The Wyoming Freedom Caucus revealed Monday its top five legislative priorities for the 2026 budget session, including a plan to “return to pre-pandemic spending levels and curb growth of government,” according to an announcement from the group.
“Each of these priorities was driven by the people of Wyoming,” the caucus, a group of conservative Republicans who control the House, wrote. “Every bill is well-vetted. We’re ready to return to the Capitol to deliver real wins for the people of Wyoming.”
The four other priorities include: making pen and paper ballots “the default voting method,” making it easier for parents to sue “when their rights are violated,” removing “obscene pornographic materials” from the children’s section of all public libraries and codifying “public access to judicial opinions, orders, and oral arguments.”
The Freedom Caucus also outlined priorities ahead of last year’s session, but that plan focused instead on immigration, property taxes and certain investment practices. The group gave itself a deadline to pass those five priority bills in the first 10 days of session — dubbing it “The Five and Dime Plan.”
At the onset of the legislative off-season in April, the Freedom Caucus told voters it would take inspiration from the Trump administration’s efforts to cut federal jobs and spending by “DOGE-ing Wyoming’s budget.”
Those efforts included forming a subcommittee to scrutinize the Wyoming Department of Health’s budget, the largest of any state agency.
In November, the group held a press conference in Cheyenne to reiterate its determination to shrink the state’s budget but did not provide specifics as to where or how deep cuts would go. Instead, Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, said the group was “setting some targets” and had its eye on pre-pandemic spending levels.
Budget specifics were still lacking Monday in the group’s press release, which again described an intention to “return to pre-pandemic spending levels.”
Budget
“It’s 2026, which means this legislative session is a budget session. It’s past time to get unchecked spending growth under control in Cheyenne,” the Monday press release states.
This week, the Joint Appropriations Committee, which is largely comprised of Freedom Caucus members, is “marking up” the budget following three weeks’ worth of budget hearings. The committee is slated to have a budget bill by the end of the week.
Bear, who chairs the House side of the committee, opened Monday’s meeting with some remarks.
“There’s been a lot of rumors out there that this more conservative Legislature is going to cut the budget 30%. I have spoken to many people and calmed their nerves that that is not the case,” Bear said.
On Friday, during the committee’s one public comment period, several faith leaders from across the state testified in support of lawmakers fully funding mental health services. More specifically, they pushed back on the suggestion that churches or religious groups take on professional mental health services.
In November, Wyoming Public Radio published a story about Bear and his reported desire to see churches become more involved with addressing the state’s mental health needs. Bear pointed to the story Friday.
“I think a lot of this has come about because of comments that I made in an article, which, if everybody reads those comments in context, they’ll understand that we don’t legislate on theory or ideals,” he said. “We legislate in the real world.”
Bear again addressed Friday’s public comment on Monday.
“We heard last Friday that many in the public who came to comment expected a 15% cut to the Department of Health,” Bear said. “My vice chair and I were very clear that that was not the case. No such cuts were proposed, and that’s where we sit today.”
The Freedom Caucus has yet to unveil a precise target for cuts. Cody Republican Rep. Rachel Roriguez-Williams, the group’s chairwoman, did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment, which included an inquiry for specific numbers and when the caucus planned to share that information with the public.
Ballots, parental rights and libraries
Laramie County, the state’s most populous, relies on “express voting,” a voting machine that has voters use a touchscreen to select their candidates. The machine then prints a ballot of their selections to be tabulated. Voters can also request a pen-and-paper ballot if they desire one.
Wyoming’s other 22 counties use pen-and-paper ballots as their default, which is what the Freedom Caucus would like to see happen in Laramie County.
“We believe in paper ballots, wet ink, and real votes,” the press release states.
The Joint Corporations Committee voted to sponsor such a bill in the legislative off-season.
For its third priority, the Freedom Caucus wrote that it will seek to “give parents the power to enforce their rights in court” by creating a private right to action.
“Parental rights mean nothing if you can’t enforce them,” the press release states. “Allowing parents to recover the damages caused by a violation of their rights is common sense and long overdue.”
The fourth priority targets public libraries across the state and seeks to “remove obscene pornographic materials from the children’s sections of all public libraries in Wyoming.”
“Children should never be exposed to sexually explicit materials, period — especially at the taxpayer’s expense.”
In October, the Joint Judiciary Committee voted to sponsor a bill dictating where libraries shelve certain books. Opponents told lawmakers at the time that the legislation would make an unprecedented intrusion into public libraries in an attempt to silence LGBTQ authors who write for young people.
‘Judicial transparency’
Hours after the Wyoming Supreme Court published its long-awaited ruling last week on two abortion bans, lawmakers held a closed-door meeting and discussed shrinking the court’s bench from five to three.
The Freedom Caucus is now seeking “judicial transparency” as its fifth priority. More specifically, the group says it intends to “codify public access to judicial opinions, orders, and oral arguments so that the people know what our judges are up to.”
In its press release, the caucus pointed to its website, where “additional priorities” are listed, including “protecting pregnancy resource centers.”
Notably, the priorities do not include a resolution to amend the Wyoming Constitution to prohibit abortion.
The state’s high court struck down the abortion bans on account of Article 1, Section 38 of the state’s constitution, which enshrines the right of “each competent adult … to make his or her own health care decisions.”
Upon the ruling, Gov. Mark Gordon called on lawmakers to put the issue “before the people for a vote.”
“A constitutional amendment taken to the people of Wyoming would trump any and all judicial decisions,” Gordon wrote.
Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, told WyoFile last week he and Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Torrington, were working out the language of such a resolution.
The 2026 session begins Feb. 9.
The article describes the Freedom Caucus’ fourt priority as seeking to “remove obscene pornographic materials from the children’s sections of all public libraries in Wyoming.” The probem is that the bill they got through the Judiciary Committee does not use the word “pornographic” for one simple reason: no public or school library in the state displays any material that would qualify as “pornographic” under the Supreme Court’s so-called “Miller test.”
So instead the bill they are advancing bans a much broader set of materials: anything that is “sexually explicit.” That includes any materials that could be used in sex education, gender-affirming care, and a wide array of literary materials that have redeeming social value. It empowers on set of parents to deny other adults the freedom to parent their children appropriately.
Thank you.
Like it or not, we have near term budget issues we have to deal with. Shortfalls are coming. The four standard levers to offset this are 1) reduce spending, 2) increase taxes, 3) redistribute costs, 4) use more reserves.
With all the money and billionaires California has, they’re totally broke. Government spending is out of control. It really doesn’t matter how much money is coming in. Government is always completely capable of outspending it. Therefore, government spending must always be constrained everywhere and always. Make folks mad, but that’s the facts.
California’s so broke, they just proposed a billionaires tax, confiscate 5% of everything you have over $1B. In just a few weeks, over a trillion $$ in potential revenue packed up and left. We can learn a lot from California, and NY, and Illinois, NJ, Mass etc. etc. Throw in pretty much all of Europe, except Hungary. They’ve already lived the Marxist dream and know better.
Deep breath required from all the whiners. Wyo is sooo much better off than sooo many other States that claim to be soooo much smarter than us.
The freedumb caucus stupidity can’t be matched.
An unrealistic budget expectation, the price of goods and services has and will continue to climb. Inflation and past short sighted decisions to delay ongoing maintenance of infrastructural items that have now been run to failure have made things now more costly. Suggested solutions for so many cultural problems that just aren’t really there. Dog whistles.
Too many of our legislative members seem to be unwilling to separate their religious beliefs from their roles in state government. What about that funny thing we call 1st amendment? If a member of the legislature was of a different religion (i.e., Buddhism, Islamic, Hinduism, Judaism, New Age Spirituality, etc.) and they started intertwining their religious beliefs into their suggested legislative agenda there would be mass push back and protest.
And then our leaders wonder why younger families and those that are graduating from UW, CC’s and high schools move away from WY. Our legislative leaders keep looking backward instead of where they’re going. Like it or not, the world has changed.
A closed door meeting about public transparency. You can’t make this stuff up
How funny. If you want to F up some one’s brain, send them to church.
Maybe the state employees will vote in the next election.
Typically vague ideas from people who don’t even believe in government in the first place. Let’s pay everyone less money, make it easier to sue every business in existence, cut services to the bone, and not even understand how to fund libraries…so no one wants to even live here?? Except for obscenely wealthy people who hire immigrants?? 🙄 Sure. That makes sense….
A real “win for the people of Wyoming” would be for every last one of these far right lunatics to be voted out of office and replaced by some honest, decent people without extreme right wing agendas.
Most of the people in Wyoming, other than in Billionaire/servant class Teton County, disagree.
Teton County billionaires like Susan Gore, who uses Wyoming as a petri dish to fund her right wing ideas?
I’m hoping that with the downward spiral that Trump has initiated in this country with costs rising due to his erratic tariff policies, gestapo tactics being employed against United States citizens, and the constitution being attacked in every conceivable way by this administration, even some of our Fox News addicted neighbors will eventually come to the realization that something is wrong in this country right now. I’m not naive enough to think that the ones who’ve totally bought into the MAGA scam would ever see the truth but the others who voted for change and lower egg prices might.
That rings hollow Steve. Latest CPI data confirms the tariffs haven’t added anything to inflation. The same media that gaslit us during Biden that record high inflation was just ‘transitory’, ‘non-existent’ etc. are now trying their best to have us believe inflation is continuing. I paid less than $2 for gas this week. That’s deflation, not inflation.
Constitutional crisis? Exactly what has Trump done that’s illegal per our Constitution? We have a complete branch of government packed with radical judges who yearn to throw Trump in jail for anything. They’ve been trying to find any dirt for over ten years. The FBI, CIA, NSA, DOJ, IRS, MSM, DNC and a dozen other major organizations have tried and still can’t find anything of substance to pin on him. Even the 30+ ‘felonies’ had to have first-time creative measures cobbled together and struggled to even define what the heck he supposedly did to break the law. All those law suits with the endless ‘walls closing in’ amounted to zip in any real sense. It was all lawfare. If there was anything, including this stupid Epstein nonsense, they would have pounded him to a pulp with it long ago. Trump’s clean as a whistle, which drives the Left absolutely bonkers.
Tell you what Pete, it’s impossible to try and awaken or even reason with you MAGA folks as to what this guy that you claim is “clean as a whistle” is doing to this country so I’m not going to waste my time trying. That comment of yours absolving him of any wrongdoing says it all.
You talk radical this and radical that. The most radical thing in the United States right now are people like you who encourage and refuse to question anything Trump says or does, blindly following along while he continues to mentally decline and lead this country further into chaos. I’m also talking about the cowards in congress that have refused to be a check and balance on his power as required.
I’m glad you paid less for gas but I bet you haven’t been as lucky in the grocery store or anywhere else. I’m a RINO Pete. I used to vote for decent people like Al Simpson, Craig Thomas, etc. We need republicans like that back again and not what we’ve got now.
Have a pleasant evening.