Passes and fails

Lots of bills are making their way to signature now with the Governor, and a few have even already been vetoed, so we're well into the legislative session.

What's most remarkable about the bills that have made it to the Governor's desk so far is that you probably haven't heard of them.  And that's a good thing.  They reflect a collection of bonafide work type bills that address the nuts and bolts of the law.  There's been some revision, for example, of the Trust code.  That's not very glamorous, but its important.  And what tells us is that in spite of the big news items we hear about, a lot of real daily work a day pieces of legislation are being addressed.

As of February 14, these bills had been signed:

If that doesn't seem like a lot of them are exciting, well they don't have to be.

The Governor vetoed House Bill 38 on legislative per diem rates, noting the following when he did.:

Dear Speaker Harshman, 

In considering House Bill 38, I want to recognize the Legislature’s diligence in scrutinizing its expenses and providing for a reasonable recognition of the changing costs associated with serving in the Legislature. Wyoming is blessed to have a citizen legislature made up of individuals willing to serve her for the benefit of her people. In doing so, it is important that we balance the commitment of a citizen’s willingness to serve with the personal financial obligations involved. Wyoming always seeks to enable any of her citizens to serve, not just those with substantial means. Moreover, Wyoming has balanced compensation so as not to discourage citizen service while simultaneously discouraging a culture of “professional politician.” 

I believe it should be recognized that this per diem discussion further applies to those who have agreed to serve on Wyoming’s boards and commissions. Therefore, consideration of this topic is timely and important to the proper continued functioning of Wyoming government. While compensation is arguably modest and well within the parameters discussed above, the legislature is to be applauded for looking for ways to be ever more frugal while seeking to appropriately remunerate the service of citizens serving on boards, commissions, and in the legislature. 

House Bill 38 is in my estimation flawed, however. It seeks to raise the per diem rate for legislative duty in general, and then reduces that compensation by half during a legislative session for those serving within a 25-mile radius of the Wyoming capitol building. It would seem the radius selected for special reduction was arbitrary to some extent not fully examining, as a basis, who might or might not regularly commute from their homes during a session, for example. Moreover, while the apparent intent of the bill seeks to admit that those living proximate to the State capitol building most likely do not have to absorb the additional costs of temporary accommodation because they can stay in their homes, the bill does not recognize that other legislators might also be able to avoid those same additional costs by staying with friends or family, for example. 

Another inherent inconsistency with HB 38 is that the same factor applied to those within the delineated 25-mile radius is not applied for legislative work elsewhere in the state when that activity might occur in a legislator’s home town. As such the bill seems solely prejudiced against legislators living within a 25-mile radius of the State capitol.
I am, therefore, vetoing House Bill 38. In doing so I again commend the legislature for their consideration of this topic and recommend reconsideration in the intervening year.
If such a bill is eventually passed, the Legislature might consider implementing such changes at the beginning rather in the middle of a legislator’s term of office, thus providing predictability for those weighing whether or not to run for office. 

Sincerely,

Mark Gordon
Governor

Again, not very exciting, but it shows some careful attention to what he's dong.

The following should have been signed into law yesterday, and likely were.

HEA No. 0025

Bill Title	Enrolled Act #	Bill Title
SF0028	SEA No. 0008	Banking technology and stock revisions.
SF0073	SEA No. 0010	Lottery revisions.
SF0061	SEA No. 0012	Cooperative utilities-bylaws.
SF0022	SEA No. 0013	School district personnel definitions.
SF0037	SEA No. 0014	Wyoming energy authority.
SF0051	SEA No. 0015	Tobacco tax equivalence.
SF0027	SEA No. 0017	Public purpose investments.
SF0063	SEA No. 0018	LSRA investments.
SF0010	SEA No. 0019	Modification of probation.
HB0221	HEA No. 0020	Family medicine residency program.
HB0054	HEA No. 0022	Federal natural resource policy account-amendments.
HB0069	HEA No. 0023	Collection of sales tax by marketplace facilitators.
HB0078	HEA No. 0024	Education major maintenance funding.
HB0079	HEA No. 0025	School finance interfund loans.
HB0056	HEA No. 0026	Uniform Trust Code amendments.
HB0043	HEA No. 0027	Midwife services-Medicaid.
HB0033	HEA No. 0028	Principal and income act-principal place of administration.
HB0031	HEA No. 0029	Rule against perpetuity amendments.

And the following had signature dates reqwuested, whcih doesn't mean that they'll acdtually be signed.

Bill Title	Enrolled Act #	Bill Title
SF0093	SEA No. 0011	Grizzly bear hunts.
SF0043	SEA No. 0020	Hathaway scholarship eligibility.
HB0044	HEA No. 0017	Expungement of juvenile court records.

The bear one was news to me, here's what it provides:

ORIGINAL SENATE ENGROSSED

FILE NO. SF0093

ENROLLED ACT NO. 11, SENATE

SIXTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

2019 GENERAL SESSION

AN ACT relating to wildlife; making legislative findings regarding the need for the game and fish commission to conduct a grizzly bear hunt as specified; authorizing the game and fish commission to hold a grizzly bear hunt or facilitate a relocation as specified; and providing for an effective date.

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

Section 1.  

(a)  The legislature finds that:

(i)  The grizzly bear population in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem has recovered by all measurable recovery criteria, since at least 2003, with approximately seven hundred (700) grizzly bears currently living in the ecosystem;

(ii)  The recovery of the grizzly bear population in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem can be attributed to the efforts of the state of Wyoming, the Wyoming game and fish commission and the citizens of the state;

(iii)  The United States secretary of the interior announced in June 2017 that the Yellowstone population of grizzly bears had been recovered and no longer needed federal protections under the Endangered Species Act and that overall management of the population could be returned to the states and tribes;

(iv)  In response to the final rule that the United States secretary of the interior and the United States fish and wildlife service promulgated, the Wyoming game and fish commission scheduled a limited grizzly bear hunt for August 2018;

(v)  In September 2018, the United States District Court for the District of Montana issued an order vacating the final rule issued by the United States fish and wildlife service, which effectively restores Endangered Species Act protections to the Yellowstone population of grizzly bears;

(vi)  The state of Wyoming continues to bear the costs of grizzly bear management in the state but, because of the district court order, again lacks any authority to make decisions necessary to manage the grizzly bear population in a way that protects the people of the state of Wyoming and that conserves Wyoming's wildlife;

(vii)  The district court's order precluded the Wyoming game and fish commission from holding the grizzly bear hunt as scheduled;

(viii)  The district court's order impedes the state of Wyoming's ability to protect the safety of its citizens, particularly in light of grizzly bear attacks on workers and other citizens and tourists of the state;

(ix)  The tenth amendment to the United States constitution guarantees to the states and their people all powers not granted to the federal government elsewhere in the constitution and reserves to the state and the people of Wyoming certain powers as they were understood at the time that Wyoming was admitted to statehood in 1890.  The guaranty of those powers is a matter of contract between the state and people of Wyoming and the several states comprising the United States as of the time the Act of Admission was agreed upon and adopted by Wyoming and the several states in 1889;

(x)  In enacting the Endangered Species Act, the United States congress requires the United States secretary of the interior to cooperate to the maximum extent practicable with the states in conserving and managing any endangered or threatened species;

(xi)  The district court's order hinders the state of Wyoming's ability to work with the United States secretary of the interior to cooperate in the management of the Yellowstone grizzly bear population and thus threatens the safety of Wyoming workers and other citizens and tourists of the state;

(xii)  The grizzly bear hunt that the Wyoming game and fish commission had previously scheduled for August 2018 and the grizzly bear hunt authorized in section 2 of this act is necessary and intended to conserve resident wildlife and ensure that:

(A)  The Yellowstone grizzly bear population residing in Wyoming continues to recover through effective population management; and

(B)  The state of Wyoming can effectively protect its citizens, workers and tourists from dangerous and deadly grizzly bear encounters in the state of Wyoming.

Section 2.

(a)  If the game and fish commission determines under the laws of the state of Wyoming that a grizzly bear hunt would be beneficial for managing Wyoming's wildlife and for protecting Wyoming workers and other citizens and tourists of the state, the game and fish commission may conduct a grizzly bear hunt and shall issue licenses as provided in W.S. 23‑1‑302(p) and in the rules of the commission, which shall provide for the dates, times and locations of the hunts.

(b)  Grizzly bears are trapped and relocated in Wyoming and in some cases are euthanized for livestock depredation, property damage or endangerment of human life. If the game and fish commission determines under the laws of the state of Wyoming that extraterritorial relocation would be beneficial for managing Wyoming's wildlife and protecting Wyoming workers and other citizens and tourists of the state, the game and fish commission may relocate to the state of California, to states with a grizzly bear population below the threshold for Endangered Species Act protection or to other willing states with suitable habitat all grizzly bears trapped for relocation or that would otherwise be euthanized.

Section 3.  This act is 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.

(END)

Speaker of the House			President of the Senate

	Governor
	TIME APPROVED: _________
	DATE APPROVED: _________

I hereby certify that this act originated in the Senate.

Chief Clerk

Some bills big and small, including some that were in the news, have failed.

Repeal of the Death Penalty passed the House, but failed in the Senate by six votes.  I though it was up against long odds but then it really gained steam and it looked for a time like it might pass.

House Bill 230, which sought to make illegal discrimination in the workplace based upon sexual orientation failed.  Prior version of this bill, which were not as tight in the language, were controversial but this one did not seem to be.  It failed at any rate, but not before it engendered a surprising controversy over comments that were made, or not, by Lynn Hutchings, a Senator.

Hutchings is the old black, female, Republican Senator in Wyoming's history, so the controversy comes in a really odd context.  She holds conservative social views and made some comments to a student group that supports gay rights in a context in which you have to feel that she was somewhat set up. What she said isn't clear, but the spectacle of a minority of a minority being accused of prejudice is unusual to say the least.

An odd bill that passed, so far, sought to regulate the use of Prexy's Pasture at the University of Wyoming.

2019

STATE OF WYOMING

19LSO-0367

HOUSE BILL NO. HB0091

Patching Prexy's Pasture parallelogram problem.

Sponsored by: Representative(s) Crank, Clausen, Connolly, Furphy, Haley and Henderson and Senator(s) Baldwin and Rothfuss

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to the University of Wyoming; correcting the legal description of Prexy's Pasture on the University of Wyoming campus; and providing for an effective date.

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

Section 1.  W.S. 21‑17‑401(b)(i)(A) is amended to read:

21‑17‑401.  Certain portions of campus restricted to park or recreational purposes; construction of buildings or structures prohibited thereon.

(b)  In order to preserve the natural and open beauty of that portion of the University of Wyoming campus commonly known and referred to as "Prexy's Pasture", no structures, other than ornamental improvements, or buildings of any kind or type shall be located or constructed upon the portion of the campus described as follows:

(i)  All that portion of the East 1/2 of Section 33, Township 16 N, R 73 W, of the 6th PM, Albany county, Wyoming, bounded as follows:

(A)  Beginning at a point from which the East 1/4 corner of said Section 33 bears, South 83 degrees 15' East a distance of 803 feet; thence South 5 degrees 45' West a distance of 410 feet; thence North 84 degrees 15' West a distance of 578 feet; thence North 5 degrees 45' East a distance of 410 feet; thence North South 84 degrees 15' East a distance of 578 feet, more or less, to the point of beginning.  Said parcel of land containing 5.44 acres, more or less.

Section 2.  This act is effective July 1, 2019.

What brought this up is a bit of  a mystery, but it can't help but be noted that a bill that sought to define things on Prexy's Pasture managed to get the description of the walkway incorrectly.

The bill that sought to make age 18 the lowest age a person could marry failed, as I may have mentioned before.  I had predicted that it would.

A bill giving private citizens standing to file declaratory judgment actions to determine the meaning of a law failed.

The legislature is over half way through its session now, so thing should start to wrap up.  Some big bills remain undecided, and of course we're just starting to see how Governor Gordon responds to the bills that reach his desk.

Some Gave All: Monument to the soldiers of Villers sur Fere who lost their lives in World War One.

Some Gave All: Monument to the soldiers of Villers sur Fere who l...:

Monument to the soldiers of Villers sur Fere who lost their lives in World War One.

A monument in the French town of Vilers sur Fere to those who lost their lives in the service of France during World War One.

Blog Mirror: Confessions Of A Writer Of Westerns; Never Too Old To Write

Never Too Old To Write

Blog Mirror: THE WORLD IN A TORTILLA

THE WORLD IN A TORTILLA

Eddy Arnold - Make The World Go Away (1966). Uff. . . . some days

Some Gave All: Monument to returning partisans, France.

Some Gave All: Monument to returning partisans, France.:

Monument to returning partisans, France.

A French monument to six French partisans who returned by parachute and lost their lives on May 9, 1944.

I'm unfamiliar with this incident, but a large percentage of these operations were unsuccessful due to the penetration of the British SOE by the Germans. The SOE was only one of several British secret service organizations during the war and was not a full time professional one.  Following the war it investigated the penetration and somewhat, but not fully, determined what had occurred, although it also operated to cover up the event as well.

This monument indicates that the captured Frenchmen were deported to Germany where they must have been subsequently executed at some point.

February 15, 1919. Wyoming passes its own Prohibition Act. . .

which would take effect on June 30 of 1919.

And for no good reason either.

You've read all about it, leading up to this date, but on this date.  It was signed into law.

New Governor Robert Carey signed the bill with three pens, which he then gave to the Friends Of Dry Wyoming.  The bill featured an unusual Saturday morning singing.

The Wyoming Star Tribune reported, in noting it, that; "The prohibition question is a closed question in Wyoming."

Some Gave All: Wyoming National Guard Museum. Signed Into Law on...

Some Gave All: Wyoming National Guard Museum. Signed Into Law on...:

Wyoming National Guard Museum. Signed Into Law on February 14, 2019

ORIGINAL House 

Bill No. HB0039

ENROLLED ACT NO. 4, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SIXTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

2019 General Session

AN
ACT relating to defense forces and affairs; designating the historic
Wyoming national guard armory as a museum; and providing for an
effective date.

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

Section 1.  W.S. 19‑14‑112 is created to read:

19‑14‑112.  Description and declaration of Wyoming national guard museum.

The
lands in Laramie county, Wyoming, described as follows are hereby
declared to be the Wyoming national guard museum to be managed by the
military department: All of Block 8, Replat of Airport Addition to the
City of Cheyenne, Wyoming, as shown by the Replat of said Airport
Addition on file and of record in the office of the County Clerk and
Ex-Officio Register of Deeds, in and for said Laramie County, said
replat being filed on October 1, 1935, as No. 287212; LESS the Southerly
ten (10) feet of said Block 8, Replat of Airport Addition quitclaimed
to the City of Cheyenne by the Wyoming Army National Guard, as filed
June 15, 1995, in Book 1400, Page 461, in the records of said Clerk of
Laramie County, Wyoming.

Section 2.  This act is effective July 1, 2019.

(END)

Speaker of the House			President of the Senate

	Governor
	TIME APPROVED: _________
	DATE APPROVED: _________

I hereby certify that this act originated in the House.

St. Valentine's Day, 1919. The Polish Soviet War commenced, Quixotic Portuguese Monarchist fail, Blizzard shuts things down, League of Nations floated, Novel spellings.

Heroic late war Polish poster.

The Polish Soviet War commenced on this date in 1914 when Polish troops were allowed to occupy a town in current day Belarus by the Germans, as part of the German withdrawal from the region, and were soon thereafter attacked by the Red Army.

The war would go on until March, 1921.

The results of the war are surprisingly disputed.  By most measures it would have to be regarded as a Polish victory given that they held off the Red Army even to the point of defending Warsaw against a Soviet offensive.  Moreover, the first Red Army attack had been given a name that suggested Warsaw was its goal.

Soviet propaganda poster showing the Red Army as liberators.

On the other hand, the initial Polish counteroffensives had been enormously successful and the Polish Army had been able to maintain that stance for quite some time during the war, advancing into territory they disputed in Russia and Ukraine.  The reversals in fortune were enormous and the Poles nearly retreated to the German border in the late stages of the war.  Still, Red Army losses during the Battle of Warsaw late in the war were so severe that the Poles were given a border that closely approximated that of the 1772 partition and therefore granted them most of the territory they were seeking,including the debatable Lithuanian town of Vilnius.  By and large, the Poles gained the territory they were seeking, although less than that which Pilsudski would have wanted for a greater Poland.

Polish propaganda poster showing Polish cavalry, which in fact there was a lot of, fighting bestial troops of the Red Army.

The war at least arguably put an end to the Trotsky vision of marching through Poland and on into Germany and likely cemented a growing rift between Stalin who wished thereafter to build Communism in what remained of the Russian Empire as opposed to Trotsky who argued for an immediate global revolution.

Polish solders with captured Soviet battle flags.  The Red Army may have been a new people's army in theory, but in the field it kept the trappings of earlier armies in having battle flags.

Poland, it might be noted, founds itself in substantial wars from the very first moment of the "Peace" of November 1918.  It's amazing it survived as a state.  It fought all of its neighbors to some degree in one way or another.

Meanwhile, in Portugal, a quixotic effort to restore the Portuguese monarchy, which had never received the endorsement of the former Portuguese royal family, ended and with it the self declared Portuguese Monarchy Of The North.

Portuguese monarchist who fought for a monarchy whose former leaders didn't endorse it.

It's flat out bizarre to contemplate a rebel movement to restore a monarchy occurring in 1919 when in many other nations rebels had successfully operated to depose their nation's monarchies.  Yet, in Portugal, such an attempt was oddly made.  It's hard to figure really, but it is perhaps best understood in the context of it being an ultra conservative revolution with no place to go.

Well, closer to home, sort of . . . .

The Tribune had a headline that today would cause people to recall its occasional nickname, the "Casper Red Star", what with its reference to a "World Constitution".  This referred, of course, to a stout League of Nations.

Rumors were afloat about bribery being a factor on a bill for a new county and a "dry" rally was being planned.

And news of a big blizzard was being reported everywhere in the state.

Hopefully that blizzard wouldn't delay the return of the returning Guardsmen of the 116th Ammunition Train which were anticipated to be home within a week.

The Cheyenne paper remembered it was Valentine's Day.

The second Cheyenne paper noted that communications with the East hung on by a thread, due to the blizzard.

Interestingly, but also without details, that paper also reported that "Dean Huston", a Cheyenne clergyman, would be choosing between two parishes for his new assignment back east.  No other substantial details were provided, but it's likely that he was an Episcopal churchman as the Episcopal Church used that title and that would make sense in context.

And finally the pressed for space Laramie Boomerang resorted to Rooseveltian phonetic spelling, as Wyoming papers in this era occasionally did, for their headline, changing Cheyenne to Chian.  

Theodore Roosevelt, who in spite of his genius was somewhat spealling challenged, had advocated for this movement which would have altered the somewhat bizarre spellings common in English to phonetic ones at large and tried writing that way himself for awhile, but like everyone else, he gave it up. For a brief time, however, Wyoming newspapers would resort to it if headlines seemingly required it, as here.