The 2024 Wyoming Legislative Session. Part 3. The start of the budget session.

February 12, 2024

The legislature convenes today.

February 13, 2024

2024.  State of the State, and State of the Judiciary.

I'd comment, but I haven't listened to it yet.

February 15, 2024

Having now listened to it, Governor Gordon's State of the State, it was clearly disappointing.  I can't strongly recall Governor Gordon's prior State of the State speeches, but this was clearly in the category of "red meat" for an intended audience.

The speech pitched to the far right and was full of Wyoming v. The Biden Administration invective, promising lawsuits against the Federal Government and the like, and promising that Wyoming's fossil fuel industry would be relevant in its current form forever.  Gordon only hinted on industry changes being necessary for its survival, but otherwise declared that people have to depend on us whether they like it or not. Gordon knows better, so it was truly a political speech.

Interestingly, it's drawn criticism from some on the far right for being hypocritical.  And there's some merit to that claim.  Gordon has been under fire from the far right for his Carbon Neutrality discussions recently, and rather cynically tried to recast his statements.

"State of the _________" speeches are, quite frankly, approaching the worthless point, if in fact they did not do so sometime ago, as those delivering them just won't be honest in them. Everyone would be stunned if a President gave one that said something like "ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to report the State of the Union is imperiled, and It's because you either won't tell the truth or don't know what it is" or "I'm Gov. Jones, and oh boy, there are a bunch of problems here to solve".

The budget information was, however, interesting.

The Senate voted 17-14 to reinstate Sen. Dave Kinskey, R-Sheridan, as chairman of the Legislature’s most powerful committee after  President Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, unilaterally stripped Kinskey of the position last April. This removed Sen. Tara Nethercott who had been chosen to replace Kinskey.

House Bill 63 outlawing child sex change (mutilation) surgeries failed to secure enough votes for introduction because, oddly, the Freedom Caucus opposed it for not going far enough and House Democrats opposed it for going too far, thereby giving an example of the perfect being the enemy of the good.

February 21, 2024.

House Bill 203, paased the House Revenue Committee. The Bill exempts $200,000 of the fair market value of the assessment of single-family residential properties for this current tax year and $1,000,000 of fair market thereafter in exchange for an additional 2% sales tax.

I have mixed ffeelings about this bill, and I'm mostly mixed against it. Wyomingites fail to appreciate how much they actually depend on tax revenues simply for local governments to function and also are in the odd situation of not equating a host of things that encourage property value inflation with things they don't like.  Basically, a lot of Wyomingites would like the state to remain what it was in some priro decade (and I confess I hold those views) while also having booming local economies and the like.  Things have to give somewhere, and where they've been giving is in inflating property values.  Removing $1M in valuation in this fashion will actually encourage that, and bring about additional problems.

Most people will like the bill, however, until they pay the sales tax, and then they'll be made about that.

And also:

House passes bill to rein in insurance providers

February 22, 2024

The legislature really hit the op eds this morning.

A bill mandating power plants to carbon capture, which is thought of as a way to save coal fire plants and hence coal, was criticized by an engineer as unworkable in the Trib.

Whether its unworkable or not, as a technology, it's likely not cost productive, although I'm not an engineer and can't venture a qualified opinion.

The Freedom Caucus criticized Governor Gordon's budget as unworkable and unsustainable.

Generally, the far populist right is hostile to government in general, and a favorite concept of it has been to "starve" the government to death. That's been tried repeatedly at the Federal level, where it's been forgotten that the Government can just borrow money, mostly from the Chinese, so it still dines out, just on The Bank of the Public Credit Card.  At the local level, however, it can't do that.

Frankly, I've never seen a Wyoming budget that I regarded as containing much fat, so I'm skeptical that this is a big budget.  One item, a raise in government employees salaries, is definitely not unwise spending. The state's employees are under compensated, and sometimes I wonder how they even get by.  Basically all this budget does is to try to catch up, which it doesn't, but at least it does something.

The list of things specifically complaints of is interesting.  Other than an increase in salaries, they are, and we quote:

"$21.8 million for a new gun/firing range.

$10 million in ‘contingency.’

$38 million for “affordable housing.”

$7.5 million to build a new helibase."

I'm not keen on a couple of these things. The "gun/firing range" is the range at the Law Enforcement Academy.  It needs to be rebuilt.  I'm for that.

But to call it a "gun/firing range" is revealing.  

I've noted before the FC is mostly made up of imports from out of state.  Nobody familiar with firearms calls a shooting range a "gun/firing range".

$10,000,000 for contingency seems like a pretty good idea to me.

The money for affordable housing does not, but again probably not for the reasons that the FC views it. Rather, Wyoming has long catered to a weird concept that we can boost industry, bring in people, while keeping everything, including the population size, the same.  That's obviously impossible.

Housing follows demand, and this is a byproduct of what we asked for.  If we don't like getting what we asked for, we ought to modify that.  Government funded housing probably isn't the answer to that.

$7,500,000 is to update the helibase for fighting wildland fires, of which we've been getting a lot. 

I'm for that.

Something final to note.

The budget is bigger because of inflation.

Inflation was caused by a global pandemic followed by Donald Trump's political paramour Vlad Putin invading Ukraine.

Things cost more than they used to.  A budget needs to reflect that.

Regarding a bill to defund UW's Gender Studies and Diversity Office, Sen. Charles Scott stated:

This kind of program was the principal agent of introducing that rot, introducing a faculty that is without diversity of opinion, that is a monolith of wokeness. We’re seeing this rot affect the University of Wyoming.

He also stated that he's discouraging people from attending UW.

February 23, 2024

Chloe's Bill, which was one of two bills seeking to prohibit underage gender mutilation last general session, has cleared committee in this session.  It provides:

SENATE FILE NO. SF0099

Chloe's law-children gender change prohibition.

Sponsored by: Senator(s) Bouchard, Biteman, Boner, Brennan, Dockstader, French, Hicks, Hutchings, Ide, Kinskey, Kolb, Laursen, D, McKeown, Salazar and Steinmetz and Representative(s) Andrew, Davis, Heiner, Hornok, Jennings, Knapp, Locke, Neiman, Niemiec, Ottman, Pendergraft, Penn, Rodriguez-Williams, Slagle, Strock, Styvar, Trujillo and Winter

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to public health and safety; prohibiting physicians from performing procedures for children related to gender transitioning and gender reassignment; providing an exception; providing that gender transitioning and reassignment procedures are grounds for suspension or revocation of a physician's or health care provider's license; providing definitions; specifying applicability; requiring rulemaking; and providing for effective dates.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 35‑4‑1001 is created to read:

ARTICLE 10

GENDER‑RELATED PROCEDURES

35‑4‑1001.  Gender transitioning and reassignment procedures for children prohibited.

(a)  As used in this section:

(i)  "Child" means a person who is younger than eighteen (18) years of age;

(ii)  "Health care provider" means a person other than a physician who is licensed, certified or otherwise authorized by Wyoming law to provide or render health care or to dispense or prescribe a prescription drug in the ordinary course of business or practice of a profession;

(iii)  "Physician" means any person licensed to practice medicine in this state by the state board of medicine under the Medical Practice Act.

(b)  Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section and for purposes of transitioning a child's biological sex as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes and endogenous profiles of the child or affirming the child's perception of the child's sex if that perception is inconsistent with the child's biological sex, no physician or health care provider shall:

(i)  Perform a surgery that sterilizes the child, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty and vaginoplasty;

(ii)  Perform a mastectomy;

(iii)  Provide, administer, prescribe or dispense any of the following prescription drugs that induce transient or permanent infertility:

(A)  Puberty suppression or blocking prescription drugs to stop or delay normal puberty;

(B)  Supraphysiologic doses of testosterone to females;

(C)  Supraphysiologic doses of estrogen to males.

(iv)  Remove any otherwise healthy or nondiseased body part or tissue.

(c)  This section shall not apply to:

(i)  Procedures or treatments that are performed with the consent of the child's parent or guardian and are for a child who is born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development, including 46, XX chromosomes with virilization, 46, XY with undervirilization or both ovarian and testicular tissue;

(ii)  Any procedure or treatment that is performed with the consent of the child's parent or guardian and is for a child with medically verifiable central precocious puberty.

Section 2.  W.S. 33‑21‑146(a)(xi), (xii) and by creating a new paragraph (xiii), 33‑24‑122(a)(intro), (ix) and by creating a new paragraph (xi) and 33‑26‑402(a) by creating a new paragraph (xxxvi) are amended to read:

33‑21‑146.  Disciplining licensees and certificate holders; grounds.

(a)  The board of nursing may refuse to issue or renew, or may suspend or revoke the license, certificate or temporary permit of any person, or to otherwise discipline a licensee or certificate holder, upon proof that the person:

(xi)  Has failed to submit to a mental, physical or medical competency examination following a proper request by the board made pursuant to board rules and regulations and the Wyoming Administrative Procedure Act; or

(xii)  Has violated a previously entered board order;. or

(xiii)  Has violated W.S. 35‑4‑1001.

33‑24‑122.  Revocation or suspension of license and registration; letter of admonition; summary suspension; administrative penalties; probation; grounds.

(a)  The license and registration of any pharmacist may be revoked or suspended by the board of pharmacy or the board may issue a letter of admonition, refuse to issue or renew any license or require successful completion of a rehabilitation program or issue a summary suspension for any one (1) or more of the following causes:

(ix)  For senility or mental impairment which impedes the pharmacist's professional abilities or for habitual personal use of morphine, cocaine or other habit forming drugs or alcohol; or

(xi)  For violating W.S. 35‑4‑1001.

33‑26‑402.  Grounds for suspension; revocation; restriction; imposition of conditions; refusal to renew or other disciplinary action.

(a)  The board may refuse to renew, and may revoke, suspend or restrict a license or take other disciplinary action, including the imposition of conditions or restrictions upon a license on one (1) or more of the following grounds:

(xxxvi)  Violating W.S. 35‑4‑1001.

Section 3.  W.S. 35‑4‑1001, as created by section 1 of this act, shall apply only to conduct or procedures occurring on and after the effective date of this act.

Section 4.  The department of health, state board of medicine and state board of pharmacy shall promulgate all rules necessary to implement this act.

Section 5.  

(a)  Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, this act is effective July 1, 2024.

(b)  Sections 4 and 5 of this act are effective immediately upon completion of all acts necessary for a bill to become law as provided by Article 4, Section 8 of the Wyoming Constitution.

Chloe Cole, whom the bill is named after and who was a victim of the barbarity of gender mutilation in the name of "transgenderism" spoke in favor of the bill.

February 24, 2024

So, week two is over.  The results so far:

The 2024 Wyoming Legislative Session. Part 3 Appendix. Bill Status at the end of Week 2.

The Senate and the House are $900,000,000 apart in their respective budget bills, which is not a good sign at all,  Part of that is due to the rise of the populist right in the House, which is hostile to government.  An op ed earlier this week by Freedom Caucus members complained about the budget.

The higher number frankly seems reasonable to me.  Raises of state employee salaries are certainly merited. Some government infrastructure, such as a heliport for fire fighting, fits into the category of things we'll regret later if not funded, probably after this episode in populism is over, which there are early signs may be coming.

Most but not all of the really populist bills have bitten the dust, showing that in spite of big predictions going into this session, the populist don't have enough pull to really get their agenda considered. There are some exceptions, but those exceptions pretty much uniformly feature broad support and can't, therefore, be considered solely populist.

An example of that is Chloe's Law, which was introduced last session and is back.  Of interest there, its being advanced by Anthony Bouchard, who was an extremely controversial member of the legislature at one time but no longer seem to be.  Moreover, he doesn't seem to be a member of the populist far right group in the legislature.  Interesting, he was one of the very first ones, but during his race for the House he seems to have cut loose from them.  

The bill to go from property taxes for local funds to a sales tax advanced, but barely.  In its first reading, it passed by a mere two votes.

Given that, my prediction is that it'll go down in defeat.

Politic were being played with the pristine Kelly Parcel in Teton County, with a bill being introduced to hold it hostage if the BLM doesn't bend its knee on the Resource Management Plan for the Rock Springs area, which is flatly just sad.   There were amendments at the same time to require that it continue to be used for grazing and hunting, which do seem like good ideas to me.

And so we're on to week three, which a massive gap in the budget to work out.

Appendix:

The 2024 Wyoming Legislative Session. Part 2 Appendix. The start of the budget session.

Last Prior Edition.

The 2024 Wyoming Legislative Session. Pulling into the station (Part 2)