School funding bill dies in Wyoming House: The Legislature is constitutionally required to undergo so-called ‘recalibration.’ The bill, drafted in the legislative off season, was unpopular among educators.
Some other stupid bills died as well, including the paranoid geoengineering bill and a constitutional amendment on property tax valuation.
The Business Council seems to have survived.
It's a budget session, we need to keep in mind, so 2/3s of a body is needed to introduce a bill.
Lawmakers kill dozens of bills on budget session’s first day
More data here:
February 11, 2026
Gordon: It's Refreshing To See So Many Bills Die Because It's A Budget Session, After All
Wyoming Freedom Caucus calls foul on committee bill decimation: In a blow to the Republican group’s majority bloc, 21 committee bills failed introduction on Monday in the House— more than twice the number the caucus killed in the last budget session, when it was in the minority.
Funny, the Confederate Caucus was just beginning to make a stumbling effort to counter the growing "you're batshit crazy" movement countering them with "it's democracy", dragging out Cassie Cravens to with some potted meat, when now they're crying foul about how democracy works.
Amongst the WFC's members, a fellow in the news a lot recently had a bad result.
Allemand-sponsored nuclear waste bill fails Wyoming House introduction
And this:
Wyoming House Kills Bill To Make Counties Pay Costs For Self-Defense Acquittals
And this is interesting:
Guest Column: The Hidden Price of Tax Relief — What Every Wyoming Citizen Should Know
It's interesting in part as Steinmetz, the author, is an "ally" of the WFC, and she's breaking ranks.
I will say the "hidden" aspect of this is complete crap. Anyone who paid attention, including anyone in the WFC who was following, knew that this would gut local entities like a fish. For the most part, they simply didn't care.
Indeed, the carpetbagger element of this is really strong here. WFC supporters include a fair amount of carpetbaggers who moved in here from other state, bought property at inflated values, and don't want to be taxed. They really don't care if towns and cities don't have services or if kids aren't educated. They raised their kids elsewhere and, American style, abandoned them somewhere else. They're happy to sit i in their McMansions in a town with no local services as they're old and they aren't going to use them.
But now legislators are hearing from people who are from here, and who want a police department, a fire department, decent towns, and to educate their kids.
February 13, 2026
Wyoming lawmakers will investigate checks activist gave to legislators on House floor: The incident in question occurred Monday night when Rebecca Bextel of Jackson handed out campaign donation checks. The House voted unanimously in support of the investigation.
Change to Wyoming law to recognize legality of corner crossing clears early hurdles: Although it’s been smooth sailing so far, the measure still has “98 yards to go” in the legislative process and faces opposition from influential parties.
Bill to put abortion-related question to voters fails Senate introduction: The measure would have asked voters to amend the Wyoming Constitution so the Legislature can define health care. It comes on the heels of a Wyoming Supreme Court decision striking down state abortion bans.
On the last item, the ghost of the constitutional amendment regarding "health care" now appears in the legislature, which provided the reason that some Republicans voted against the bill.
February 14, 2026, Valentine's Day.
Well, the first week of the legislature is over and it proved to be an interesting, and surprising, one.
The Confederate Carpetbagger Caucus went into the session with its orders from out of state interests and extreme right wing agenda and ran right into, well, Wyomingites.
It also ran into its own ignorance.
Full of piss and vinegar, the collection of carpetbaggers and carpetbagger drones simply figured it had the numbers and it was going to return the state to November 11, 1620. It forgot, apparently, that in a budget session it needs a supermajority to introduce legislation, and while it may have the majority, it doesn't have that.
It was also taken off guard by a sudden rise in attention to it by regular people from the state, which now that they are more informed, are starting to organize against it. They haven't been able to get back on their feet from that, with perhaps the most pathetic response being Cassie Craven's "but don't you still love us?".
We never did.
All this is bad news for the WFC as it may have shot its bolt. Candidates are starting to come out to take them on, as evidenced by the Mayor of Bar Nunn coming out against Freedom Caucuser Bill Allemand.
And the exposing of their money supply hasn't been a good thing for any of them, even though those who were watching them carefully knew about it all along. Likewise, that they were fed canned legislation was well known, but it was not known that they were basically fed instructions on what to do.
Amongst those whom its not good news for is Chuck Gray, who turned the state's voters roles over to his beloved, Donald Trump, because Donny asked for them. Gray adores Trump like a teenage bride adores her husband and is making that the gist of his campaign, Trump Love, but he's responsible for a bunch of WFC voting bills that went down in flames. He's running for the House against Jillian Balow, Reid Ransner and David Giralt. I suspect that this sort of thing really starts to boost Balow. Gray is really detested by a lot of people to start with, and Giralt to unknown. Rasner is a gadfly. Gray's term as Secretary of State end in January, 2027 and if he doesn't secure the House his political career in the state is at an end.
Amongst the bill casualties so far has been the bill on abortion. This also signifies, fwie, a return of Wyoming politics to the middle. I'm opposed to abortion so I would like to have seen that bill advance, but it's the case that for eons Wyoming Republicans opposed abortion more or less, but wouldn't act to make it illegal. The first time that the legislature ever passed anything doing that was right after Dodds, and that's the statute, or statutes, that died in court. It was killed there by an amendment to the constitution that was designed to protect individual health care decisions from the fantasy of AHCA death panes, and it became a death panel itself. So effectively the state returns to the status quo ante on abortion, thanks to the GOP in the first place.
So we'll see what next week brings.
February 15, 2026
And, finishing up this past week:
Laramie County sheriff launches criminal investigation into Wyoming Legislature check controversy: The inquiry will examine whether campaign donation checks distributed to lawmakers amount to bribery.
Sheriff Investigating Check Passing Scandal In Wyoming Legislature
I suppose it shouldn't surprise anyone too much to learn that Bextel, the check giver, is from Alabama, although she lived in Guatemala as a Protestant missionary, that part of the world having Protestant missions that seek to convert people who are already Christians. She's been in Wyoming about twenty years.
It'll probably turn out not to be criminal, but the act of giving out checks on the floor was monumentally dumb, as was the act of receiving them that way.
Cheyenne Roundup 2026: Episode 2 | Checkgate, dead bills and the start of the session: Bills are flying and dying in the Wyoming Legislature’s budget session. And lawmakers haven’t even touched the budget itself yet.
Related threads:
In Full Debate On University of Wyoming Budget Cuts, Lawmakers Ask If It's Retaliation The Wyoming House and Senate debated a $40 million cut to the University of Wyoming on Thursday, with the budget committee co-chair John Bear confirming the number was meant to "get their attention." He said legislative directives on DEI were ignored.
Last edition:
No comments:
Post a Comment