Despite living in the nation’s least-populated state, Wyomingites following policy debates in Washington have seen many home-state issues prioritized by Republican party leaders of late.

Since retaking the U.S. House majority earlier this year, Republicans have pushed through bills to increase oil and gas leasing on federal lands, block President Joe Biden from selling oil reserves to China, restrict doctors’ ability to perform abortions and eliminate COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health care workers — all issues central to political debates in Wyoming.

When Speaker of the House Rep. Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale) refused to allow debate on a school choice bill, a prohibition on “chang[ing] the sex of a child” and a ban on teaching sexual orientation and gender identity to young students, it was not the first time one of Wyoming’s legislative leaders came under fire for holding back controversial legislation. But the national attention the Wyoming Freedom Caucus managed to draw to the issue might have been unprecedented.

“Conservatives Put The Screws To Republican House Speaker Who Killed School Choice Bill,” wrote the Daily Caller. “Wyoming’s GOP House speaker buries parental rights and school choice bills,” reported the Washington Examiner. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board also made note, writing Sommers had been persuaded by “local district-school officials who fear competition.” Meanwhile, residents in Sommers’ Sublette County district were “bombarded,” as he put it, with robotexts from the State Freedom Caucus Network.

This week, the Wyoming Truth is running a four-part series reflecting on the political debates central to this year’s general session, and exploring what’s to come for Wyomingites at home and in Washington. Check out part one.

While the legislative session didn’t kick off until January, the battle between establishment Republicans and those aligned with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus began last November, when the GOP met to elect its leaders.

In the pivotal race for House Speaker, Rep. Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale), widely seen as a “traditional” Wyoming Republican, narrowly beat Rep. Mark Jennings (R-Sheridan) of the more conservative Freedom Caucus.

Jackie Van Mark knows Wyoming GOP politics.

For over 100 years, since her great-grandfather first homesteaded the dryland wheat and sunflower farm she now manages in Torrington, Van Mark and her family have been enmeshed in local and national government.