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

 

November 15, 2025

Wyoming ‘Tim Tebow’ Rule Heads To Lawmaking Session

I'm frankly not keen on this at all.  Playing sports and being in activities are vital parts of school.  They help socialization.  Parents who seek to avoid socialization are harming their children and there are nwo a lot of private school options that would be better choices for those seeking to evade the perceived dangers, often fictional, of public schools

A long time legislator has passed away.

John Eklund, Longtime Wyoming Lawmaker And Rancher, Dies At 74

Wyoming Rep. John Eklund dies: Legislators say they will remember Eklund for his mentorship, kind spirit and thoughtful approach to lawmaking.

November 18, 2025

Governor Gordon Proposes $11.13 Billion Two-Year Budget

November 19, 2025

Gray 'Alarmed' Gordon Doesn't Back His Request For Extra Money

Curt Meier, however, praised it.

The Secretary of State received $200,000 less than it asked for.

Here’s what Gov. Mark Gordon is proposing for Wyoming’s next budget: The governor's $11.1 billion request would boost state worker pay, bolster wildfire-fighting capacity and renovate the veterans home in Buffalo, among other things.

Wyoming Lawmakers Advance Five Bills To Rein In Slot-Machine-Like Gaming

Wyoming Horse Racing Is Thriving, But Legislators Want More Regulation

November 22, 2025

This is flat out irresponsible and insane:

Wyoming Legislators Advance Plan To Kill All Residential Property Taxes

December 16, 2025

Five takeaways from the Wyoming Legislature’s budget hearings: The Joint Appropriations Committee wrapped up its first round of hearings Friday.

December 19, 2025

 A Q&A with Pine Bluffs’ Justin Fornstrom, Wyoming’s newest state lawmaker: Laramie County commissioners selected Fornstrom to represent a House seat vacated by the late John Eklund.

January 8, 2026

We had this news posted here yesterday:

Abortion in Wyoming and the Law of Unintended Consequences.

 This is what happens when a dumb, paranoid,  amendment to the Constitution is made.

The amendment that brought down the state's abortion laws was passed due to right wing paranoia that the AHCA would create "death panels". That fear was frankly stupid, but it was adopted by far right Republicans who really believed it.  The prime architect of the amendment has gone on record that he'd feel awful if the amendment caused the abortion laws to fail, and in fact he should feel awful.

I'll confess that when I first posted this, I was harsher on the paranoia of the Wyoming Republican Party that gave us the dumbass head in the sand amendment to the Wyoming Constitution based on fear of the ACHA.  I'm obviously being less kind here.

Anyhow, the Tribune notes:

Wyoming Republicans seek to amend constitution

The flaming dipshits that passed the amendment that caused this to occur in the first place ought to just repeal that amendment.  Indeed, they ought to cal lit "B______ B_________was a dumbass paranoid moron amendment repeal".

They won't, as the best thing to do when somebody does something rampagingly stupid is to double down on the stupidity, apparently. After all, look at the ongoing Republican support for Donald Dipshit Trump.

Anyhow, they're going to address their failure with a proposed amendment to the Constitution. That amendment will fail to get support from the electorate, which they'll find basically likes the idea of killing babies as it means they can complain about gays and the transgendered while being sexually immoral themselves.

January 9, 2026

Rep. Elissa Campbell files resolution for Wyoming abortion amendment

That was fast.

Wyoming Democrats, I'd note, are making the classic blunder.  They should simply say nothing at all, and not go out to own a result that they don't really own.  The Wyoming Supreme Court's ruling came about as the far right of the Wyoming GOP went out and shot itself in the foot.  Now it's going to go to the voters.  A smart Democratic policy would be just to sit back and do nothing at all.  But, they  just can't help themselves:

Laramie lawmakers celebrate abortion ruling

The state supreme court ruled abortion is a fundamental constitutional right. Provenza, Chestek and Rothfuss say it’s a win for individual liberty and they’ll resist calls to change the constitution.

Chances are high that not enough Wyoming voters are going to vote for the proposed constitutional amendment for it to pass, and if there are, the Democrats are going to effect that anyhow.  Indeed, by making it an issue and embracing abortion, it'll drive GOP voters who likely would vote against the amendment or sit the election out, into voting as they'll want to vote against the Democrats.  Given the immorality of abortion, it's truly an example of errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum.

January 10, 2026

Lawmaker Unveils Bill To Prevent DUI Charges For Drunk Horseback Riding

January 13, 2026

Wyoming Freedom Caucus aims at state spending, voting machines and the judicial branch in 2026 priorities: The group of conservative Republicans has promised cuts since last spring, but won’t say where and how deep.

Lawmakers question Wyoming Public Media’s funding

The public radio station is headquartered on the UW campus and receives some state funding via UW’s block grant. WPM weathered a 10% cut when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was axed.

January 14, 2026

The freakishly dumb caucus votes to keep everyone else as dumb as possible.

Lawmakers vote to axe UW’s block grant, defund Wyoming Public Media: Wyoming Freedom Caucus members on a key budget committee take aim at the state’s lone four-year public university.

Wyoming Lawmakers Propose Cutting Governor's Budget To UW By $61 Million

My opinion, of course, is harsh, but frankly many of the Dukes of Hazzard crowd in the Freely Dumb Caucus don't trust education.  People who are educated don't believe the same dumb stuff they do, so they don't like it.

And they're going after the Wyoming Business Council.

Legislators Vote To Defund And Dismantle Wyoming Business Council

This one at its core is a completely unthinking objection to socialism.  We don't like socialism, because it's socialism.  Not much more thought behind it than that.

I'll often hear that the WBC picks "winners and losers" which might be right, but the state's economy otherwise is pretty much making all Wyomingites losers.

January 16, 2026

Gov's Office: "This Is Nuts" As Bill To Kill Wyo Biz Council Heads To Legislature

January 17, 2016

Sigh . . . 

Rep. John Bear Calls Sen. Ogden Driskill A ‘Doofus’ In Clash Over Budget

January 24, 2026

Going Feral: Lawmaker Unveils Bill To Sell Between 30,000 And 2...: Another moronic idea by a Wyoming Republican, a party which seems to draw from the endless well of bad ideas. Wasserburger is going right on...

Jacob Wasserburger came up with this bad idea, but it sounds a lot like he's been sitting around with Mike Lee, the Senator from Deseret.  He's signed on to the no prescription for Ivermectin act as well, these two things indicating that he's hanging out with, in not in, the Freedom Caucus.

January 27, 2026

Nuclear waste, state land use top Wyoming Legislature’s energy agenda: Recent controversies over sprawling energy development have triggered a slate of bills to empower voters and communities in state-level energy ambitions.

The assault on education in the legislature continues on:

After pushback, legislative committee scales back proposed cuts to public education: Lawmakers tweaked provisions that would have increased class size and omitted positions like school counselors from the funding model. This came after hours of testimony, much in opposition.

Noble act from the football coach.

Wyoming Football Coach Jay Sawvel Cuts Salary $125K To Boost Player Funding

When things are so bad that even UW football is cutting back, you know the "we don't need no education" crowd is way out of control.

The following should be a hard "no". 

Rep. Bill Allemand asks judge to rescind court-ordered alcohol testing during upcoming legislative session: The Midwest lawmaker is contesting his DUI charge following his arrest last month in Johnson County.

Tracking Shot Bears With Dogs Would Be Legal Under Hunting Bill

January 28, 2026

Wyoming Lawmakers Reverse Course, Will Not Deny $58 Million In Medicaid

Bill Would Force Wyoming Counties To Pay Self-Defense Legal Fees

January 29, 2026

Judge Orders Wyoming Rep. Allemand To Submit To Alcohol Testing During Session

Last edition:

The 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Part 1. The way too early edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2025, 2026, 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Agriculture, Court, Democratic Party, Gomers, Municipal Organizations, Municipalities, Nuclear power, police, Taxes, Wyoming Freedom Caucus

Wyoming Board of Equalization volleys on the residential property tax cap.

First: 

Wyoming Board of Equalization readies lawsuit challenging residential property tax cap: A complaint, expected Jan. 22, will argue the law, which the Legislature adopted in 2024, is unconstitutional. 

 And then:

Gordon quashes Board of Equalization lawsuit against property tax cap: The move by the governor comes a day after WyoFile reported that the board was planning to mount a legal challenge against another state agency.

I wonder if this is really over? 

Gordon To Gray At Wind Meeting: 'Do You Want To Step Outside?'

 

Gordon To Gray At Wind Meeting: 'Do You Want To Step Outside?'

The 2026 Election, 3rd Edition: The Self Inflicted Wound Edition.

And can they recover?

A major turn occured in the Wyoming election when all three of Wyoming's congressional delegation members supported Mike Lee's Deseret Dream to swipe Federal lands for land raping purposes.  The move was hugely, overwhelmingly, unpopular in Wyoming, but the delegation in part assessed the voters dim, and in part, trusted on them to forget.

Right now, it doesn't look like they will.

And the candidate are beginning to line up.  We have, so far:

Governor:

GOP.

Eric Barlow. Barlow is a state senator from the 23rd district and announced earlier this week. So far, he's receiving a lot of accolades from the none Freedom Caucus Republicans and condemnations from the populist Freedom Caucus, which frankly makes him the front runner.  

Brent Bien.  Bien is retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel and another member of the recent Wyoming crowd who declares "after sucking on the government tit my whole life I hate the government and know best for people who haven't had such secure jobs as me".  He's on the far right.

Joseph Kibler.  Kibler is a web designer and might as well drop out right now.

Reid Ranser.  Far right gadfly who doomed his chances, which were non existent anyway, by filing a lawsuit which states that he's a homosexual and was slandered by certain GOP figures.  The slander aside, branding yourself as a homosexual is a bad political move in this atmosphere.  He's highly likely not to be the only homosexual running for a statewide office or perhaps in office, but Wyomingites tend not to draw attention to themselves in that manner during an era such as the one we currently live in.

Waiting in the wings are Chuck Gray, who is already campaigning for something on the far right wing of the far right, save when it comes to nuclear power, were the populist are flower children, so he is too.  Holding Gray up is Harriet Hageman, who seems likely to try to run, but whose position in opposition to the Federal lands is likely to sink any campaign of hers, or at least seriously damage it.

Also waiting in the wings is Mark Gordon, who has clearly not wanted Gray to replace him.  With Barlow throwing his broad brim in the ring, he likely won't run now.

August 15, 2025

This is interesting:

Wyoming crowd boos Hageman retort that protections against greenhouse gases based on ‘false science’

Wyoming crowd boos Hageman retort that protections against greenhouse gases based on ‘false science’: U.S. Rep. Hageman's comment didn't go over well in Pinedale, where residents struggled for years to clean up health-threatening pollution from oil and gas drilling.

Pinedale calls itself the "Icebox of the Nation" and the introduction of oil and gas operations near it are relatively new.  Given both of those, it clearly didn't drink the GOP Koolaide on global warming being a fib.

Hageman has so far received rough crewed treatment in Pinedale, Rock Springs, and Laramie. I suspect she would in Casper as well.  I also suspect she might want to start thinking about selling her house in D.C. and looking to move back to her brother's ranch, as she may be out of work next year. 

Labels: 2020s, 2025, 2026, 2026 Election, Climate Change, Harriet Hageman, Petroleum, Wyoming (Pinedale), Wyoming (Sublette County)

Wyoming has been a prime example of "if I make money from it, it must be perfectly okay".  If we could grow big fields of opium here, we'd be loudly in favor of heroin.

Given that, and given that a lot of Wyomingites are imports from warmer regions of the country, people here are huge climate change deniers, even though if you've lived here your whole life its extremely obvious that its going on.  

And Hageman comes from the agricultural which is bizarrely resistant to accepting the reality of climate change, even though if nothing is done, it'll destroy their livelihoods.

So she no doubt thought stepping in front of a Sublette  County audience would mean that the "climate change is a fib" line would be well received.  It wasn't.

Something is finally really starting to change here.  Part of it is that people are waking up to reality, and part of it is that Hageman took a stand for something Wyomingites detest, transfering the Federal lands, and then basically asserted we were dumb for not supporting it ourselves.  She's so all in on these positions, she really can't change them, and stepping in front of audiences makes her situation worse.

August 20, 2025

Congressman Elsie Stephanik was booked off of a New York stage two days ago.

Stephanik likely sacrificed her career for Trump.

Elsie of course crawled into bed with Trump.  She originally was opposed to him.  Harriet Hageman, on the other hand, was never openly opposed to Trump and took the seat of her former friend Liz Cheney opportunistically.

Hageman has had a lot of simple adoring fans since that time, but the bloom is really off the rose.  She was booed in deeply Republican Sublette County last week, and received a hostile crowd in Casper on Monday night.  Indeed, the Casper event was notably not only for the outright hostility to Hageman, but to extent to which a lot of Republicans flatly did not show up leaving a lot of room in the auditorium.

Hageman had her sights set on the Governor's mansion and still might.  If nothing else, she's doubling down on her position on everything.  But that ship has likely sailed, and she stands a good chance, right now, of having to vacate her Congressional seat.

August 29, 2025

And yet. . . 

Joseph Kibler running for governor on promise of ‘being something different

being yet another carpetbagger coming in and complaining of too much bureaucracy, particularly in a state you just moved to, isn't actually different.

September 30, 2025

Sec. Gray has flagged over 2,000 Wyoming voters for County Clerks to investigate s voters who may no longer reside in Wyoming.

This entire topic has been a fictional bee in Gray's bonnet.

Progressive Palestinian American Palestinian State Rep. Ruwa Romman has entered the Georgia Governor's race.

October 22, 2025

The Barlow Effect: Candidates can’t officially join the race till next year, but an unmistakably powerful ingredient has entered the mix, writes columnist Rod Miller.

November 18, 2025

A Federal Court in Texas has blocked the state from using its recently redrawn Congressional District map.

Oops.

This will be appealed, but if the decision is upheld it would mean that the five GOP (probably) seats that the state added won't be, while California, in a recent election, added five.

Oops.

Additionally, early indicators are that Texas Hispanics are following the national tread and are becoming disenchanted with the GOP, so some Texas districts may swing Democratic on their own.

Oops.

All of this could mean that the 2026 election could see the House not only swing Democratic, but perhaps massively so, and that some of the Returning Republicans are no longer big fans of Trump, to which those survivors will be reassessing their loyalty to Trump.

On the last item, Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene are in a flat out war with Trump, and Trump is losing.  Greene has gone from one of Trump's most loyal adherents to an outright anti Trump insurgent.

There's a year to go, of course, but Trump is already acting like unstable and clearly under pressure.  Having pulled out all the stops to prevent the release of the Epstein files, he now is claiming to once again support the release, putting the Senate in the hot seat.  If Trump is acting behind the scenes at the Senate, it puts Senators in a terrible spot at the same time that they have the example of Massie and Greene, who aren't being hurt by opposing Trump.

Locally, it'll be interesting to see if Lummis and Hageman remain lashed to the deck of Trump.  I bet Lummis won't.

December 11, 2025

From the New York Times.

Indiana Lawmakers Reject Trump’s New Political Map

Republicans hold an overwhelming majority in the Indiana Senate, but more than a dozen of them defied the president’s wishes, voting against a map aimed at adding Republicans in Congress.

December 19, 2025

Cynthia Lummis will not run for her Senate seat next year.  We can bet that Hageman will run for it and probably already is.  It'd be interesting to see if Gordon runs for the seat.

This means Gray, whose political hopes were dead, will now run for Congress, although I doubt he will get Hageman's seat.  It'll be interesting to see if Stubson runs.

Elise Stefanik is dropping out of the New York Governor's race and will not run for Congress next year.

December 20, 2025

Lots of speculation up in the air following Lummis' surprise announcement that she's giving it up after a single term as Senator, including why she's doing that.

Included in speculative candidates are, as already noted, Gray, Hageman and Gordon.  Degenfelder has also been mentioned, whom I didn't think of.  Degenfelder would have a good chance against any of these three, although I'd prefer Gordon.

Reid Rasner has been mentioned , and I'd guess that he will run. . . and lose in the primary.

Matt Mead has been mentioned as well.

Of course, this shuffling will also bring out the hard right "I worked for the government my entire life but now that I'm retired and on a Federal pension let me run from the far right" candidates. Brent Bien is running for Governor now, but he might take a run at this as it seems Barlow is in such good shape.

With oil declining, the weather being rather weird, and a large percentage of Wyomingites about to lose their healthcare, this election will also present opportunities for moderate Republicans we haven't thought of yet, as well as with conservative Democrats, if any can be found.  I don't think that Karlee Provenza will want to give up her seat in the state legislature, but if Hageman runs for the Senate, which I think she will, and Chuck Gray for the House, which I think he will, Provenza would be an interesting dark horse candidate who might win against Chuck.  Indeed, it's not impossible to imagine Gordon and Provenza in, which would move Wyoming's Congressional delegation overall to the center, as Barrasso will do what he needs to do to keep his job, assuming he'll run again.

An interesting thing to note is that it's quite clear that Liz Cheney was going to run for Enzi's Senate seat when he died, but Lummis took her spot  It seemed pretty clear that there was animosity between the two because of that.  In spite of all the MAGA hatred of Cheney now, she was a very popular Congressman up until she failed to bow to Trump and took him on.  Had she won that seat, she'd still be in the Senate today.

The spectacular fall of Elise Stefanik is quite notable, and should serve as a warning to the flag of convenience politicians. Stefanik hitched her wagon to Trump and failed to get what she wanted.  Now she's dropping out of politics, for awhile.

Stefanik made an incredibly bad set of calculations and more or less sold her soul, Marco Rubio style, for power, except she lost power, rather than gain it.  She'll reemerge, I'm pretty sure, after Trump is out of office, banking on Americans having short political memory.  My prediction on her is that she, like Rubio, will declare they never really loved Trump.

Cont:

And we are in fact off. There are two filed candidates.

One is the predictable Reid Rasner.  Rasner took a pounding in the last election trying to run to the right of John Barrasso, and he'll go down in flames again here.

The other is Jimmy Skovgard.  I checked his website and have no idea what he stands for. He has a blog, with poor production values, and perhaps if I'd waded through all of it I'd know more, but I didn't.

I suspect his campaign will likewise go nowhere.

December 23, 2025

Lummis not running again changes 2026 political strategies: From Miss Frontier to the U.S. Senate, columnist Kerry Drake writes, Lummis has had remarkable success in state and federal offices.

With this entry, we close out this edition. 

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 2nd Edition: The early season.

Labels: 2026 Election, Carpetbaggers, Chuck Gray, Cynthia Lummis, Elon Musk, Errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum, Harriet Hageman, homosexuality, Hypocrisy, Lies, Politics, Populism, Republican Party, Sex, The Big Ugly, Wyoming

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 110th Edition. Ballooning ballrooms and murder on the sea.

The Autocrat and the Architect.

Reports are leaking out that Trump's architect and Trump are now at odds over the ever expanding ballroom, with McCreey having told Trump that the building, which now will hold over 1,000 people, is getting too big and is going to engulf the White House itself.  McCreery is no longer taking a day to day role in the vandalization.

It frankly is looking more and more like this project will never get built.  Trump's dementia is racing through his cerebellum now and the clock on his illegitimate occupancy of the Presidency is likely winding down.

The ballroom, which nobody other than Trump wants, and has not been wanted for 150 years like Trump likes to claim, is a major focus for Trump.  He's desperately looking for a physical monument to himself.

Looking for somebody to blame for murder.

Over the last few days, since the Washington Post broke the news that survivors of the first illegal Venezuelan boat sinking were subsequently murdered on the water, the Trump administration has been bouncing off the walls to get ahead of the story.

On the Weekend shows, Noem slandered the newspaper, saying she wouldn't believe the story.  Since then it's gone from Hegseth ordered everyone killed, but that was before the first illegal act, and the Navy commander of the operation acted independently, apparently interpreting his orders in that fashion.

The irony is that, of course, the same group of people were having a fit about a collection of Senators who are veterans urging service members not to follow illegal orders.  Now it turns out that a major illegal order was just given.  In fact, the entire boat sinking campaign off of Venezuela is illegal, so the first strike was itself murder.  Killing the survivors is definitely illegal.

Gray complaining about Gordon.

Chuck Gray is complaining about the Governor not granting him extra money to publicize a moronic initiative to completely destroy the state's finances by cutting property taxes 50%.  

Gray will take off before the chickens ever come home to roost on this.  He's still aligned with the Freedom Caucus but it's pretty this legislative session, where they are going to loom large, is going to be their high water mark.  Gray wants to be governor, but he's not going to get that position.  I'd guess that Barlow will, although its quite early.  When that effort fails, Gray might take a run at the Senate, if he's still around, and then depart, or just depart.

Postscript:

The official position is that the Admiral in charge of the operation ordered the second strike, with Hegseth saying he had left by the time it occurred.  He also cited the fog of war as the reason for the killing, which would presuppose there being a war, which there isn't.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 109th Edition. Lost love. Painting Targets. Piggy. Articles of Surrender. Voting in opposition of something that isn't going on.

Labels: 2020s, 2025, Charlie Kirk, Chuck Gray, Communism, Donald Trump, Francois Mitterrand, law, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mental Health, Misogyny, Politics, Russia, Russo Ukrainian War, Socialism, Turning Point USA, Zeitgeist