Monday greeted lawmakers with a whopping 80 budget amendments in the House and another 59 amendments in the Senate — 45 more first-pass changes between the two chambers than were proposed in the 2022 budget session.
Lawmakers had just one day to get through this first round of proposed changes. The third and final reading of amendments will take place Wednesday.
Legislators brought a slew of major budget amendments that, among other things, aimed to curb gender-affirming medical treatment in Wyoming, provide assistance to address immigration at the southern border and defund the University of Wyoming’s gender and women’s studies program. In some cases, the amendments followed failed bills that sought to accomplish similar goals.
The budget bill is the one piece of legislation lawmakers are constitutionally required to pass this session. Deadlines along the way are meant to keep both chambers on track.
The Senate and House start with identical forms of the budget bill. Once each chamber passes its version, leadership appoints a Joint Conference Committee to negotiate a mutually agreeable form that each chamber must approve or reject.
The whole process happens under a strict time limit. The Wyoming Constitution bars lawmakers from meeting more than 60 days each two-year House term. But lawmakers have a few more days to work with this session since they met for just 37 days of the normal 40-day general session last year.
As of now lawmakers have until March 8 to agree on how to fund Wyoming’s state government. The three leftover days give them until March 13, if they stick to weekdays. (Sundays are excluded by the Wyoming Constitution.) If they can’t meet their constitutional obligation by then, they’ll need to reconvene for a “special session” later to get the budget done.
The quantity of amendments this year spells long days for lawmakers this week and could signal challenges to getting the budget through the process in time.
“Representatives, somebody told me that at this pace we’ll be right at midnight,” Speaker of the House Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale) said late in the afternoon Monday, at which time House lawmakers had only made it through a fraction of the proposed amendments. Lawmakers clapped and cheered with resigned humor.
Down the hall, Senate President Ogden Driskill had done the math when his chamber’s pacing wasn’t any snappier.
“We’ll be done somewhere between 3 and 5 a.m. tomorrow morning if we don’t pick it up,” Driskill said.
Both chambers were still working at 10:30 p.m. As the hours dragged on, lawmakers withdrew more amendments, drawing cheers from their colleagues.
Gender-affirming care and abortion
Lawmakers brought several bills this session related to gender-affirming care and other gender identity topics.
Few of those bills remain after the first week of the session, WyoFile previously reported. But lawmakers brought a slew of budget amendments that aimed to block gender-affirming care in Wyoming through financial means.
Rep. Sarah Penn (R-Lander) led the effort to erase gender-affirming care through the budget, sponsoring several amendments aimed at the Wyoming Department of Health and the University of Wyoming to establish financial barriers to such treatments.
One of her amendments, which lawmakers adopted, would bar any Wyoming Department of Health funds from being used “for any gender transition or gender reassignment procedures” or for abortions. The Wyoming Department of Health doesn’t pay for abortions in the state. Nor does it directly fund facilities that offer gender-affirming care, according to the agency’s spokesperson. It’s not clear how this amendment would impact the availability of gender-affirming care in Wyoming.
Lawmakers also adopted another amendment brought by Penn, a Lander nurse practitioner, which would cut $100,000 from the University of Wyoming’s family medical residency if it offers or performs “any gender transition, gender affirmation or gender reassignment treatments.”
House lawmakers voted down an amendment from Reps. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie) and Mike Yin (D-Jackson) that would have expanded access to long-acting reversible contraceptives. Provenza attempted to pass a similar amendment last year, as did Sen. Wendy Schuler (R-Evanston) in the Senate.
Border state assistance
Lawmakers in both chambers pushed through amendments to send $2 million to Texas to secure the southern border. Sen. Larry Hicks (R-Baggs) sponsored the Senate’s version of the amendment, while Reps. Abby Angelos (R-Gillette) and Allen Slagle (R-Newcastle) carried the House’s version. Last year, Hicks sponsored a bill to send $5 million to Texas for the same purpose. That legislation died in the Senate.
Texas recently passed a $321 billion budget, according to Sen. Tara Nethercott (R-Cheyenne), who argued that $2 million was both an arbitrary and ineffective amount of money. Those dollars, Nethercott said, would be more impactful if kept within the borders of Wyoming.
The House also approved an amendment Monday from Rep. Steve Harshman (R-Casper) that allocates $1 million to reimburse Wyoming law enforcement agencies for volunteer expenses “to assist border state law enforcement efforts.”
Another attempt to defund gender studies
Lawmakers again shot down an attempt to defund the University of Wyoming’s gender and women’s studies program. Rep. Jeanette Ward (R-Casper) spearheaded the amendment in the House as she did last year, along with Reps. Ken Pendergraft (R-Sheridan) and Penn.
Hicks, the Baggs Republican, brought an amendment in the Senate that would have defunded the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at UW. It would have also prohibited UW from funding “any programs or activities that are associated with, advocate for or promote diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Ultimately, he withdrew the amendment. However, he could introduce it again when the Senate considers the budget a third time.
A wild experiment
Hicks successfully brought an amendment to initiate what he called a “novel approach” to Wyoming’s nonnative wild horse populations — donkeys.
More specifically, Hicks moved to put $75,000 toward purchasing and placing “mammoth jackstock donkeys” on state lands where wild horse populations have multiplied. The idea, Hicks said, is to encourage wild horses to mate with donkeys, thereby producing mules, or a “sterile hybrid.”
A mirror amendment was successful in the House.
What’s next
Lawmakers get a break from the budget Tuesday but will start the lengthy amendment process over again Wednesday, when third reading takes place in both chambers.
Third reading is the last chance for either body to make revisions to the budget before it goes to Joint Conference Committee, where the two chambers will try to hash out their differences.
So the Legislature is determined to make abortion as unavailable as possible and at the same time refuses to help make contraception more available. So, what’s the agenda here? Sanctity of life? Controlling women? Punishing a God-given activity?
Why do we keep going doing this very tired road?
Because Wyoming loves to elect complete idiots.
That’s an unfair comparison. Complete idiots have more redeeming qualities than some of the elected “leaders” we have here.
Again, much ado about non-existent problems. Leave UWs curriculum alone. Stay out of people’s pants, bedrooms and doctor offices. I guess the rugged individualism of Wyoming only holds up if citizens agree with the far right.
Maybe our legislatures should hang with the donkeys. They might get smarter.
They are addressing problems, that we don’t even have, in a budget session. Let me repeat myself. This is a budget session.
Just because you tie money to something doesn’t mean it’s a budget issue.
Our money does not belong in Texas. To the followers of the Orange demon. More people crossed the border under Trump then under the current administration. Get your facts straight. If Greg Abbott wants to solve the problem then he should load the buses and send them back to Mexico. He has wasted over $120 million sending people all around the country. That does not even include the cost to the cities that are taking those individuals in.
It Should be against the law for us to Give any money to a state for something that is probably unlawful. We should file a suit against the legislature if they approve that money. I will gladly donate to that fund.
This is definitely going to be the worst legislature ever. Send Jeanette ward back to Illinois. Better yet send her to A Third World country that has no education that has no healthcare that has no government like she wants. We don’t want her.
Dear legislature: you’re here to serve the citizens of Wyoming not your own interest. We have people on the street that need mental health help. We have citizens that need healthcare.
Many of those people are working two jobs just to feed their family.
You accept millions and millions of dollars in federal funds but, make an excuse that there are too many rules attached to the money if you don’t want that money.
The lowest grade an legislature can get is a F. They already have that so now what!!!!
Why are Sen. Hicks and his ilk so intent on attacking the few programs at U.W. that actually benefit Native American students at U.W.? Once again the ultra-right minions of TFG are parroting talking points and national legislative agendas that have far different impacts in Wyoming. Are they truly so unaware of the demographic makeup of the U.W. student body that they don’t know who their actions would impact or are they deliberately attacking the tribes once again? Once again we see the Republican majority proving that this is only the Equality State for the dominate culture.
Maybe we should give TX money to put a border wall on the northern part of the state, not the southern part.
$2,000,000 would go a lot further fixing the streets in small Wyoming towns than it will trying to repair a completely shattered border wall and shoring up the failed legacy of Texas Governor Abbot.
Yes. Excuse me, but Wyoming is sending our money (2 Million Dollars) we citizens have paid for Wyoming projects to Texas?? Can they not spend this money at home to help our own projects, interests and needs?
The U.S. Senate introduced a $118 billion bill to address the border crossing problem, Russian invasion of Ukraine, to bolster Taiwan’s defense of China’s invasion threats, etc. $20.3 billion of which would be used to help the border crossing problem, primarily in Texas. The dysfunctional state of the Congress, largely because of Republican’s unwillingness to cooperate with anything the Democrats present, the bill was denied by the House Speaker Johnson. Texans can thank the Republicans for not helping their border situation, Democrats tried with no success.
Keep the $2 million in Wyoming, don’t be wasting one cent of Wyoming’s money when its the feds responsibility!
Regarding introducing another foreign species of animal to Wyoming to improve the wild horse numbers, its an asinine idea, Lol.
Het, Wyoming Freedom Caucus members. Yer all members of the Cult of Trump. Aren’t you supposed to get Mexico to pay for all that border stuff , not me ?
Unbelievable that this idiocy is what passes for our legislature’s priorities. You literally couldn’t choose issues that matter less to Wyomingites’ lives. This state has plenty of actual problems to try to address.
When politicians make laws to regulate how and whom medical doctors may treat for medical conditions, aren’t they practicing medicine without examining a patient? In almost all cases, aren’t they doing that without the knowledge, training, skill, and license to do so? Why isn’t that illegal?
Texas needs Wyoming welfare? That has got to be news!
Is this article a satire piece? These clowns are not really focused on all of these non-issues, are they? Gender affirming care in a state that has never had any such procedures performed, border funds for Texas, one of the wealthiest states in the country, and UW programs? And DEI programs? God forbid that the few black people that live in this white bread state get a fair shake. Breeding donkeys with wild horses? Why can’t the legislature focus on real issues that matter. This is embarrassing.