Monday marks the tenth day of Wyoming’s legislative session, and the Wyoming Freedom Caucus is celebrating the passage of five bills through the House that the caucus refers to as the “Five and Dime.”
“We've kept our promise to pass 5 key bills in the first 10 days of the 68th [Legislature],” the Wyoming Freedom Caucus said on its X, formerly Twitter, account.
The five bills focus on property taxes; environment, social and governance (ESG) investing; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives; invalidating undocumented driver’s licenses issued from other states; and requiring proof of citizenship and residency to vote. With a majority of members in the House, the Freedom Caucus was able to pass their priority legislation with a two-third majority each time.
Not without pushback
Most of the Five and Dime bills faced contentious floor debates, as well as push back from those outside the legislative body.
HB 156 and HB 157, which would respectively require proof of 30-day residency and proof of citizenship in order to vote, faced the least pushback. These bills were brought by former caucus Chair Rep. John Bear (R-Gillette), but have also been championed by Secretary of State Chuck Gray.
Gray spoke at a press conference prior to the session, citing the national GOP’s attempts to prevent undocumented people from voting, and later citing a case of voter fraud committed by a Campbell County resident in 2020, according to WyoFile reporting. As of Friday, Gray said he was “hopeful” these bills would pass through the Senate as well.
But HB 116 saw contentious debate. This is a bill that would allow Wyoming to invalidate any form of drivers license issued by another state if the driver is confirmed to be “not lawfully admitted in the United States.” This bill was debated contentiously on the House floor. Lawmakers traded arguments on the purpose, function and constitutionality of the bill. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Pepper Ottman (R-Riverton), defended the bill, at one point saying, “Any effort to achieve immigration accountability is worth it.”
Ottman faced Republicans and Democrats alike as they questioned how the bill might affect truckers, how enforcement would work, potential impacts to tourists visiting Wyoming, or those restoring visas or currently pursuing citizenship.
A point of contention occurred when Rep. Ken Pendergraft (R-Sheridan) spoke in favor of the bill, saying, “when someone comes here and their first act is to ignore our immigration laws, they have no rights, they have no validity.”
Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie) responded sternly, stating, “that is not at all true, this is the greatest country on Earth and we provide protections for the people that come here.”
Rep. Landon Brown (R-Cheyenne) at one point said he was “sorely confused” as to what exactly the bill was trying to accomplish. Debate left him unsure if the bill was to invalidate licenses that don’t follow Wyoming standards or if it was to allow law enforcement to remove undocumented drivers from the road. The day after that floor debate, he told Wyoming Public Radio he still wasn’t sure.
“ I did not get the clarification from the bringer of the bill,” said Brown. “I think she is still confused as to what the bill is actually trying to accomplish. Unfortunately, what she says the bill is trying to do is not what the bill is actually trying to do. It's also an unenforceable bill, in my opinion.”
The bill ultimately passed three readings in the House. However, it took 3 different votes. The Committee of the Whole held a vocal yay vs nay vote, followed by a show of hands that was too close to call, and required a roll call vote that finally showed the yays had it.
HB 147 would prohibit all state and local government entities and schools from K-12 through university from having programs or policies that proponents of the bill say allow for classifying people based on race, sex or religion, among others. It would build on the Legislature's push last year to have the University of Wyoming (UW) remove its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).
The bill was brought by current Wyoming Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, who said the bill's purpose was to bring a “color blind approach for all government entities.”
The House Education Committee hearing for the bill saw nearly an hour of public testimony from educators and administrators.
One student, Sophia Gomelsky, who’s involved with student government at UW and is a legislative aid for Sen. Chris Rothfuss (D-Laramie), attended the committee hearing to make a public comment. After the bill had passed the House, Gomelsky said she appreciated amendments brought by Rep. Daniel Singh (R-Cheyenne) to ensure that educators are still able to talk about, and host discussion and instruction, on controversial topics like instructional discrimination. But Gomelsky was ultimately concerned with the outcome.
“I appreciate him [Singh] saying that we shouldn't be promoting institutional discrimination, which I think everyone agrees with. I think that's at least been stated, the intention of the bringers of these kinds of bills,” said Gomelsky. “But when I see bills that say we're going to stop teaching things that may make someone feel uncomfortable … that are taught in a colorblind way, that makes me feel like [they’re] not going to teach history as history was, and I think that's pretty concerning.”
By third reading of the bill on the House floor, Provenza was the only voice that attempted to amend the bill. Provenza wanted expectations for law enforcement training that involve officers learning cultural differences.
“All I'm asking for is to make sure that we have an exemption for law enforcement … They can fight back in litigation when they have done the correct thing,” said Provenza. Ulitmanelty her amendment failed.
HB 80, which seeks to block the state and firms managing the state’s accounts from any form of ESG investing, went through an extensive amendment process in the House Minerals, Business, Economic Development Committee. The Freedom Caucus sees ESG as a threat to Wyoming's fossil fuel industry.
The bill was thrust into a more controversial spotlight when Wyoming’s chief investment officer, Patrick Flemming, said that the state could face “about a $5 billion loss in income over the next three years.” Other public officials made similar comments throughout the allotted two hours of public testimony.
“We could say that, ‘No, it's about the health insurance a company offers on abortion,’ or things like that,” said David Swindell, executive director of the Wyoming Retirement System (WRS), which manages retirement and pension benefits for more than 41,000 teachers, police officers, firefighters, municipal and county employees, and community college and UW staff statewide. Wyoming Public Media employees are eligible for benefits under WRS. “But that's not what the bill language details says. And in any agreement it takes two parties ... And so the other party would have to agree to that. And they would not. Their lawyers will say they’re risks here that I don’t have with other clients.”
The public comment period left no time for lawmakers to conclude their thoughts, and they continued the following Monday. Rep. Chris Knapp (R-Gillette) cosponsored amendments that adjusted major terms of the bill but kept a penalty for managers who invest on ESG related principles. After arriving on the floor, the bill was debated and amended again to remove the penalties.
With the penalties dropped, some say the bill doesn't look much different from the state's current investment policies, which requires the state’s investment partners to consider only financial factors when evaluating vendors, asset allocations or investment potentials.
Gail Symons, who runs the Civics307 blog and is a self-described “civics wonk,” said these changes improved the bill for the better.
“ It codifies a policy that's already in existence. So now it's fine. But it started out as another, what I would call, a virtue signaling bill that solved a problem that didn't exist,” said Symons.
The final Five and Dime goal for the Freedom Caucus was action on property taxes, which was addressed by HB 169. It would provide homeowners a tax cut of 50% on the first $1 million of the home’s fair market value. While the cut would provide significant relief to homeowners, critics are concerned about how the cut in tax revenue would impact the ability of municipal and county governments to fund public services. A provision in the bill calls for county treasurers to record local tax revenue losses so that the state can backfill, or replace, 50%.
Last year, Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed a tax cut of 25% for assessed home value of up to $2 million. It would have had the state entirely compensate local governments’ reduced tax revenues. That bill was what the Freedom Caucus initially included in its Five and Dime Plan.
Rep. Chip Neiman (R-Hulett), the House floor majority leader and a member of the Freedom Caucus, responded to these concerns, saying, “ this is what the people really want. They want a 50% tax cut.”
“The reason that we offered the backfill in it is to help with the counties to be able to ease into something like that ... to try to help the counties and those that are gonna be most impacted with at least some relief or help to get them in that direction … This is gonna be for two years, and then we'll know what the people decide,” Neiman said.
Meanwhile, SF 69 as introduced was nearly identical to the bill vetoed by Gordon last year, offering a 25% cut. It’s currently awaiting first reading in the Senate after passing out of the Senate Revenue Committee.
On to the Senate
Democrats have called the Five and Dime bills “feel good” bills, with some critiquing them as “virtue signalling.”
Senators like Rothfuss find the House priorities to be distracting.
“ I'm disappointed that we're going to spend so much time on them and really distract away from the real key issues, [like] access to public lands … access to good jobs and economic development … rights for individuals,” he said.
In a previous press conference, Rothfuss called this particular session a “coffee shop session,” a reference to a comment made by Sen. Bill Landen (R-Casper) during a session in years past.
“ I happen to belong to a coffee shop group up in my neck of the woods” Landen told WPR on his way into the Senate chamber. “We take great pride in fixing all the world's problems. But sometimes coffee shop bills don't play very well down here because they're not very well thought out.”
The fate of the Five and Dime bills are up in the air. Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, but the Freedom Caucus only endorsed four senators in last year’s general election. The Freedom Caucus bills have supporters in the Senate, but the structure involved in passing key bills quickly with majorities does not exist to the same degree it does in the House.
“ I look forward to seeing what those headlines were all about … I want to see what's in those bills and whether or not it works for the state of Wyoming,” said Landen.
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.
