Between the Freedom Caucus’ first session holding a majority in the House and the Senate tanking a supplemental budget, the general session of the 68th Wyoming Legislature was a whirlwind. Our team shares highlights and what happens next.
Maggie Mullen: This is the Cheyenne Roundup, a weekly look at Wyoming’s legislative session, from Wyoming Public Radio and WyoFile. I’m Maggie Mullen, WyoFile's state government and politics reporter and with me are both Chris Clements and Jordan Uplinger, Wyoming Public Radio’s dashing duo of statehouse reporters.
Chris Clements: Good day to you.
Jordan Uplinger: And also to you.
MM: It’s Friday morning, about 10. Before we dive into our episode, we want to take a moment to recognize the passing of a towering Wyoming political figure, Al Simpson. He was a state lawmaker, three term U.S. senator and a larger-than-life Wyomingite.
CC: We want to thank him for his years of service to the state.
MM: So the Legislature is adjourned.
CC: The governor has a week to sign or veto any remaining bills on his desk.
JU: And we are all here today to share our key takeaways about what happened over the past two months and where the state goes from here.
CC: That’s right. Maggie, want to kick us off?
MM: I sure do. One dynamic that really stuck out to me was Gov. Mark Gordon’s red veto pen versus the Legislature.
Heading into session, it remained to be seen how willing Gordon would be to use his veto powers. Remember, he’s coming off an election season where many of the lawmakers he backed lost their races and the Wyoming Freedom Caucus took control of the House. But what became clear from week one was that many lawmakers came into the session wanting to right some wrongs they saw from last year's budget session.
JU: By right some wrongs, you mean try again for some of the things Gordon had vetoed?
MM: Exactly. First example: the failed supplemental budget bill. When lawmakers started working on it on the first Friday of the session, they added back language he had struck 10 months before.
The move was highly unusual. For those of you who’ve been following along, you know the Senate ultimately tanked the budget, sinking those additions with it. But this was just a hint of what was to come.
At recording time, Gordon had vetoed seven bills and exercised his line-item veto powers on two more. The Legislature attempted to override six of those rejections. Five stuck.
Editor’s note: A few hours after recording, Gordon vetoed SF0125 – Defining Health Care and Protecting the People’s Welfare.
Ten Sleep Republican Sen. Ed Cooper said that was a big deal during a Senate debate about whether to override a bill requiring transvaginal ultrasounds before getting prescribed abortion pills.
Ed Cooper: This is probably one of the most serious things we do in this body … Normally, I don’t do that. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever done that.
MM: But in the end, Cooper said this time was different. He voted with 21 other lawmakers to override the governor’s decision.
CC: The override window closed when lawmakers adjourned, so whatever Gordon does now with the bills remaining on his desk will stick.
Maggie, I also saw tension between the Legislature and the governor when it came to gun-free zones.
MM: Yeah, Gordon let that repeal become law without his signature. In a letter explaining his decision, he laid into the Legislature’s “lackadaisical” effort to openly debate and work on the bill before they sent it to him.
It’s worth noting Gordon vetoed a very similar bill in 2024. He said it was tempting to copy and return his same veto letter and basically called it a power grab. He said lawmakers are making where guns can be an issue of the Legislature, whereas Gordon thinks it should be up to local jurisdictions.
CC: Then the Wyoming Republican Party kind of shot back after Gordon vetoed the abortion ultrasound bill, cheering on the Legislature for overriding it. And in another email, the GOP said Gordon vetoed six bills that aligned with the party’s priorities. So definitely some tensions simmering, like a pot of soup.
MM: Jordan, you’ve been reporting on how successful the Freedom Caucus was with its first session holding the majority in the House.
JU: Yes, and I think the headline there, too, is tension. Freedom Caucus leaders like Chair Rachel Rodriguez-Williams from Cody are looking at this session as a success.
Rachel Rodriguez-Williams: Just like Pres. Trump is bringing common sense change to Washington, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus is bringing common sense change to Cheyenne.
JU: They were able to usher the bills that made up their flagship Five and Dime Plan through the House pretty early on.
MM: Though only three of those priorities have become law so far. Another is on Gordon’s desk.
JU: Right. But the caucus is pointing to other wins, from expanding the state’s school voucher program to all families, to requiring people to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of the sex they were assigned at birth, to repealing gun-free zones.
Speaker of the House Chip Neiman from Hulett highlighted the over 200 hours spent on the House floor at their [the Freedom Caucus’s] end-of-session press conference. He painted a picture of heavy debate, saying that members of the caucus went the extra mile with public comment, conversations with industry leaders and working with members of the senate.
Chip Neiman: If we don't work together, these things don't happen. They don't get accomplished. These are accomplishments. These are things that we got done. So that's both chambers working together.
CC: I’m waiting for the “but.”
JU: Here it comes: But I talked to several lawmakers who had a different sense of how the caucus wielded power. Here’s Democratic Rep. Karlee Provenza from Laramie.
Karlee Provenza: I think what we got out of this session was an overwhelming sense of clarity as to who is in power and what they're going to do with it. And they will not use it to serve Wyoming. They will use it to serve somebody that gives them marching orders from Washington, D.C.
CC: I know the Wyoming state director for the State Freedom Caucus Network, Jessie Rubino, would take issue with that framing of how the caucus works. She says she doesn’t give marching orders, just offers recommendations.
JU: Noted. I also talked to Laramie Democratic Sen. Chris Rothfuss, who said this session was all about trying to fuel a populist desire and passions of constituents.
Chris Rothfuss: As opposed to actually addressing real problems. We have a 19-page bill on bathrooms that passed both chambers, for example.
JU: Rothfuss was particularly concerned with the financial situation of the state, citing a lack of cooperation between the Senate and House when working on tax bills. He’s worried about what local governments will do without getting reimbursed for the 25% property tax cut.
And I didn’t just hear these criticisms from Democrats. Republican Representative Landon Brown from Cheyenne [compared this year to previous sessions].
Landon Brown: I think what we saw was less debate, less willingness to compromise and ultimately just kind of bad policy-making for the state of Wyoming from the House side.
JU: There were some contentious moments in the session, but Brown wanted to see more pushback and more debate both on the floor and within the ranks of the Freedom Caucus.
MM: Well, they will soon have the chance, because the interim is coming up.
CC: Indeed, the legislative off season. Huzzah!
This is when joint committees made up of senators and representatives meet to study and discuss policy issues with more time than what's allotted during the hustle of the session. As a reminder, bills drafted during the interim get worked up by lawmakers, state agencies, the public and other stakeholders for about eight months leading up to the session, so they’re coming in pretty well vetted, and they used to breeze through the process.
But in the past couple years – we’ve talked about this before – we’ve seen a lot of interim committee bills die. This year, like last year, that happened to a bunch of bills.
MM: Worth recognizing that the interim bills from last year were technically drafted by a different iteration of the Legislature, and a lot of the people who worked on them are no longer in office.
CC: Sure, but it’s been a real point of frustration for some over the time, expertise and taxpayer money spent on those meetings.
I talked to Lander Rep. Lloyd Larsen, a longtime lawmaker. And he said a lot of interim committee bills were hit with resistance, largely by House representatives with four or less years of experience.
Lloyd Larsen: I think that the inexperience of these new legislators – not understanding the topics, not understanding the amount of work that went into crafting these bills – [they] felt like that they were, in a brief moment’s experience, felt like they were now the subject matter experts. And a lot of them just didn't feel comfortable with the bill, so they voted against them.
CC: As an example, he mentioned two bills from the interim Judiciary Committee.
Lloyd Larsen: One was for the treatment courts and one was for the Department of Family Services, which was sharing of confidential information, that had been worked two years in the Mental Health Task Force. Then came in [House] Judiciary and was worked there, and both bills were killed – and all by votes of new members. The members that had been in the Legislature before voted to support them, but they were outnumbered by the new people, and they died, and it was a real shame.
MM: My colleague Andrew Graham did a big write up about that if you want to check it out.
CC: Losing legislation like this is kind of leading Larsen to wonder.
Lloyd Larsen: You almost look back in the rearview mirror and say, Why did we hold those interim meetings?
CU: On the flip side, former Freedom Caucus chair Rep. John Bear from Gillette said to expect a different type of interim process this summer.
John Bear: Probably for decades prior, there was more, much more focus on supporting the government, whereas this Legislature, it's much more about supporting the people that have sent us to the Legislature to represent them.
MM: With the Freedom Caucus squarely in control of the House, I'll be watching to see how the interim session goes and what that means for committee bills' viability next year. We won’t know until April 8 what topics they’ll take on.
CC: Here's how the process works. Right before the Legislature adjourned, the joint committees met to discuss proposed topics. They worked to narrow down their top priorities, but before they can proceed, they must get approval from the Management Council at its next meeting.
Anything they've proposed catch your eye, Mullen?
MM: Several joint judiciary members suggested reviewing obscenity amendments related to minors’ access to sexually explicit material. That's connected to efforts to limit what's available in school and community libraries.
Creating a natural disaster program in Wyoming was also proposed. The desire to improve the state's response to disasters is timely given last summer's wildfires and ongoing tensions between the governor and the Legislature about how to fund the recovery effort. Plus, the Trump administration has floated dismantling FEMA.
How about you?
CC: School discipline, including the use of restraints and solitary confinement, was on the Joint Education Committee's proposed topics list.
JU: And First Lady Jennie Gordon asked the Education Committee to look at school nutrition. Summer nutrition assistance for children was also on the Labor and Health Committee's list.
CC: You can follow our ongoing legislative coverage at wyomingpublicmedia.org and WyoFile.com. Thanks to everyone listening and to you two for making it a great series. We did it!
JU: And now, a vacation.
MM: You’re telling me.
This has been the Cheyenne Roundup, your weekly look at what lawmakers are up to during the 2025 legislative session from Wyoming Public Radio and WyoFile. We will be back next year for the Legislature’s budget session. Editing and producing by Tennessee Watson and Nicky Ouellet.
