A longtime Republican politician from Idaho has his sights set on Rep. Cynthia Lummis’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Lummis announced her decision to retire, which has sparked interest in the seat amongst the state’s Republicans and Democrats.
Rex Rammell originally grew up in the Teton Valley in Idaho, a location his family has lived at since homesteading in the Valley during the 1880s. Rammell, now a resident of Gillette, initially campaigned for the U.S. Senate in Idaho as a Republican during the 2008 election, and campaigned to be Idaho’s governor in 2012. He lost both elections.
During those campaigns, Rammell claims he initially started the push to return federal lands to the states, a campaign issue he intends to run with in Wyoming. Rammell said the federal government has worked to take over western lands through the environmental movement. He said the federal government has worked at harming Wyoming’s coal industry through a moratorium on coal leases and while a change in the administration may help, Rammell fears the people in charge within various federal agencies would continue to do enact damaging policies. Rammell sees Wyoming as the “tip of the spear” regarding the movement to turn federal lands to the states. By turning over federal lands to the states, Rammell said the state could issue its own leases and support industries like coal or oil and gas. He also argues that more access would be granted to people looking to use those lands.
“If we lose the coal industry, it’s going to sting Wyoming,” he said.
In addition to turning federal lands over to the states, Rammell said he also would attempt to abolish several federal departments, including the Department of Energy, the Department of Education and the Bureau of Land Management.
Rammell said the U.S. Constitution limits the federal government’s power in Article 1, Section 8. He believes those departments aren’t included in that section, and believes the states can do a better job managing education and healthcare within their borders. Rammell sees the federal government as handling issues the states can’t deal with on their own, including immigration, trade and international affairs.
“We don’t need someone in Washington, D.C. telling us what to do,” Rammell said. “We need to have bottom-up government, not the reverse.”
Rammell has a website set up at http://www.voterammell.com to share his campaign issues with voters
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