Sheep Industry News September 2023

Former ASI President Jim Magagna Remains A Political Force

MIKE KOSHMRL WyoFile D uring his two decades challenging Wyoming’s live stock industry, Jonathan Ratner saw time and again just how much political clout Jim Magagna wields. Magagna is the longtime executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, and he’s the most public-facing representative of a livestock industry that was once Wyoming’s largest. Ratner, until recently a staffer with Western Watersheds Project, has spent most of his career at tempting to curtail public land livestock grazing — and sub mitting legions of records requests to advance that agenda. “I submit FOIAs all the time, and it is amazing the level of capitulation and fear within the federal agencies for Jim Magagna,” Ratner said. “When Jim says jump, the agencies say, ‘Oh, how high would you like us to jump?’” Ratner had something else to say about Magagna. Dis agreements about public land management aside, he likes the guy. “Jim is old school, from back when people used to be a little more reasonable,” Ratner said. “We can have a decent conversation and discuss things.”

Magagna, 80, is a lifelong sheep rancher, attorney by training and former Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments director who has been involved in Wyoming livestock trade groups – starting with the Wyoming Wool Growers Association – since 1976. He’s helmed both the Wool Growers and, for the past 25 years, the cattle-focused Wyoming Stock Growers Association. He has presided over the boards of ASI and the Public Lands Council, and in 1994 made a run for Wyoming’s U.S. House of Representatives seat. Through it all, he’s built up the name Jim Magagna to the point where it’s basically synonymous with Wyoming’s livestock industry. “He is the face of the industry, and he’s very effective,” said David Kane, a Sheridan cattle rancher and past president of the stock growers association. Judging by his year-in, year-out lobbying and close coor dination with legislative committees, Magagna’s fingerprints are all over Wyoming statute books. Kane didn’t have to look back further than the Wyoming Legislature’s most recent session to illustrate the point. “We were having a lot of issues with the state land board and the way they were handing grazing leases,” Kane said. “Jim took the bull by the horns. I believe there were five

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