pillar of law inst

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</font><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Libertarian Gore-Tex heiress fuels hidden political donations</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>April 28, 2015 by Gregory Nickerson </div><div>
</div><div>Print Friendly, PDF & Email</div><div>Susan Gore is arguably Wyoming’s most influential libertarian promoter.</div><div>
</div><div>She puts millions of her personal wealth into political activities and nonprofit groups that speak loudly in the Legislature and on the campaign trail.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Since 2008, Gore has founded and financed three non-profit organizations that seek to reshape Wyoming politics and loosen restrictions on campaign spending nationwide. These include the Wyoming Liberty Group, Republic Free Choice, and the Pillar of Law Institute. Her staff had a role in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that allowed corporations, unions, and certain nonprofits to ramp up their political spending.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Even so, many who oppose her activities seem somewhat in the dark about just who she is, where she came from, and what her ultimate goals are. WyoFile’s review of published biographies, court cases, land records, and historical documents reveals some of the facets of her life.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Gore, a resident of Cheyenne, has lived in Wyoming for almost 20 years.</b> Her Wyoming roots go back three generations in the southwest part of the state. She came to Wyoming in the mid-1990s after living for more than a decade in a transcendental meditation community in Fairfield, Iowa. Before that she lived in Delaware and Vermont.</div><div>
</div><div>Healthcare policy advisor Charlie Katebi works in the offices of the Wyoming Liberty Group. The nonprofit organization is affiliated with the State Policy Network of conservative think tanks. (Gregory Nickerson/WyoFile)]</div><div>
</div><div>More widely known is that Gore grew up in the family that founded the company most famous for inventing Gore-Tex fabric. Through the course of her life, the private family company grew from a small operation in a basement to a global chemical engineering behemoth that makes more than $3 billion in annual revenue and employs 10,000 people.</div><div>
</div><div>Gore’s own assets have fluctuated. She was wealthy by the 1980s due to inheriting shares of a family trust, but nearly bankrupt by the late 1990s after falling ill and ending her support of the meditation movement. She later viewed her involvement in the movement as a mistake, according her testimony before a Delaware court.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Her mother then gave her enough shares of family stock to make her wealthy again in the 2000s. In 2003 she adopted her ex-husband in an unsuccessful attempt to boost her children’s share of the family inheritance.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Through it all, Gore pursued her version of a better world. And in Wyoming, she seems to have found her niche as a promoter of conservative-libertarian ideas.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Two of her sons, Joel Otto and Nathan Otto, also play a role by serving on the boards of her groups.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Together, their efforts put pressure on Wyoming’s small-money elections, where nearly every legislative race costs less than $20,000.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Dan Neal, a long-time legislative observer who formerly directed the Equality State Policy Center, has followed Gore’s groups for years.</div><div>
</div><div>“I think they are getting more attention than they deserve,” Neal said. “This woman moves in from out of state and hires a bunch of people to come here and tell us what to do. It seems a little odd.”</div><div>
</div><div>“Everybody’s got a right to speak their mind,” he said, “but people need to recognize she’s got a lot of money, and she can make her voice a lot bigger and a lot louder than most people.”</div><div>
</div><div>Susan Gore’s rise in Wyoming is two intertwined stories: the work of three conservative-libertarian groups with national ambitions to promote anonymous political spending, and the journey of their founder, whose experience as an heiress to a successful family business informed the political changes she proposes.</div><div>
</div><div>WyoFile requested comment from Gore through her staff. She did not respond.</div><div>
</div><div>Inside Gore’s groups</div><div>
</div><div>Susan Gore’s philosophies were evident during WyoFile’s recent visit to the Cheyenne offices of the <b>Wyoming Liberty Group. The headquarters is on the second floor of the Read Block building, just eight blocks from the Wyoming State Capitol.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Inside, the organization has a small library with books on politics and philosophy. Down a long hall policy workers and lobbyists work in individual offices.</div><div>
</div><div>Policy advisor Charlie Katebi, who grew up in Massachusetts, works on healthcare and free-market alternatives to the Affordable Care Act. In the next room attorney Boyd Wiggam works on<b> private property rights</b>. His family goes back generations in the farm country northeast of Cheyenne.</div><div>
</div><div>At the end of the hall, Maureen Bader, who previously worked for the libertarian Fraser Institute think tank in Vancouver, drafts briefs opposing state-funded economic development and proposing new ways to tax minerals.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Across the hall are the offices of Republic Free Choice, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit think tank that produces political-issue ads in Wyoming elections and shares several employees with the Wyoming Liberty Group</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A third group called Pillar of Law Institute is an arm of the Wyoming Liberty Group, but pursues national campaign finance litigation from offices near Washington D.C.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Republic Free Choice is located across the hall from the Wyoming Liberty Group. RFC and several other independent groups sent out mailers in the 2014 election. Policy advisor and lobbyist Maureen Bader, at right, works for the Wyoming Liberty Group on revenue and taxation issues. (Gregory Nickerson/WyoFile)</div><div>Republic Free Choice offices are located across the hall from the Wyoming Liberty Group. Policy advisor and lobbyist Maureen Bader, at right, works for the Wyoming Liberty Group on revenue and taxation issues. (Gregory Nickerson/WyoFile)....</div></div>