The 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Part 3. The Confederate Legislature Edition.

 

February 9, 2026.

The 2026 Wyoming legislature commences today. 

It'll be the first one controlled by the Confederate Carpetbagger Caucus and therefore the first Wyoming legislature ever that doesn't have a strong element of moderation built into it.  The carpetbaggers of the WFC captured it, backed in no small part by riding the Trump wave, the collapse of the stability of the oil and gas industry (which was never all that stable) and oddly enough a series of warm winters that would have sent a lot of these people back to where they were from.  Instead, they stayed and brought their Dixiecrat disgruntlement into the state.

It seems that people are actually starting to wake up to them in numbers for the first time. They're gutting UW, education, and local governments, as people living in 1930s Alabama don't need none o' that stuff.  They've brought in with them a certain American sort of far right Evangelical view as well, something extremely foreign to the state.  And they're backed by money from out of state, one of which sends around Instagram messages as "Honor Wyoming" but which does anything but.  

Wyomingites who thought the WFC were just conservative have been shocked to find that ain't so.

The thing is, it might be too late.  Or it might not be.  They have the numbers not to do a lot of things, but they don't have the numbers to override vetoes.

This is a budget session, so it should only have 20 working days.  That hasn't stopped legislators from trying to introduce all sorts of things in the past, and it won't this year.  Here' are the prefiled bills:

2026 Wyoming Legislation.*

There are a lot of weird laws in this pack, but I'm just going to start off with this WFC one.  HB 01119 would ban the use of "foreign law" in Wyoming, and under its own terms, accidentally wipe out the complete body of civil law in the state, which specifically was adopted as being English Common Law.

This is an example of the sort of ignorant paranoia on the far right that preserved abortion in Wyoming.

Cont:  

The Governor and Chief Justice spoke.

Senate File 51, allowing for transferable landowner tags, a terrible wildlife privatization concept, died on introduction.

The Confederate Caucus revealed its agenda.

Wyoming Freedom Caucus Unveils 2026 Agenda Outside Wyoming Capitol

Prohibiting infanticide, I'd note, is something I agree with, but it's the far right's fault that it was preserved in Wyoming, which they need to wake up to.

Footnotes:

*In past years I ran the table of bills and much of the text of various bills on the trailing thread for that  year's legislature.  It made for lots of threads that grew really long.

That's hard to slog through, so this year I'm trying something different and putting that stuff on a seperate page.  It's up as a link now, but it'll likely go down as a link, although still be possible to bring up from the threads, when the 2026 Legislature is thankfully over.

February 10, 2025

The Confederate Caucus isn't starting off with much success. Wyoming voters apparently have awakened about them and their representation is taking note.

Six Of Seven Election Reform Bills Killed On Monday, Freedom Caucus Not Happy

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.

Wyoming House Kills Bill To Change How Schools Get Money, Senate Could Save It

The Confederates went to their playbook and blamed "liberal Republicans", which really don't exist in Wyoming's legislature.

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:

2026 Wyoming Legislation.*

February 11, 2026

Gordon: It's Refreshing To See So Many Bills Die Because It's A Budget Session, After All

It is, although it does point out the need to end the WFC's chapter in Wyoming politics, as next year may well be different.

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.

Wyoming Freedom Caucus in Cheyenne.

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.

Guest Column: Proud Of Wyoming And UW – And If You Take Time To Learn, I Bet You Will Be Too Guest columnist Marilyn Kite writes, "Most Wyoming citizens are proud of our state. But today, we hear attacks. Where all these attacks are coming from is a puzzle, but they are likely driven by out of state forces that know little about our history and public assets."

Tom Lubnau: Puppets, Phones, and Power — Inside Wyoming’s Shadow Legislature Columnist Tom Lubnau writes, "We know money changed hands – on the house floor. And during floor debate, you can routinely watch legislators read directly from their phones. We do not know who is scripting the debate."

Donor: Two checks given to Bextel were intended for pair of Wyoming Legislature’s most powerful lawmakers

Last edition:

The 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Part 2. Pre Legislative Committee Edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2025, 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Economics, Education, Ignorance, Mark Gordon, National Public Radio, Radio, Sports, Taxes, Tom Lubnau, Wyoming Freedom Caucus

Monday August 1, 1921. Looking at the 300th Anniversary of the founding of Plymouth, MA, from the prospective of the 400th

On this day in 1921, President Harding addressed a crowd at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of an English colony there.  Why they regarded the founding as 1621 in 1921, and we regard it as 1620 in 2021, isn't really clear to me.

At any rate, apparently this year there's been trouble actually figuring out how to celebrate the anniversary, with COVID 19 playing a definite role in that.  Celebrations planned last year were pushed into this year, and a news story indicates they're still up in the air.

A 400th anniversary only comes about once, of course, so something ought to be done to mark the event, although the big shadow that hangs over it is the reassessment of the country's early history and its association with colonization, imperialism, and race.  This started prior to 2021 with the New York Times releasing its 1620 Project, which has been controversial, and under the Trump Administration sparked the 1776 Project, which in turn was immediately terminated following the election of President Biden.  Nonetheless, this may be an event which the dampening impact of SARS-CoV-2 which is oddly a good thing in some ways, although the disease and pandemic certainly are not.

On the same day, President Harding informed Congress that the US was obligated to loan $5,000,000 to Liberia under an agreement reached in September, 1918.  The loan itself had come about in the context of World War One, and was part of an inducement for the Liberian declaration of war against Germany.  Germany had constituted 75% of Liberian trade prior to the war.

It was the first flight for the Curtis CR-1, a racing airplane designed for the U.S. Navy.

A grand total of four were built.

If it seems odd that a racing plane was built for the navy, racing aircraft were a major feature of fighter, or as they were then called "pursuit" aircraft development between the wars. Even the Supermarine Spitfire was developed from a racer.

The relationship between the CR-1 and the Curtis Hawk series of biplane fighters is obvious.

Curtis P-6.

I've always thought the P-6 was one of the most beautiful biplanes every built.

In Spain, riots broke out and troops mutinied over recent Spanish defeats in Morocco. At this point, in fact, Spanish Morocco was in control of the Rifian government, save for a small portion still held by the Spanish.

December 21, 1620. The Mayflower Passengers Land.

 That is, exactly 400 years ago.

The landing was partially precipitated by the fact that the Mayflower had run out of beer, which was a more important matter than it might sound.  The English were overall used to drinking beer, but the reason was that beer, because of the way that it was made, was safe to drink. Running out of things to drink is bad anyway you look at it.

In modern times its become common to levy all sort of criticism and virtue signaling on this event, noting how "horrible" Europeans were for colonizing North America.  All of that views the world from was the comfortable late 20th and early 21st Century prospective which has only been shook up a little by the visitation of a plague upon is, something that people in the 17th Century regarded as one of life's norms.  It is true, of course, that the Mayflower passengers were essentially landing where they weren't invited to take land that wasn't theirs, but they didn't see it that way. And its important to remember that the native residents of the land that they were essentially if unknowingly invading viewed the world much differently than anyone in North America does today, through eyes that tended to regard their own tribes as "the people" with everyone else being some sort of alien people.

Indeed, the Mayflower passengers were only in possession of marginally technically superior implements than their unwilling hosts, who themselves were a more or less constant state of war, near war, or soon to be war, with their neighbors.  It's not true, as some have suggested as a reactionary counterfactual, that the Europeans were regarded as one more tribe. They were definitely different. But early on the technological advantage that's so often assumed to be there simply wasn't.  In warfare the natives were every bit the equals, and maybe the superiors in every sense to the new arrivals.

And none of this is to suggest the old grade school version of the "pilgrims" either. They were religious bigots whose situation was brought about by the fact that they couldn't get along at all with the Church of England or darned near anyone else.  They would have regarded Catholics, which all the British had been less than a century ago, as heretics and they didn't view the Church of England cheerfully.  They had adopted very rigorous concepts of Calvinism and regarded most people damned by God to Hell from the moment of their conception, a novelty that no  Christian had held before the Reformation.  Our concept of them and what they approved of and didn't approve of is accordingly massively off the mark.  They approved of piety, but because it was temporal proof of their predestination. As noted, unlike many who look back to them now as religious ancestors, they approved of alcohol as well.  They were also huge supporters of marital sex, which is something we don't associate their piety with.

They disapproved of most forms of entertainment, which was another thing that had gotten them in trouble in Europe.  They required church attendance on Sunday by law, but then that was also a legal norm in much of Europe. They'd approved of the Calvinist ban of sports on Sunday in England during the Cromwell era.

Not everyone on board the Mayflower was a member of their group by any means.  Indeed, the "pilgrim" passengers.  The ship held 102 passengers but some were just that, not religious dissenters.  Be that as it may, the puritans dominated the ship in culture and conduct, and as colonist.

Their journey was no doubt arduous, and coming in winter, risky in more ways than one.  One person died on the way, and another was born.

I personally have no known connection with them.  The first of my ancestors to set sail across the Atlantic for the New World left from Normandy, not Holland, and arrived in Quebec, not New England.  I'm completely comfortable with that.  But my much more American by ancestry wife has a demonstrated ancestral connection with the 102 passengers of the Mayflower but, as her curiosity on historical matters is much lower than mine, if I asked her right now who it was, she wouldn't recall, and wouldn't be interested in looking it up. Still, that means my two children likewise have ancestors who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620.

And its important to note, that really was something, no matter how human or failed those people may have been.  I can't say, as I look around, that people are doing much better in any segment of human conduct today.

September 16, 1620. The day the "Pilgrims" . . .

 set sail for the New World.

It was at sea for ten weeks, putting in near Cape Cod on November 11, 1620.

August 27, 1920. Recalling Plymouth Rock.

Three hundredth anniversary of the landing of the pilgrims, Provincetown, Mass., August 27, 1920