Touted tax ‘modernizing’ effort staggers in week three
Despite the early endorsement of Republican leadership, property and sales tax bills appear dead in the water at the end of the third week of the 2019 legislative session. Speaker of the House Steve...
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Refinery group brought Wyoming “critical infrastructure” fight
UPDATE: The House Minerals, Business, and Economic Development Committee voted 5-4 to advance the bill to the House floor Friday, Feb. 1, after making significant amendments to it. A brief description...
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Senate plays chicken with school districts over funding
An education budget cut in the Senate budget bill could leave the Legislature vulnerable to school district lawsuits, education advocates said Wednesday. On Tuesday evening the Senate voted to halve...
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GOP, big donor lobby against LGBTQ employment protections
The Wyoming Republican Party and a wealthy conservative donor are opposing a bill that would protect workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity — adding those qualities...
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Wyoming Senate and House sharply divided over budget… again
For the second year in a row, the House and Senate differ by around $80 million on the state’s budget, after senators made cuts to their version and representatives added money to theirs. The gulf is...
View ArticleObit: Critical infrastructure bill 2019 succumbs to deadline
Beloved by industry, a bill to stifle protests against “critical infrastructure” died for the third time on Feb. 4, 2019 in the capitol when it missed the deadline for an initial House floor vote. It...
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Gloves come off in Senate v. House budget brawl
In a dramatic bit of parliamentary maneuvering, the Wyoming Senate suspended its rules Wednesday at the direction of its leadership to introduce four alternative budget bills. The late game shift, they...
View ArticlePro-LGBTQ teens recount vulgar conversation with Sen. Hutchings
UPDATE: This story has been updated to include a statement issued by Sen. Lynn Hutchings (R-Cheyenne) on Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 12. —Ed. Students from Cheyenne’s Central High School approached their...
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Gordon to lawmakers: Chamber showdowns don’t advance state
Following a budget blow up between the leadership of Wyoming’s House and Senate last week, Gov. Mark Gordon called on lawmakers to avoid head-butting and move Wyoming forward. “We really have an...
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Laramie’s free clinic flooded with support following WashPo story
National publicity surrounding a well-known Wyoming family’s political infighting has resulted in an unexpected windfall for Laramie’s free clinic. According to its director, the Downtown Clinic has...
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Court filing alleges ‘unconstitutional’ conditions at women’s prison
Three inmates at Wyoming’s only women’s prison have asked the federal district court to force the state to deal with overcrowding and deteriorating facilities that they allege have created...
View ArticleAuditor releases records predecessor said would cost $8,000
Two groups of transparency advocates suing former Wyoming State Auditor Cynthia Cloud won a surprising reversal Tuesday when the new auditor, Kristi Racines, released years of spending data. Racines...
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House votes to handcuff counties on private schools
The Wyoming House in its first floor discussion gave initial approval to a much debated bill to strip counties’ zoning authority over private schools. The 31-24 vote was the first of three the measure...
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Stifled by leadership, wind tax proponents look to voters
Proponents of a steeper wind tax in Wyoming intend to put the issue on the 2020 ballot after Speaker of the House Steve Harshman (R-Casper) refused to allow debate of bills raising the tax for the...
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About last night: How the 2019 session spilled into overtime
Late on Feb. 27, Speaker of the House Steve Harshman (R-Casper) channeled his day job as a high school football coach and ran out the clock on a topsy turvy final evening for the Wyoming Legislature’s...
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Game and Fish proposes new migration corridor protections
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is proposing to officially designate and protect two western-Wyoming ungulate migration corridors. One designation would build on existing federal protections of...
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As smoke clears, House and Senate reload for 2020 budget
Following weeks of House and Senate theatrics, 14 line-item vetoes by Gov. Mark Gordon and two veto overrides by the Legislature the state’s supplementary budget bill came out of the 2019 legislative...
View ArticleRevenue chairman wants support from state leaders
The Joint Revenue Committee will once again study tax increases between legislative sessions, despite pointed concerns by its new co-chairman that previous efforts have not gotten sufficient support...
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Women’s prison conditions like ‘stockyard’ say former inmates
On the heels of a lawsuit filed by current inmates, former incarcerees of Wyoming’s only women’s prison describe crumbling facilities — frigid temperatures, leaking roofs, falling ceiling tiles —...
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Wyo, Bernhardt eye state primacy on environmental reviews
Acting U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt and Gov. Mark Gordon are mulling how Wyoming can take a “primary role” in the environmental review processes that, by law, proceed federal projects...
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