By Carter Clews
Make no mistake about it: Dave Freudenthal is a jolly good fellow.
He helped pay his own way through college. He’s a lay leader in his hometown church. He and his wife, Nancy, have four children (appropriately divided between by gender grouping). And, according to his own gubernatorial website, he just loves hunting, hiking, and catching himself a mess o’ fish. Not to mention, “spending time with his family.”
So, the question is: If he enjoys it all so gosh darn much, why is he fighting so hard not to do more or it?
You see, Dave Freudenthal, jolly good fellow that he is, is fighting tooth and nail not to give up his plush state house office and return to the ranks of the hoi polloi. Never mind that Wyoming’s highly popular term limits law says it’s time for Dave to head on home. And never mind that every governor of recent vintage has done so without delay.
Dave says he doesn’t want to go. And if has to defy the people of Wyoming, thwart the law of the land, and cause a state constitutional crisis to stay in power, well, so be it.
According to Wyoming State Statute Title 22, Chapter 5, passed in the mid-1980s, the governor is limited to serving only eight out of any 16 years. Gov. Dave took office on January 6, 2003. So, unless he has come up with some sort of proprietary hand calculator that subtracts three from eleven and gets something other than eight, it’s time for him to ride off into the sunset.
Lest Gov. Dave thinks that the good people of Wyoming just couldn’t bear the thought of him – or any other politician for that matter — saddling up and heading out, that, too, was settled long ago. In November of 1992, Wyoming’s term limits initiative was approved by an overwhelming 150,113 votes for – and only 44,424 opposed. It appears that Gov. Dave needs to start spending less time with the 44,000 and more time with the 150,000.
The alternative, in fact, is almost too forbidding to even consider. It might require Gov. Dave to don a sombrero and become bilingual. And even then, it’s highly risky.
Apparently, Gov. Dave has decided to go the route of El Presidente Chavez of Venezuela and just jettison laws that would interfere with his unfettered enjoyment of fame, fortune, power, and prestige. Readers may recall that when Pres. Hugo found that his bonito days in el Casa Blanca were about to come to an end, he did what any other tinhorn despot would do: he sent Venezuela’s highly cherished term limits law down the camino a la perdicion.
And Gov. Dave obviously took notice, donning his own sombrero, kicking back with some castanets, and advising his constituents: “We don’t need no stinkin’ term limits.” But, even so, he better be a little careful, because the last guy who tried to follow Pres. Hugo’s lead – former El Presidente Manuel Zelaya of Honduras – not only failed to jettison term limits. He ended up getting unceremoniously jettisoned, himself, in his oh-so-frou-frou designer PJs.
So, here’s a word of advice to that jolly good fellow, Dave Freudenthal: Put the sombrero back on the hat rack, donate the castanets to the high school band, send back Pres. Hugo’s personally autographed, suitably framed, high-gloss, head and shoulders shot — and hit the road.
The kids are longing to see you. Nancy wishes you were there. The elk are roaming. The fish are running. And the last thing Wyoming needs is a constitutional crisis. So, good work. Now, go home.
Carter Clews is the Executive Editor of ALG News.
Edited 1-29-10, 2PM for clarity.
