Sen. John Barrass (R-Wyoming) was chairman of the GOP committee that drafted the party's 2016 platform. (Creative Commons photo by Gage Skidmore)

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) had a major national role this summer in chairing the committee that wrote the  2016 Republican Party platform. The platform puts Barrasso’s efforts in the spotlight for those who may not have followed the Wyoming Senator’s work before.

The platform has drawn mixed reviews. In a July 18, 2016 editorial, the New York Times wrote, “It is as though, rather than trying to reconcile Mr. Trump’s heretical views with conservative orthodoxy, the writers of the platform simply opted to go with the most extreme version of every position.”

Barrasso said there’s nothing extreme about the platform, and that it’s closely in line with the values of Wyomingites. “Well it is a conservative platform, it’s a Republican platform,” he told Wyoming Public Radio. “I think Donald Trump said it was a Trump platform and I’m delighted because these are the visions and the views that I hear home at Wyoming every weekend.”

The sole Wyomingite on the Democratic Platform Committee (of 190 people), Richard Kusaba of Kemmerer, was a Sanders delegate. He told WyoFile that the old saying “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” pretty well summed up his perspective on the final product.

— Creative Commons photo by Gage Skidmore

Read the full text of the platform that Sen. Barrasso helped craft:

 


Read the full text of the Democratic Party’s 2016 platform:


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  1. Barrasso does not represent Wyoming. He represents his own selfish ambitions, and does so by parroting the most extreme possible version of the Republican party line, even though it is harmful to Wyoming. (Wyoming benefits from the ACA and would benefit from Medicaid expansion, but Barasso has worked to sabotage insurers and in fact advocated actions that sent native Wyoming insurer WinHealth into bankruptcy.) But that’s no surprise; he won office in a party “beauty contest” and has been re-elected by drones who do nothing but mark the circle that says “R” no matter whose name is beside it.

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  2. Your platform is not my platform. It is not the majority of Casper, either. I’m pretty sure they are smarter than that.
    YOU are the reason I am moving out of the state.
    Go and have your fun with with Trump. You deserve eachother.

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  3. Senator Barasso is a parrot and sycophant. And his efforts on the GOP platform certainly shows that.
    He is a contributing factor in the gridlock in Washington. So many smart, considerate Wyomingites who should and could be in Washington instead of John Barasso and aren’t is a wake-up call for Wyoming citizens to start spending more time at Caucases, County Council meetings and writing letters to the Editor and to our representatives, state and federal. This current GOP platform is a sorry excuse for a platform in today’s society. The Grand Old Party isn’t so grand anymore, and a sorry excuse in national leadership I am sad to conclude.

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  4. Not the platform of Wyomingites I know. Time to move back to the into the sand, Mr. Barasso.

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  5. Not extreme?? This shows how very far removed from reality Mr. Barasso is. And he’s “delighted” that Trump is happy with it. (All except the assistance to Ukraine, apparently.) That tells us all we need to know.

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  7. With climate change as the greatest challenge that humans have ever faced, requiring the coordination of scaleable adaptations to promote local security as the foundation for national security, the ideological 19th century rhetoric of this platform reads like an exercise in self-congratulatory, willful ignorance. There is nothing fiscally conservative about ignoring the certain volatility ahead. Barrasso’s leadership will lead to greater expense in reacting to drought, floods, failed crops, lack of infrastructure–all of which is more expensive and creates a sense of dis-ease compared to looking with eyes wide open and planning for the peaceful and just transition to a clean energy economy.

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      1. I don’t know. If his medical judgment is as poor as his political judgment, I would feel very sorry for his patients…..

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  8. I think he makes a very large assumption about Wyoming. We are not all the same. He is supposed to represent the whole State and that means at least recognizing that there are differing viewpoints here. Wyoming values is not just one thing. g

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