Editor’s note: The Open Range Record obtained audio of the Lander meeting referenced in this story. The audio is attached so readers can listen and evaluate the remarks for themselves.
If there was any lingering doubt that Protect Wyoming is more than a public-lands awareness project, the group’s recent meeting in Lander helped clear that up. According to audio obtained by The Open Range Record, and an AI-generated transcript reviewed against that recording, Protect Wyoming chair Zach Lentsch described the organization as the kind of political operation Wyoming supposedly lacks: one with “teeth.”
He told the crowd there are already plenty of advocacy groups in the state, but said the real gap is “political groups that have teeth that can fight the fight that needs to be fought in state politics,” adding, “that’s where we come in as a political action committee.”
Lentsch also said Protect Wyoming’s mission is to “engage voters directly,” mobilize the hunting and outdoor communities, and inform them where lawmakers and candidates stand on public lands and wildlife issues. Then he made the political goal plain: if someone does not support public lands, wildlife and what the organization calls scientific management in Wyoming, “you better damn well know you don’t have a political future in this state.”
That is the message: Vote our lane or get run over by us.
The Carpetbaggers
There were two other lines in the Lander audio that deserve to be read together. Early in the meeting, Lentsch reportedly described “over half of the Legislature” as “carpetbaggers.” Later, he blasted what he described as “rich a**holes from Teton County” influencing Wyoming politics. Though colorful, it helps reveal the true purpose behind “Protect Wyoming.”
A carpetbagger is not simply a lawmaker a PAC dislikes. Merriam-Webster defines the modern use as an “outsider,” especially “a nonresident or new resident who seeks private gain from an area often by meddling in its business or politics.”
Are the “carpetbaggers” Lentsch refers to duly elected Wyoming legislators who still defend multiple use? Or are they the wealthy political operators, foundation-world activists, climate-tech investors, and public-lands campaigners who move into Wyoming and start telling the rest of the state what its future ought to look like? While Lentsch was warning about “rich a**holes from Teton County” and “carpetbaggers,” Wyoming voters might reasonably wonder whether he was looking in the wrong direction. There are several “public lands” organizations that are, at least ostensibly, well-funded.
The most obvious carpetbagger problem in Wyoming may not be the elected legislator from ranch country who still believes in multiple use. It may be the wealthy, globally-connected political infrastructure setting up shop in Wyoming, launching PACs, backing public-lands campaigns and trying to decide which version of Wyoming voters get to hear about.
When a public-lands PAC complains about “rich a**holes from Teton County,” attacks conservative lawmakers as threats to Wyoming, and then uses the same kind of conservation-access language favored by wealthy political operators, voters should notice the contradiction.
A Political Strategy Wearing Public-Lands Camouflage
One of the most revealing parts of the meeting was the turnout math Lentsch used to make his case. He told attendees that in 2024, more than 140,000 Wyoming resident adults bought hunting and fishing licenses, but only 28,000 of those people registered to vote in the primary. He argued that “way more people hunt than vote in Wyoming.” He added that the gap helps explain why the Legislature does not reflect the interests of hunters and outdoor users.
There is truth in that concern. Too many people who care deeply about Wyoming sit out primaries and then act surprised by the result. But the rest of the meeting made clear Protect Wyoming is not running some broad civic-engagement kumbaya circle. It is building a targeted political machine around one slice of the public-lands community.
Lentsch told the crowd the group’s money would go toward media campaigns, print, billboards, social media and maybe radio. He said Protect Wyoming had already run campaigns in the Powell Tribune and Star-Tribune. Then he added one of the clearest lines of the evening: “PACs have the ability to name names and that’s what we’re going to do.”
He moved directly into Fremont County politics, praising Sen. Cale Case, Rep. Ivan Posey, and Rep. Lloyd Larsen as being on the “good side,” while criticizing Rep. Pepper Ottman and Rep. Joel Guggenmos through Protect Wyoming’s scorecard. As previously reported by The Open Range Record, the metrics Protect Wyoming uses are not based upon actual data but upon a pre-determined outcome. More liberal and Democrat-leaning legislators are favored while more conservative-minded legislators score poorly.
A few minutes later, he said the PAC wants to build a “war chest” to influence close legislative races and “really take out these bad actors.” That is not the language of a public-lands listening session. That is the language of a campaign operation with a target list.
Who Counts in Protect Wyoming’s Public-Lands Vision?
Protect Wyoming uses broad language. It talks about public lands, public wildlife, and scientific management. The definitions of those issues, of course, are determined by Protect Wyoming itself. Lentsch said his livelihood “completely depends on access to public lands” and identified himself as a special-use permittee on three national forests, three BLM districts and one national monument.
Amy Skinner spoke largely in the language of camping, hiking, climbing, skiing, backpacking, and wild places. Steve Bechtel spoke about climbing, access, and the economic value of recreation-based life in Lander. Those are legitimate perspectives, but they are not the whole Wyoming public-lands story.
Public lands in this state are also used for grazing, logging, oil-and-gas leases, mining, camping, motorized recreation and wildlife habitat. In western and southern Wyoming, especially, public lands are not just where people recreate. They are where livelihoods depend on multiple use.
So who counts in Protect Wyoming’s version of the debate? Does it include the sportsman who also works in oil and gas, mining, logging, a gas plant, a compressor station, or one of the other industries that depend on access to working public lands? Does it include the rancher whose grazing allotments help keep a family operation alive, or the outfitter who guides hunters and fishermen through public lands?
Does it include the family that loads up the camper and ATVs for a week in the mountains, cuts firewood to keep the house warm in winter, or hunts to put meat in the freezer? Those people use public lands too. But they did not seem to get much mention in Protect Wyoming’s curated postcard version of the debate.
Multiple Use Became a Footnote
There was one brief nod to the broader Wyoming tradition. Speaker Cory Toye referred to an “invitation to multiple use” on public lands, but that idea never became the center of the event. The dominant message was non-motorized recreation, wildlife, access, and electoral politics.
“Protecting public lands” means different things to different people in different parts of Wyoming. To some, it means preserving access for hunting and fishing. To others, it means conserving habitat and wildlife.
But to many in this state, it also means defending multiple use. If Protect Wyoming wants to use broad public-lands branding, voters have every right to ask why so much of that broader picture disappears once the speeches begin.
A Single-Issue Political Filter
Another revealing moment came from Steve Bechtel, who told the crowd he could disagree with a candidate on almost every issue, but if that candidate aligned with him on public lands, “they’re going to have my vote.” That line explains the political strategy. Protect Wyoming is not grading candidates on right to life, gun rights, property rights, property taxes, election integrity, public education, parental rights, federal overreach as a whole or the Wyoming Republican Party platform. It is grading them through one narrow lane and using that lane as a political sorting tool.
That is the group’s right as a PAC, but voters should understand what they are looking at. This is not a broad test of whether someone represents Wyoming values. It is a single-issue electoral filter built around one preferred vision of public lands. That raises a fair question: what happens when lawmakers with long records on hunting and fishing, wildlife and public-land issues are branded as failures because they do not line up with this PAC’s selected bills?
The Lander meeting did not expose a hidden master plan; it showed, in Protect Wyoming’s own words, what kind of organization this is. It is a PAC with “teeth.” It wants to raise money, run media campaigns, name names, and influence close races. It sees low turnout among hunters and outdoor users as an opening to reshape elections. And it wants lawmakers to know they may not have “a political future in this state” if they do not align with its preferred public-land and wildlife politics.
That does not make Protect Wyoming illegitimate, but it does make the central question unavoidable: Which Wyoming is Protect Wyoming really trying to protect? The Wyoming of curated recreation, climbing permits, conservation-preservation, biodiversity branding, and access politics? Or the Wyoming of grazing permits, timber harvesting, gas fields, mines, county roads, campers, side-by-sides, hunting camps and people who live with the consequences of public-land policy every day?
If Protect Wyoming is truly standing up to wealthy interests, it should be able to explain why its public-lands vision leaves so little room for the full multiple-use reality of Wyoming. That is the bigger conversation of this election cycle. Wyoming ought to have that conversation honestly, before a narrow political lane gets mistaken for the whole road, and before the people who actually live with public-land decisions get told to sit quietly in the back of the wagon.