CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Three candidates seeking the Republican nomination for Wyoming secretary of state met Monday at a debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters in Cheyenne while a fourth candidate boycotted the event.
Pete Illoway of Cheyenne, a businessman and former legislator, said his experience pegs him as the best candidate. He served as longtime chairman of the Wyoming Legislature’s corporations committee and worked at a business development organization in Cheyenne.
“Under my watch, we’re not going to have scams and frauds,” Illoway said. The Secretary of State’s Office oversees business registrations in the state.
Ed Buchanan of Torrington, a lawyer and former speaker of the Wyoming House, said he has shown he can do the job.
A former officer in the U.S. Air Force, Buchanan noted he rose through the ranks in his 10 years in the Legislature to be selected as House speaker before leaving in 2012.
Buchanan said that if elected, he wants to serve as an ambassador for the state. “I have a proven record of leadership,” he said. “I have a proven record of working with both Republicans and Democrats.”
Cheyenne businessman Ed Murray said he wants to make the office more friendly to business.
“I’m going to take my business experience and make this a more friendly state to do business,” Murray said. “I want to fight fraud hard. We need to get the crooks out of the system.”
Clark Stith, a Rock Springs lawyer and former Sweetwater County Republican chairman, issued a statement he wouldn’t participate because he believes the League of Women Voters has lobbied for liberal causes.
“I will not attend a forum that is being sponsored by and organization that lobbies for gun control, opposes the Keystone XL pipeline, seeks to eliminate coal production and supports partial birth abortion,” Stith said in a prepared statement. “I am a Republican through and through. I ride for the brand.”
Amy K. Williamson, president of the League of Women Voters of Wyoming, said in introductory remarks that the group is nonpartisan and never supports or opposes political parties or candidates.
Candidate Jennifer Young of Torrington of the Wyoming Constitution Party didn’t attend Monday’s debate but sent a prepared statement.
Young stated that she lead the statewide referendum petition last year aimed at repealing the state law that removed Superintendent Cindy Hill as head of the Wyoming Department of Education. Responding to Hill’s own legal challenge, the Wyoming Supreme Court ultimately ruled the law was unconstitutional.
Young stated that effort gave her knowledge of how state government and the Secretary of State’s Office operate.
No Democrat is running.
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