The budget session began quietly.
Lone lawmakers, lobbyists and legislative staff trickled in through the echoing Capitol extension a little after 7 a.m., walking past the statue of Chief Washakie and empty chess tables. Lusk Republican Rep. J.D. Williams, dressed in a navy suit jacket, tan boots and a red tie sporting bucking broncos, walked alone through the long corridor. Williams only “slept a little bit” last night because he stayed up reviewing about 40 bills and talking with people back home. “I had a lot of work to do,” he said.
The House and Senate chambers were still. Three Republican lawmakers — Rock Springs Rep. Cody Wylie, Rawlins Rep. Pam Thayer and Baggs Rep. Bob Davis — talked among themselves while sitting at their desks in the House chamber. Some offices were open, one revealing an empty table and a stand stuffed with multi-colored bags of chips.
Powell Republican Sen. Dan Laursen walked toward the staircase next to the Wyoming Supreme Court gallery, cradling in his left arm a bottle of CeraVe lotion, a small black fan and a blue cloth bean bag. “I’ve got a bean bag so I can throw it at someone,” he said. (He was joking. He uses it to help him write on his iPad.)
Among his priorities, Laursen wants to see the Wyoming Business Council defunded this session. “I’m not sure they’re doing the job they were set out to do,” he said.
Morning prayers
A doorman wandered from his post to peek over the second-floor banister and listen to Hulett Republican Rep. Chip Neiman as he addressed a group of Wyoming Freedom Caucus lawmakers, other officials, clergy members and voters gathered in the rotunda.
The caucus asked “friends, family and neighbors” to join them “in a gathering to pray for unborn babies, for the Lord to guide our work during the session, and more.”
Standing in the Wyoming Capitol Rotunda, Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, recalled the Wyoming Supreme Court’s ruling last month that struck down the state’s two abortion bans as unconstitutional.
It was one of “the most emotional things” he’s ever dealt with as a lawmaker, Neiman said. He wept that day, Neiman said, unable to control himself.
Today, Neiman looked ahead.
“We are facing an election year,” he said, telling those who had gathered to ask candidates “where they’re at on life.”
The group of about 65 people then descended the steps of the Capitol and walked the block to the Supreme Court building.
There they stood in a circle on the grass, some clasping their hands, eyes closed. Others wore cowboy hats, held signs — “Abortion is not healthcare.” — and an American flag. Cars passed. Two wild geese flew overhead. In hushed tones, several pastors led in prayer.
Nine out of ten times, the masses will choose evil, Sheridan Republican Rep. Ken Pendergraft, a pastor, told the group. But God has a “perfect will,” and would decide what came next, Pendergraft said.
‘Defending democracy’
At 9 a.m., about 20 people — many wearing lilac sashes printed with the words “Empowering Voters. Defending Democracy.” — gathered in a small room of the Herschler Building to hear the League of Women Voters speak about election bills up for consideration this session. Sashes, pins that said “Protect Wyoming Elections” and “Vote,” an array of pamphlets and four fat red binders with more than 1,500 petition signatures sat on a table draped with a white League of Women Voters cloth.
The league’s petition urges lawmakers to “oppose legislation that creates unwarranted barriers to hard-working, honest Wyomingites casting their votes.” Wyoming League of Women Voters President Linda Barton said these signatures come from every county in the state.
The group held a press conference focused on numerous bills that aim to ban ballot drop boxes, mandate pen-and-paper ballots, restrict the kind of identification people can use to vote and require random hand-count audits of ballots, among other election requirements and restrictions.
Carol Mathia and Vanda Edington, both Cheyenne residents, stood talking at the sidelines of the room waiting for the press conference to begin. Edington wore a purple sash and a pin that said “Wyoming Women Voting Since 1869.” Mathia wore a pink and yellow sash and a League of Women Voters pin. “I feel that these laws are voter suppression laws,” Mathia, who has worked as an election judge and ballot counter, said of the bills that were the focus of the morning’s event. “All this is going to do is make it harder to vote.”
The message of Barton and her colleague, Cheyenne President Kari Eakins, was much the same.
“I’m here today because the League of Women Voters has identified a slate of election bills proposed under the guise of election integrity that will intentionally and effectively make it harder for eligible, law-abiding Wyoming citizens to vote and to have a voice in their government,” Barton began.
State of the State
The House gallery was packed at 10 a.m., with many people standing, when Gov. Mark Gordon walked in to deliver his State of the State speech.
In his address, Gordon pushed back on several cuts proposed by the Legislature’s primary budgeting arm.
One of the more drastic measures includes defunding and dismantling the Wyoming Business Council, the state’s economic development agency. Gordon instead called on lawmakers to work with him “to rejuvenate, renovate and reimagine the Wyoming Business Council.”
More specifically, Gordon recommended forming a task force as “an appropriate way to seek the reform desired.”
“The talk of killing the business council has already put a chill in the air, a ‘closed for business’ sign, if you will,” Gordon told lawmakers. “Our competitive neighbors are already salivating. Let’s not feed their ambition.”
Gordon also pointed to a program designed to supplement food needs during the summer months when kids don’t have access to school lunches. Known as the SUN Bucks program, the funding provides income-qualified families with a debit card loaded with $120 per student, or $40 per month.
The Legislature opted out of the program last year. Gordon asked lawmakers to reconsider.
“What kind of people are we if we won’t feed our kids? Why wouldn’t we do this?” Gordon said.
In his budget proposal, the governor recommended across-the-board pay raises for state employees. Lawmakers rejected the suggestion and opted instead to increase pay for only certain positions, including plow drivers and Wyoming Highway Patrol officers.
“Wyoming’s government must be efficient. Some may believe there is never a good time to bolster state employees,” Gordon said. “Those may be the same people who love to criticize them for working for the government. But let me tell you, they are wrong.”
Mixed response
The lobbyists and reporters in the House lobby all stood when the doorman opened the entrance to the House floor at the end of the speeches by Gordon and Wyoming Supreme Court Chief Justice Lynne J. Boomgaarden. Gordon walked through the doors first. “Hey, good to see you!” he said to a man, shaking his hand. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder followed in her bright red suit, along with Secretary of State Chuck Gray and State Auditor Kristi Racines.
Buffalo Republican Rep. Marilyn Connolly told WyoFile that Gordon “said everything that I hoped he would say.” That includes asking lawmakers to restore the funding that he had asked for in his proposed state budget — an issue that has emerged as a particularly contentious one this session after lawmakers proposed numerous significant cuts to various institutions, such as the University of Wyoming and the Wyoming Business Council.
“I think the governor did a good job hitting on the high-level things that we need right now,” Cheyenne Republican Sen. Evie Brennan, who was holding a red rose, told WyoFile. As for the budget, Brennan said the Legislature “needs to really closely look at the governor’s recommendations” to see if they match the state’s priorities.
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a group of hard-line Republicans that took control of the House last election cycle, expressed its disappointment with Gordon’s words in front of the Capitol right after the speeches.
“Gov. Gordon’s budget is characterized as funding only the essentials,” Cheyenne Republican Rep. Ann Lucas, flanked by her Freedom Caucus colleagues, told a crowd of about a dozen people standing out in the blustering wind. “If this budget was truly about essentials, the government would be tightening its belt the same way that Wyoming families have.”
Secretary of State Gray described Gordon’s speech as “lackluster.” He criticized the governor for not addressing “election integrity” in his annual address — a topic that Gray has focused on extensively as secretary of state and during his campaign for that office. In contrast to the League of Women Voters, Gray described measures to ban ballot drop boxes, restrict ballot collecting and require proof of citizenship for registering to vote, for example, as “common-sense election integrity measures.”
Speaker of the House Neiman pushed back on criticism of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ proposals to cut spending. “Let us have an honest debate,” he said. “Let us look at the figures. Let us see what is actually going on on the ground in these agencies.”
Soon, the House and Senate gathered in their respective chambers. It was time to introduce legislation. The budget session — and the “honest debate” — were underway.
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