Gary Brown is an American Republican politician and retired electrician serving as a member of the Wyoming House of Representatives from the 41st district. He assumed office in January 2025 after winning election in 2024. Brown lost renomination in the August 18, 2026, Republican primary, receiving approximately 28 percent of the vote compared with 72 percent for his challenger. WyoFile described the result as a "landslide."
Before his election, Brown served as a Republican precinct committeeman, volunteered on political campaigns and regularly testified before the Wyoming Legislature. He supported an acquisition-value property-tax system, under which a property's taxable value would be based principally on its purchase price rather than regularly adjusted to its current market value. Brown later voted to advance a 2025 proposal that would have returned property valuations to a 2019 baseline, valued subsequently purchased homes according to their purchase prices and limited annual valuation increases to 2 percent. The proposal was projected to reduce annual property-tax revenue by at least $260 million without providing replacement funding. Because property taxes principally fund schools and local governments in Wyoming, opponents warned that the proposal could cost schools millions of dollars and severely reduce revenue available to local communities. Brown accused local officials of concealing excessive financial reserves. Explaining his political involvement, Brown said that examining government finances made him “angry.”
In the Legislature, Brown served on the House Revenue Committee and the House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee. His legislative activity included unsuccessful proposals requiring counties to reimburse defendants who defeated criminal charges on grounds of lawful self-defense and allowing ivermectin to be sold without a prescription or consultation with a healthcare professional. Brown described ivermectin as “a cure,” claimed that it worked against viruses and cited anecdotal reports of anticancer benefits. A Wyoming internist opposed the bill, warning that unsupervised use could expose patients to serious toxicity.
On election policy, Brown supported hand-marked paper ballots and legislation that would have excluded university, community-college, Medicare and Medicaid cards from identification accepted at polling places. Brown questioned student identification by suggesting that out-of-state students might vote both in Wyoming and elsewhere. Other legislators and election officials warned that the proposals could burden county clerks and impede voting by legally eligible students, elderly residents and people with disabilities.
On July 20, 2026, WyoFile reported that Brown had served a Colorado prison sentence following a 1992 felony conviction for intimidation of a witness and victim in a case involving a former girlfriend. Police investigating the case reported that someone had entered the former girlfriend's residence, cut the furnace gas line, placed a lit cigarette inside a book of matches and left plugged-in curling irons on clothing. Prosecutors charged Brown with attempted first-degree arson and second-degree burglary in connection with the break-in. Those charges and one of two intimidation charges were dropped when Brown pleaded guilty to the remaining felony intimidation count; he was sentenced to four years and six months in prison.
On August 11, one week before the Republican primary, WyoFile reported that Brown also had several misdemeanor harassment convictions, including a 2013 conviction involving repeated threatening communications to another former girlfriend. His 2013 sentence included a domestic-violence enhancer, jail, supervised probation and required evaluation and treatment. Brown's felony conviction resulted in the loss of his right to vote and hold public office. Wyoming restored those rights in November 2023, more than 31 years after the conviction, and county records showed that Brown first voted in Wyoming in 2024.
Background and pre-legislative career Brown lived in Colorado before relocating to Wyoming. In 2024, the Cowboy State Daily reported that he had moved to Wyoming in 2011. WyoFile subsequently reported that the date on which Brown became a Wyoming resident was unclear. A filing made during a 2013 Colorado criminal case stated that Brown was then living in Cheyenne and attending Laramie County Community College..
WyoFile described Brown as a retired electrician. Before becoming a legislative candidate, he served as a Republican precinct committeeman in Laramie County, Wyoming, and Larimer County, Colorado, and volunteered on political campaigns in both states.
During the two years preceding his candidacy, Brown testified with increasing frequency before the Wyoming Legislature. Minutes from a November 2023 meeting of the Joint Revenue Committee identify Brown as a Laramie County resident and record his support for implementing an acquisition-value property-tax system.
Political career
2024 campaign Brown announced his candidacy for House District 41 in March 2024. He said he entered the race after becoming dissatisfied with the district's representation and examining legislative voting records. Brown positioned himself to the right of incumbent representative Bill Henderson and criticized state and local government spending. Describing his reaction to examining government finances, Brown said, “When you get involved and start seeing these things, you start getting angry.”
Brown advocated replacing Wyoming's market-value property-tax system with an acquisition-value system. He alleged that local governments were accumulating and concealing excessive financial reserves, citing figures that he said showed Laramie County had retained approximately $118,000 more than it received in property-tax revenue in 2023, $3.8 million in 2021 and more than $140 million over an 11-year period. Brown accused officials of dishonesty, saying, “You’re hiding money, they’re actually hiding money. They’re lying to us.” Henderson disputed Brown's interpretation, saying that Brown did not understand the local-government funding process or the effects substantial property-tax reductions would have on schools and local services.
Brown identified himself as an opponent of abortion and criticized Henderson's opposition to legislation prohibiting most abortions and imposing additional requirements on abortion providers. Brown also criticized Henderson for voting against legislation that would have permitted concealed firearms in public schools, the University of Wyoming, community colleges, state facilities and government meetings. A subsequent analysis conducted by the Gun Violence Data Hub and reported by Wyoming Public Media examined similar laws in Georgia, Nebraska and Ohio. The analysis found increases in firearm-related incidents, deaths and injuries following the changes, with injuries showing the largest increases. Data Hub reporter Ava Sasani said that when laws made it easier to carry concealed firearms in public places, “the risk of being injured by a gun goes up, not down.”
On election policy, Brown supported prohibiting election officials from accepting private funding for election administration and imposing a minimum period of Wyoming residency before a person could vote in the state. At the time, Wyoming required voters to be residents but did not require them to have lived in the state for a specified number of days. Wyoming was the first state to permit same-day voter registration, allowing an eligible resident to register and cast a ballot on Election Day. In 2018, Secretary of State Edward Buchanan cited that history when describing Wyoming voters as having “flexibility in choosing when to register and vote.”
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus formally endorsed a slate of 43 House candidates and four Senate candidates shortly before the 2024 Republican primary. Brown was not included in that slate and was not listed as a caucus member. Jessie Rubino, the salaried Wyoming state director of the national State Freedom Caucus Network, nevertheless appeared in a campaign testimonial supporting Brown. Unlike the candidates receiving the caucus's organizational endorsement, Rubino identified herself in Brown's testimonial as an individual resident of House District 41. She said that Brown would represent the “true conservative values” of central Cheyenne.
Rubino's position was funded by the State Freedom Caucus Network as part of its partnership with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. Her responsibilities included researching legislation and providing voting recommendations to caucus members and allied legislators, sometimes while legislative votes were underway. Brown subsequently voted regularly with Freedom Caucus members and co-sponsored legislation with them despite receiving no official caucus endorsement and not being identified as a formal member.
During the general-election campaign, Brown did not respond to multiple interview requests from Cowboy State Daily. After the publication first requested an interview, Brown posted a negative remark on Facebook about the outlet's political coverage.
Wyoming House of Representatives Brown took office in January 2025. During his first term, he served on the House Revenue Committee and the House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee.
Voting legislation In 2025, Brown co-sponsored House Bill 156, implementing the durational residency policy he had advocated during his campaign. The legislation required prospective voters, for the first time in Wyoming, to attest that they had lived in the state for at least 30 days before an election. It also required people registering to vote to produce documentation proving United States citizenship and Wyoming residency.
Governor Mark Gordon allowed the bill to become law without his signature while questioning both the legality and the “arbitrary” character of its 30-day requirement. Gordon noted that federal law prohibits applying a durational residency requirement to presidential voting and warned that the legislation could result in litigation. He also expressed concern that its documentation standards could cause election clerks to reject eligible voters whose identification was damaged, listed a post-office box or otherwise created uncertainty. Gordon wrote that a qualified citizen must be able to vote “without undue difficulty” and that the right “should not be abridged or diminished as a result of measures taken to conduct an election.”
Abortion legislation In 2025, Brown co-sponsored House Bill 64, which required a patient seeking a medication abortion to undergo an ultrasound at least 48 hours before receiving abortion medication. The examination would likely have required a transvaginal ultrasound during early pregnancy. The legislation contained no exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest and authorized penalties of as much as six months in jail, a $9,000 fine or both for healthcare professionals who violated its requirements.
Gordon, who described himself as opposed to abortion, vetoed the bill because of its invasive character and potential effect on sexual-assault survivors. Gordon wrote that mandating an “intimate, personally invasive, and often medically unnecessary procedure goes too far.” He said that requiring victims of rape to undergo such an examination could be “cruel” and warned that the requirement could discourage victims from reporting sexual assaults. Brown voted with the House majority to override Gordon's veto, and the Legislature enacted the requirement over the governor's objections.
Firearms legislation