in the nation economically, I came to understand that voters turn to partisan rhetoric because it’s not that easy to say, “I’m trying really hard, but this is not working for me. And no one seems to care.”
By: Dave Dodson, Conservative contributor to Fortune.
After the surprising result of the special election for Alabama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat, the pundit class is buzzing about the implications for the future direction of each political party. But the ideologically driven conclusions those pundits keep reaching are inward-looking and wrong.
By: Dave Dodson, Conservative contributor to The Hill Opinion section. The views expressed in this article are his own.
For a sweeping bill crafted and presumably shaped by lobbyists seeking favor on behalf of the very rich, there is one set of rules. For a carefully crafted, bi-partisan-supported bill designed to help increasingly desperate retired coal miners, there is another.
The difference in how the two bills are being treated in Congress reveals much about how economic policy is prioritized in Washington, and whether our Senators and Congressmen are more loyal to voters or their campaign contributors.
By: Dave Dodson, Conservative contributor to The Boston Globe.
“Taxation without representation is tyranny!” was the rallying cry 244 years ago when a crowd of Boston patriots dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. But if those same freedom-loving colonists lived among us now, they’d have a strong lesson for us: America is suffering the same tyranny today.
Earlier this month House Speaker Paul Ryan released the tax bill, written in secret by the Republican Party, with 429 pages of proposed changes to the tax code. He then pressed the members of Congress to vote on it in 13 days. They did what they were told. Without floor debate, or thoughtful review, nearly every Republican representative came out in support of 429 pages they almost certainly never read.
By: Dave Dodson, Conservative contributor to Fortune.
House Republican leaders are selling their one-sided tax reform to middle America on the promise that once their plan becomes law, companies will pay less in taxes and generate higher profits—and therefore raise the wages of their employees. It’s then, they tell us, that the working class will get their share of the pie.
Reality says otherwise.
