It’s an idea that gets mentioned from time to time: the population of Wyoming is so low (less than a million people IIRC), that any group or faction that could move half of one percent of the US population there could outvote the people there now and establish a state government ruled by <fill in the blank>. My questions are: is there anything that would in practice prevent this (other than practicality), and what are some of the groups that have been associated with this idea?
I caqn’t think of any way of preventing this, assuming the newcomers fulfill all the requirements for residency and voting.
Back in the early seventies there was a movement to turn Alpine County, a microscopic county in the California mountains, into the first gay county in the US by moving atl least 300 adult gays into Alpine County, which had a population of under 400, not all of whom were eligible to vote.
The whole thing seemed like a slam-dunk, and the usual horror stories of what would become Sodom-in-the-Sierra made their rounds. Well, it never happened, and if you knew anything about the cultural and nightlife opportunities in this tiny out of the way place, you would understand why there was no rush to relocate from San Francisco and LA.
In theory, there should be no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.
Back in the 80s, the Rajneeshies tried to do this to Wasco County, OR. They bought a ranch there which they incorporated as the city of Rajneeshpuram. At its peak, the city had a population of some 7000 people.
In addition, they bused in a number of homeless and got them to register to vote. Then they tried to reduce the number of non-Rajneesh voters by putting salmonella in the salad bars of several The Dalles restaurants. The Dalles is the county seat and largest city in Wasco County. In the 80s, it had a population of about 10,000.
Anyway, it didn’t work and the whole Rajneesh thing fell apart when various criminal activities (including the salmonella poisoning) by the Rajneesh management came to light.
As a general rule, there are good reasons why low population places have their low population. Which is why this kind of thing never works.
The Free State Project considered Wyoming and a number of other small states for this sort of thing. The idea was that an influx of 20,000 families might tip the balance toward small-l libertarianism in a sufficiently small state that was already libertarian-leaning. They finally settled on New Hampshire though. As far as I know, only a few hundred people have actually moved to NH as a result.
Each state is guaranteed, under the United States Constitution, a “republican” form of government. So you couldn’t totally redo the state’s government to some non-republican form of governing people.
Other than that, anyone who wants to move to Wyoming and try is welcome to. Good luck finding jobs. 
Back in the late 60s a handful of college journalists at a relatively obscure Colorado university got together and wrote up a hoax story that hippies were putting together a movement to go to Wyoming and basically become a dominant force and run the state like giant commune.
The journalists had access to a news wire and put it out and it was picked up by a number of papers and before long it was quite the situation. A number of Wyoming officials (up to and including the governor of the state at the time) became quite vocal on the threatened invasion of the army of hippies intent on taking over the square state. There was even talk in the state house about calling out the Wyoming National Guard to repell the unwashed hoards.
A few years ago someone told me the hoax was merely an urban legend. Trust me it (the hoax not the invasion) really happened.
Free State Wyoming is being spearheaded by an author going by the pseudonym Boston T. Party. The goal is to turn Wyoming into a freedom-loving, libertarian-leaning state by convincing like-minded people to move there. One of the most common themes is gun ownership… Boston envisions a state where everyone is well armed and well trained in the use of guns. 
On a related note there’s something called the Free West Alliance, which is an effort to get libertarian-minded people to move to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
Greatest Sig Line EVAH! 
As a former Wyoming resident, I’d have to say that Wyoming residents are already gun-toting libertarians. I was always struck by how few laws Wyoming had which were meant to save residents from themselves.
Also, there was no state-wide open container ordinance, which meant that it was legal (outside certain city limits) to drink a beer even while driving. You just weren’t allowed to be drunk.
In spite of being solidly a Red State, I don’t remember the people I knew there as being religiously conservatives. They were certainly conservative in other ways, though.
Just to fight a little ignorance, WY is undergoing a huge employment boom right now, spurred by the coal & natural gas industries.
In fact, so many people are moving there to work that the state’s biggest problem is a housing shortage.
Even fast-food places have to pay $10+/hr to attract workers.
relevant link 1: Out of work in Michigan? Wyoming wants you. - CSMonitor.com
relevant link 2: http://www.trib.com/articles/2007/01/03/news/wyoming/1e04c64b4c88aee887257258000493f8.prt
I remember that. I also thought I had heard some time later that it had been traced back to Alpine County real-estate interests, who hoped to sell a lot of property at inflated prices. Is that what was really behind it?
Would that boom support a, say, tripling of the state’s population? I doubt it. :rolleyes:
Well, that would only be an extra million people. If each job working in the natural resources industry generated 1.5 jobs elsewhere, 400,000 extra natural resources jobs would do the trick, assuming 100% employment for the million newcomers. Whether drilling, digging and so on would generate those kinds of job numbers I have no idea, but it doesn’t seem that far-fetched.
I think North or South Dakota would be easier.
It’s pretty common in the West to be conservative but not religious. Take Idaho, where I grew up. Idaho has a large Mormon population, but it’s in the southern part of the state. Where I grew up in the northern part of the state, if I recall correctly, it was a region that had below-average religious participation. It was quite conservative (interestingly, it was also heavily Democratic during my youth, at least up until Bill Clinton became president and then it became a GOP stronghold) even without the influence of the religious right. A lot of rural Westerners are not religious but quite conservative. Just look at Montana. I certainly wouldn’t describe the average Montanan as religious, but they are a fairly conservative lot.
Read up on the history of the Kingdom of Hawaii. This is exactly why it is now the STATE of Hawaii.
Under Luther, it’s up to Congress what it means to be a republican form of government (used to accept West Virginia’s request for statehood in 1863 in violation of Art. IV, Sect 3, Clause 1) and Baker merely holds that each vote must hold equal weight at the state level. So if a state wanted to institute a monarchy (all votes weighted at zero since there is no vote) and Congress approves, why would this be unconstitutional? Especially as “guaranteed” is not the same as “required”.
You might want to rethink that, Wyoming is really HOT! jobwise. As mentioned above the problem isn’t jobs, its housing.
I lived in Green River/Rock Springs for almost 17 years, 1977-94. The population of the two were pretty constant at 30,00 - 35,000 combined. There are now, according to friends who still live there, some 40ish sub-divisions being built. The help wanted ads run for pages. The population, assuming the boom doesn’t die, is expected to top out around 100,000ish in the next few years.
This June I took my annual bike ride to DC and cut across Wyoming from Green River to Gillette. It was booming everywhere, pretty much. A friend with a, formerly, small business told me he’s gone to making $50-60,00 a year to around $200,000.
Another friend (who’s been in the energy field for 30+ years) in Gillette told me that a big hold back to growth in Wyoming is there isn’t enough pipeline capicity to carry what the state can produce to the areas where it can be used. When this is taken care of gas and oil production will soar even more. In his opinion.
Booms do bust and no one knows what will happen down the road, but yeah, they can triple the population, IMHO.
Yeah, if you can weld a pipeline, operate a drilling rig, drive a dozer, generate alignment sheets, etc. etc., there are tons of well-paying jobs in Wyoming. And of course, the supporting services that go along with a booming industry.
I’ve heard stories of natural gas companies and contractors buying out hotel rooms (like, the entire hotel) for *years * at a pop for all the workers coming in.
There is something of a fault line between the southern style of Religious Right conservatism and the western style of libertarian conservatism. I expect it will become more visible as the various factions of the Republican Party become more public about blaming each other for the blooming fiasco.
You wouldn’t need to triple the population, by a long shot. First of all, a fair chunk of those eligible to vote, don’t. You don’t care about those. But the people you’re moving in will almost all excercise their franchise, since that’s why they’re moving to the state to begin with. Second, of those who do vote, they’re divided close to evenly between the two major parties. You don’t have to be the majority party, just the largest one. Third, some of those folks who’re already there already do vote for your party. And fourth, if you pick the right state, there might be a lot of folks who are sympathetic to your party, but vote for one of the Big Two because they don’t want to throw their vote away. Make the alternative close to viable, and you might sway them.
As for the political climate in Montana, what I see is probably skewed a bit to the liberal side, this being a college town. But the best description I can give for Montanans is “hippies with guns”, paradoxical as that may sound to someone who hasn’t seen it. The environment is a big issue, and personal spirituality seems to be a lot more important than organized religion, but there’s also that strong streak of rugged individualism. Depending on what issue you’re looking at, Montana can look hyper-liberal, hyper-conservative, or anywhere in between.