When a state judge struck down three abortion laws last week, it wasn’t the first time the Wyoming Constitution stood in the way of lawmakers who want to restrict or ban the procedure.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal constitutional right to an abortion in 2022, the Wyoming Legislature has passed bans and various other laws intended to limit or eliminate access to abortion. None have withstood the scrutiny of the judicial branch.
Instead, a voter-approved amendment to the Wyoming Constitution that protects individuals’ rights to make their own healthcare decisions has thwarted those legislative attempts. The judiciary has consistently pointed to this amendment in its rulings, including in January when the Wyoming Supreme Court struck down two bans.
While Gov. Mark Gordon and some lawmakers have suggested putting the issue back in voters’ hands by passing a resolution to amend the constitution, others say the problem lies in the third branch of government.
“We’re battling an activist court,” Speaker of the House Chip Neiman told WyoFile on Monday.
Neiman, a member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, sponsored a law struck down Friday that required patients seeking abortion medications to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound and a 48-hour waiting period.
Other caucus members criticized the courts online, including its chairman, Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, R-Cody.
“Those controlling much of our judicial branch are hell bent on legalizing the killing of preborn babies,” she wrote in a post on X.
The Freedom Caucus has previously described the high court as “weak judges” and “woke attorneys,” and some of its members met privately in January to discuss reducing the bench from five justices to three. Soon after, in her first State of the Judiciary, Chief Justice Lynne Boomgaarden defended Wyoming’s high court and explained why the judiciary lets its decisions speak for themselves.
“There is no greater threat to a stable system of government than the weakening of the judicial branch for political gain,” Boomgaarden said.
There’s also been talk among lawmakers of changing the state’s system for nominating judges. In Wyoming, members of the state bar apply for open judgeships. A commission, which includes three state bar members and three citizens appointed by the governor, vets those applicants. The governor makes the final selection.
Changing that process, Neiman told WyoFile, “is gaining a lot of momentum.” Though he’s not opposed to a constitutional amendment, Neiman said, “I’m of the mind, it’s like, well, we have the right to pass legislation, and the Dobbs decision clearly said that.”
But what avenues the Legislature pursues, Neiman said, will depend on the outcome of the upcoming election, as the Freedom Caucus seeks to grow its majority in the House and gain control of the Senate.
In 2024, the University of Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center polled state residents on a number of topics, including their views on the state’s judges. At that time, only 13% of Wyomingites said they disapproved of how Wyoming judges handled their jobs.
Amending the constitution
The Wyoming Constitution can only be amended by voters at the ballot box or via a constitutional convention, but both options rely on the Legislature to start the process.
Voters, for example, amended the constitution in 2012 to protect healthcare decisions after a push by conservatives who feared the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, would lead to government overreach.
Earlier this year, the governor encouraged the Legislature to give voters another chance to amend the constitution.
“The question of abortion deserves careful deliberation,” Gordon said in his State of the State address on opening day of the 2026 budget session. “I urge the Legislature to take up this issue earnestly and put forward a genuine solution to the voters of Wyoming that provides a clear, irrefutable, durable and morally sound resolution to this fraught issue.”
At that point, Casper Republican Rep. Elissa Campbell announced she would bring legislation to let voters decide whether to prohibit abortion through a constitutional amendment. The bill, however, never appeared on the session’s docket. Campbell did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment.
In the Senate, Riverton Republican Sen. Tim Salazar brought his own version.
“This amendment is a simple fix,” he said Feb. 12 on the Senate floor, describing a resolution that had been drafted in light of the Supreme Court’s January decision.
If approved by lawmakers and then voters, it would have given the Legislature the authority to determine “what constitutes health care” for the purposes of the section of the constitution that protects healthcare decisions.
“It does not decide any of those important issues. It doesn’t take away anyone’s rights,” Salazar said on the floor. “It just makes sure that in the realm of healthcare, the branch of government closest to the people, can do what it was created to do — to pass laws that protect the health and safety of the public — and that those laws get the same scrutiny as any other laws that we pass. I ask for your vote.”
The resolution failed to get the required two-thirds support by one vote. That surprised Neiman, who criticized Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, for voting against it. Neiman is now challenging Driskill for his seat.
Driskill, who describes himself as “very pro-life,” told WyoFile a constitutional amendment is the right vehicle. However, he said he didn’t support Salazar’s resolution because of the timing.
“If you’re going to bring a constitutional amendment, it really needs to go through an interim process and be highly vetted,” Driskill said. Otherwise, he said, lawmakers risk enacting an amendment that has unintended consequences, such as the one from 2012.
Driskill also said he supports the court system, but is open to discussing changes to how judges are appointed.
“Do we have all activist judges in the state of Wyoming? I think the answer is clearly no,” Driskill said. “We’ve got some people that are pretty disgruntled because they didn’t rule in their favor, and that always happens to the court system. It doesn’t matter who comes. One thing that courts do, they pick winners and losers, and the losers always feel like they’ve been wronged by the system.”
Whether voters would approve a ban on abortion remains uncertain. In 1994, the state’s voters soundly rejected a constitutional amendment banning abortion. Polling conducted since that time shows voters here have mixed views on abortion restrictions.
‘Normal interplay’
Worland Republican Rep. Martha Lawley told WyoFile she was disappointed in Friday’s ruling, particularly in that it struck down a law she authored.
“I haven’t had a chance to study [the] opinion on this most recent ruling,” Lawley, an attorney, said. “But I’m kind of surprised, and it will be interesting to see what happens next.”
In 2025, Lawley sponsored a successful bill to create a set of new and more stringent regulations on clinics that perform abortions, arguing the legislation was a necessary safety measure. Critics, meanwhile, said the law wasn’t medically necessary and effectively made the operation of abortion clinics unfeasible.
Though the law was struck down, Lawley said she remains optimistic because “we have now positioned a good number of issues to go back to the [Wyoming] Supreme Court.”
Lawley, who is not affiliated with the Freedom Caucus, said she sees the ongoing court battle over abortion in Wyoming as “normal interplay” between two branches of government.
“I am respecting the interaction and interplay between the legislative and judicial branches, because I respect the rule of law, and this is how we develop the rule of law,” Lawley said.
The Legislature makes laws, she said, and it’s the court’s job to determine whether they’re constitutional. If a law gets struck down, she said, then it’s up to the Legislature to respond with policy that is tailored to those rulings.
“I think you see that with the heartbeat bill,” Lawley said, pointing to a law passed earlier this year that bans abortion in all but the earliest days of pregnancy. In April, a judge temporarily halted its enforcement.
