As the Wyoming Freedom Caucus prepares to assume control of the House in the Wyoming Legislature for the first time, the group of hardline Republicans announced an ambitious plan to pass five “key bills” in the first 10 days of the 2025 general session.
“In this last election, you spoke to us loud and clear,” Freedom Caucus Chairman Emeritus Rep. John Bear (R-Gillette) said in a video posted on the caucus’ website.
“We heard you in town halls and on your doorsteps. What you gave us was a mandate to make some changes in the state of Wyoming,” Bear said.
The caucus calls it the “Five and Dime Plan.”
It includes legislation to restrict the voter registration process, invalidate driver licenses issued to unauthorized immigrants by other states, prohibit diversity, equity and inclusion programming in higher education, ban state investments in environment, social and governance funds and bring back a property tax relief bill vetoed by Gov. Mark Gordon earlier this year.
The priorities of the caucus are not surprising. All have either made previous appearances in unsuccessful legislation and rules, or been the subject of campaign promises in the 2024 election.
The priorities, however, reveal where the interests of the caucus diverge from that of the governor, whose supplemental budget requests focused on upping various Medicaid reimbursement rates, additional funding for the state’s property tax refund program, more money for litigating against federal regulations and replenishing funds depleted by a historic fire year.
It’s not unusual for lawmakers, particularly leadership, to announce legislative priorities ahead of the session, but rarely have Wyoming legislators coined catchy names for a package of bills or proposed deadlines beyond the existing strictures of the legislative calendar for getting the job done.
The odds the legislation makes it through the House are strong. Not only does the Freedom Caucus hold a majority of the 62-member House, Republicans nominated and elected caucus members to the lower chamber’s leadership positions. And it’s leadership who decides when legislation is heard on the floor, and to which committee it is assigned.
The Senate’s level of support for the “Five and Dime Plan” remains to be seen.
While the overall makeup of the Senate scarcely changed with the 2024 election, the Freedom Caucus is disgruntled over the upper chamber’s recent committee assignments, which include a mix of Freedom-Caucus-aligned and more moderate Republican chairs.
In the meantime, the Freedom Caucus is asking voters for a hand.
“Please show your continued support by asking your senator and our governor to support the five and dime and this conservative response to your mandate,” Bear said in the video.
Senate President-elect Sen. Bo Biteman (R-Ranchester) did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment by press time.
Voter registration, driver’s licenses
The exact details of the legislation remain to be seen as none had been posted to the Wyoming Legislature’s website by press time. (They will likely be made public in the coming weeks ahead of the session.)
But the Freedom Caucus’ top pick mirrors that of Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who called on lawmakers last week to pass legislation requiring proof of residency and U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.
More specifically, the caucus plans to “create clear statutory authority for the Wyoming Secretary of State to promulgate rules requiring voters to prove WY residency and to ensure that non-citizens cannot register to vote in WY,” according to its website.
Such legislation would likely fall in line with comments Gordon made when he rejected the rules in April proposed by Gray to have such requirements.
“Unless and until the Legislature grants the Secretary of State more explicit authority allowing for rulemaking to add to those statutory requirements at the time of registration, I believe these rules are a breach of the separation of powers with the legislative branch, as indicated by the Management Council’s recommendation,” Gordon wrote in a letter outlining his decision at the time.
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to allow unauthorized immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In 2023, Florida passed a law to prohibit an unauthorized immigrant with a driver’s license from another state from operating a vehicle. A similar bill passed the Wyoming Senate earlier this year, but died in the House when it did not secure committee approval by deadline.
“This simple bill will help WY crack down on illegal immigration and to ensure consistency in our statutes and rules,” according to the Freedom Caucus’ website.
DEI and ESG
The Wyoming Legislature is the largest funder of the University of Wyoming. Earlier this year, lawmakers cut the university’s block grant by $1.7 million and forbade it from spending state funds on its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
In May, UW’s Board of Trustees backed President Ed Seidel’s recommendation to close the office. Now, the Freedom Caucus wants more.
It will bring legislation to “prohibit the University of WY and Wyoming’s Community Colleges from engaging in discriminatory hiring or continuing education requirements that place moral, historical, or other blame on a person or group of people on the basis of immutable characteristics,” according to its website.
Enrollment is down at the state’s only four-year public university. The Freedom Caucus says passing such legislation “will attract the free thinking cowboys and cowgirls we want attending our university.”
Last year, the Wyoming State Loan and Investment Board — a body that includes the state’s top five elected officials — approved a policy to require companies doing business with the state to disclose any ESG investment principles.
ESG is a type of investment strategy that takes environmental, social and governance into account while evaluating business risks and opportunities.
Mirroring legislation brought by Sen. Biteman in 2023, the Freedom Caucus said it plans to prohibit the state from investing in funds that prioritize ESG standards, diverting that money instead into “funds promising the highest financial rate of return.”
Biteman’s bill stalled out in the House Appropriations Committee amid concerns that it would harm the state’s ability to invest in a wide range of companies, including those in the energy industry, according to the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle.
Property taxes
While Gordon signed a package of property tax relief bills into law in March, he vetoed one that would have applied a 25% exemption to the first $2 million of a home’s fair market value.
Gordon rejected the bill because it “would have only provided a temporary and very expensive tax exemption to all Wyoming homeowners at the expense of other taxpayers in our energy industries, retail and manufacturing sectors,” he wrote in his veto letter.
The bill included a $220 million appropriation to reimburse local governments for lost revenue — property taxes do not fund state operations but rather local services like K-12 education and law enforcement.
The Freedom Caucus said it plans to bring back the bill and committed to including “a backfill to local governments.”
“But the House isn’t stopping there,” Bear said in the video. “We’ve got dozens of other priorities.”
The video also mentioned repealing gun-free zones, universal school choice and banning ballot drop boxes.
The 2025 general session begins Jan. 14.
I support the freedom caucus in this good start. But it’s clear from the comments that many don’t understand what true freedom is; that it is always linked to our responsibility to do the right thing, and not necessarily the popular thing. May God turn our nation and our state back to Himself, and reestablish sound principles of christian govt. in our land.
This is how it works in a one-party state: First you get elected, then you unveil your plans. In a democracy, you unveil the plan, run on it, and if you get elected, you can try to make the plan happen.
The far-right zealots continue to humiliate the once proud state of WY. Instead of this long list of performative politics and culture war junk, just mandate white hoods at all official functions. Put away the dog whistles and own your views, caucus bros.
Five-and-Dime: a store where all the articles were priced at five or ten cents. The exact worth of FC’s legislative package.
The not quite two-bit party.
Leave it to this crowd to give their right wing garbage the corniest possible name
The Freedom Caucus is anything but freedom. I am very disappointed in this state’s legislature.
It is interesting that the legislature forced the closure of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion by taking away its funding and then want to pass legislation that supposedly prevents Wyoming higher education from “engaging in discriminatory hiring or continuing education requirements that place moral, historical, or other blame on a person or group of people on the basis of immutable characteristics”. Any person of intelligence can understand that what this really means is that they want to give permission to go back to the racist, misogynistic, classist hiring practices of the past. The idea that this ““will attract the free thinking cowboys and cowgirls we want attending our university” is absurd. I guess next they will propose that a white hood and robe with be mandatory for the graduation ceremony.
Free thinking cowboys and cowgirls? Are they the only ones allowed to attend UW? We have a lot more people from a lot more backgrounds than ranching. This Freedom Caucus sounds a bit full of itself and you didn’t hear from me.
Dear LORD, please let me collect another PPP loan. I promise I’ll stick my finger in the Democrats eye, Keep my thumb on the women folk and teach the children about myths and legends.
Not good for Wyoming. I would call them the non-freedom caucus.
Wow — I don’t see much help to WY people in the five and dime “gimmick” and the additional things mentioned — universal school choice appeals to people with money and banning ballot boxes only hurts hard workers who cannot get to ballots . Hard Issues — quality funded education, mental health, good paying jobs, affordable housing, health insurance, maintaining wild areas , CWD, perception causing young people to think twice about attending WY colleges (you need more than just state residence), childcare, and more. These are challenging issues, and needs representatives that are capable of taking on the hard issues.
Wow! Let’s make the state even more regressive and backward than it is already! This will be great for Wyoming! Thank you to the majority for voting these clowns into high office.
It is interesting to see the two headlines together – Five and Dime Plan & Chronic Wasting Disease. The FC is planning to infect the entire State with CWD. Since when is legislative speed a desirable goal for highly controversial legislation that should have the benefit of full discussion and deliberation? This will be an FC cram down, with no consideration for opposing views because they will be waiving the “We Have a Mandate” flag. All of the people who will be affected by these bills will hopefully show up and demand to be heard, however long it may take.
I perceive the discussion points proffered in this article to be analogous to the tip of the iceberg that is visible above the waterline. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is steering the ship of state straight towards the berg and fully intends to ram it, back up, and ram it again . And again , till it yields , or more likely breaks into pieces. Democracy by deconstruction.
My personal response to this will be to do my fullest to make life miserable for the Wyoming Freedom Caucus in the coming year. To the extent possible without stooping below their level of fatuousness, or outright deposition of burning brown paper bags of canine fecal matter upon their doormats at 3 AM , I will be assertive in the interests of apoilitical populism.
Make your own case.
Good for you!
Atta boy, Dewey.
Perhaps the FC folks would understand the constitutions of our nation and state if they were written in King James English.
ALWAYS REMEMBER: Freedom is never free. Don’t be the dollar waiting on the dime. A quick primer for those of you itching to support the five and dime and this conservative response to your mandate… Gun belts over robes— chastity belts underneath; and NEVER FORGET to lift the hood or the veil slightly above and away from the jawline before partaking of the wafer and the kool-aid.
The new ‘regime’ of Freedom Caucus extremism hasn’t even officially began and I am already exhausted from the endless stream of self-righteous blather. I’ve been a Republican in Wyoming for nearly 50 years and do not recognize the current party nor the current party’s actions as anything remotely representing me or my values. How on earth did this once proud State fall to this pathetic level? And just remember, at the ‘Five and Dime Store, you get what you pay for (or in this case what you vote for).
Wyoming became attractive to right wing socialists that retired from other states that were too “woke” for their liking. For example, I met a recently transplanted couple living in Cheyenne when we happened dining next to each other at The Lodge at Cloudcroft in Cloudcroft, New Mexico. The couple asked what I did and when I opined about working in the environmental arena, they stated that they despise the EPA as they ruin everything. The couple relayed that when they were on their last cruise they could no longer get Cherries Flambe because of the EPA.
Now if you are well heeled enough to dine at the Cloudcroft but you think the EPA struck down your Cherries Flambe instead of say the insurance industry serving the cruise lines, then you are perfectly aligned with the thinking and mentality of the Wyoming GOP. Its a really small step from practical old people to paranoid ones and all it takes in 20 years of Fox News.
The new transplants align with long time Wyoming GOP stalwarts like Cowboy State Daily contributor and Chairman of the Wyoming Catholic College, Bill Sniffin, so the problem you see has always been in this state as it has been hiding like a “snake in the grass”.
Now we are going to see what the Teton county dark money to the freedom caucus is all about.
The so called “Freedom Caucus” is the wrong name for this group. I wish supporters of this movement would wake up and understand what this movement really is and what they really support. The “Freedom Caucus” only wants freedom for everyone who thinks like they do and therefore live their lives according to their shared beliefs. And it isn’t really freedom in the event that you step out of line and disagree with one of their ideas. These people do not want those who disagree with them to have freedom to live in accordance with their beliefs. Its not “Freedom” if you are trying to take away the rights of others who do not think just like they do. I think a number of followers of the caucus would step away if they really understood what the ideas being pushed would in the end really lead to.
That’s what we have folks, a five and dime legislature filled with fake christians. I don’t recognize my home state.
Well Gordon. The state being so one sided republican is really democrat party issue and fault. Face it your party won’t do anything but be off the scale to left so there is no check and balance. Neither side is really right or correct when it like this. Democrats need to get back to center. Than they have a chance
How about both parties getting back to center?
Some of these items may be problematic (we will see when the actual text is released). Are legislators, who have sworn (or will swear) to uphold the US Constitution, aware of the “full faith and credit” clause and its effects? Do they understand what a property tax exemption that lowers taxes on homeowners and shifts the burden to renters and commercial properties would do to our workforce? To our native businesses? Do they recognize that Chuck Gray’s proposed barriers to voter registration would impact married women, seniors, and many of the voters who voted FOR them? Have they noted the drop in UW enrollment, especially in out-of-state students whose higher tuition helps to fund it, due to the perception that the state’s politics have become too extreme? I guess we will see.
Here’s a quote for the ages. “Enrollment is down at the state’s only four-year public university. The Freedom Caucus says passing such legislation “will attract the free thinking cowboys and cowgirls we want attending our university.””
As long as a person thinks within the silo of small ideas the Freedom Caucus espouses they are welcome to attend UW.
I always thought free thinking involved rational conversation about sometimes difficult topics in a safe space. This includes discussion of the social forces leading to annihilation of Native cultures, the slavery of black peoples, the rise of religious extremism, and how hate spreads. How can someone engage in rational conversation about Democratic values, American exceptionalism and our driving idealism without “the other side of the story” as Paul Harvey used to say?
The Freedom Caucus doesn’t seem to realize that it wants to make America great again not by governing for the betterment of Wyoming Citizens, but by dictating from above what persons should think and how we should behave. They seem to have reversed the meaning of “free thinking” to be “think like us.”
Wyoming is perhaps the State closest in the country to “rule” by the new free thinkers. Heretofore, the Caucus has been good at criticizing and attacking and complaining. Now they are claiming the power to rule as given in the cute moniker, “five and dime” policy plan.
If they successfully implement their agenda, Wyoming will be an experiment in governance that drives most young people away. The Legislature will be ever more visibly responsible for the decrease in UW enrollment and slow death of creativity and innovation across the State.
The silo of small ideas will dominate for awhile. If I were betting though, I’d bet that enough persons will chafe and free thinking will re-attain its accurate definition and ever more cowboys and cowgirls will enroll at UW in a heady sense of being part of throwing off a repressing regime.
We cannot use the terms ” free thinking” and ” Wyoming Freedom Caucus ” in the same paragraph and keep a straight face.
Interesting. Not since the Cindy Hill bill has legislative leadership decided to prioritize its agenda over committee work and earlier filed bills. And that last attempt didn’t work out so well… But the more interesting part of these bills is who they negatively impact and why. I would appreciate WyoFile telling the human story in its legislative reporting, not just a Freedom Caucus vs. Republican “Moderates” narrative. What is the consequence of these bills? Why should a reader care? Please tell us more.
I always hate the verbiage: “you spoke to us loud and clear” with the assumption that every voter voted for Freedom Caucus members, or that everyone even had a choice other than one of their members. With the exception of property tax relief, that they have flip-flopped on – they are taking on non-problems to pretend to be doing something important and productive by just negatively effecting Wyoming citizens lives or setting Wyoming up lawsuits that will waist tax payer money.
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus made NYT this morning. Are we famous or infamous?
What’s it going to take for the voters to throw these self serving politicians out? Mass die offs of poor people who can’t access health care? Mass traffic deaths because the highway system fails from neglect? Rampant crime because law enforcement is starved of funds? Millions dying from diseases that could have been prevented with vaccines? Complete collapse of everything related to education?
How ugly will it get before we say “enough”? And add all this civilizational collapse to probably billions worldwide dying because of the climate, it is truly a terrifying time. And I haven’t even mentioned the collapse of morals as “decent” people find themselves unable to do anything about the scapegoating of all kinds of minorities. And once it becomes apparent the damage being done by the “Freedom” caucus, will there ever be a way back?
Doesn’t have to be that apocalyptic. Ranked choice voting would be a very good start.
You forgot the most important one, the fact that we can’t even go outside because the sky is falling.