Jackson Wyoming Mayor Pete Muldoon ruffled some feathers after he took down a portrait of unpopular President Donald Trump last week and replaced it with Chief Washakie, the Shoshone leader of the 1800s. Chief Washakie was a prominent figure in the early history of Wyoming and had the historical distinction of being the only known Native American receive a full military funeral by the United States.
The move has elicited reaction from the political left and right—each taking their predictable sides. Democrats and/or liberals are mostly in favor of the Muldoon’s decision to take Trump down, citing various criticisms of the president. One Facebook user wrote: “Thanks Pete! It’s a little thing but Trump certainly doesn’t deserve that place of honor, in this or any other town.”
Republicans, for the most part, believe the photo swap to be disrespectful to the office. Many in Wyoming living outside of Jackson have pointed to the controversy as a perfect example of why Teton County is often considered an embarrassing part of the Cowboy State.
The move came in tandem with the Jackson town council adopting a resolution in support of the Paris Agreement. With conservatives attacking, Mayor Muldoon sent an email, which has been shared online, to his constituents. Mayor Muldoon explains that he knows that Donald Trump is the president but that there is no law that says presidents must have portraits in local town halls. Mayor Muldoon slowly, and rather masterfully, turns the letter into a civics lesson.
There’s a tradition of hanging portraits of the president in federal offices within the executive branch - not unlike how grocery stores display pictures of the manager. It illustrates the chain of command for that branch of government. But the Town of Jackson is not in the president’s chain of command.
Since it’s not a requirement, the only two reasons I can see for displaying the portrait would be for educational purposes or to honor Donald Trump.
I see no educational value in such a display. Everyone knows who the president is, and while displaying a chart showing the three separate but equal branches of government and their relationship to state and local governments would actually provide a useful civics lesson, a portrait of the president does not.
Mayor Muldoon asks why we need to represent the head of the executive branch but not the legislative or judicial branches. Mayor Muldoon explains that while he wasn’t the mayor before 2017, he would have taken down President Obama’s portrait for the same reasons. But I’m not going to act as an apologist for Mayor Muldoon. He clearly does not like Trump and what Trump stands for.
If Barack Obama was still president, I would make the same decision. There was a picture of Obama at Town Hall, and it was put up before I was elected mayor. I don’t believe it should have been displayed either. So I’ll be replacing presidential portraits with an organizational chart of federal, state and local government, which will make clear that the citizens, through Congress, are sovereign and create policies which the Supreme Court ensures are consistent with our Constitution and are subsequently executed by the president. And while the president does have additional powers granted by the Constitution, the Constitution itself is controlled by the people.
The United States is a constitutional republic. We don’t have a monarch, and one of the best features of our system is that presidents are people just like everyone else. We aren’t required to display signs of respect - our respect is earned, not demanded. Dictators like Joseph Stalin required their portraits to be displayed everywhere. Luckily, we do not live in a dictatorship. We can choose who we honor, and in my role as a representative of all town residents, I’ve decided that the Town of Jackson will not take sides by honoring any partisan politician and will continue to focus on the needs of all members of our community.
That’s some good stuff. You can read more about the Wyoming Republican response below the fold.
Across the state, Republican House Rep. Tyler Lindholm got some traction by posting a video response to his Facebook page. In the video, he passive aggressively used Muldoon’s actions and the Jackson town council’s resolution to tell local residents and officials to “stand your ground” by not accepting the coal lease monies that represent a large part of the tax revenues in the state of Wyoming. And while Rep. Lindholm is hanging on to a dying energy source that cannot produce the profits that have allowed the state’s residents the luxury of not having income tax collected (nor a corporate tax) for forever, he has a point. For most of Wyoming’s existence as a state, they have been able to pull in large state revenues without needing to raise income or corporate tax rates. They’ve been able to do this in no small part because they represent 39 percent of the country’s coal production. They also have the 12th largest percentage of tax revenue of any state when it comes to federal funds received.
Rep. Lindholm also talks about the coal money that builds schools in Wyoming but not about the fact that Wyoming’s educational system has been under fire from budget cuts—with a bill calling for $34.5 million in education cuts on the table.
Fixing an education funding shortfall on track to top $380 million a year was one of Gov. Matt Mead's top hopes for the eight-week session. The bill, which would launch a potentially years-long process of addressing the shortfall, now heads to his desk.
The bill carries $34.5 million in education cuts. While not nearly enough to erase the shortfall before it sets in next year, the cuts accompany a plan to study and revamp education funding amid weak state revenue from coal, oil and natural gas extraction.
And so you can be both empathetic to Rep. Lindholm’s belief in coal but also annoyed that he seems to have his head so firmly in the sand. Chief Washakie is an important reminder of history. When he was there the big economy in Wyoming was the fur trade. Time moves on and fur gives way to coal, as coal must now give way to something cleaner.