At the national level, members of Congress hire and create their own staff and don’t receive any official training on how to be a legislator. In Wyoming, however, state legislators are provided with support through the Legislative Service Office (LSO). The LSO offers staffing, resources, and training for legislators and all bills are drafted by the LSO.
“In 1969 the Conference of State Legislatures gave Wyoming an F for its legislative efficiency. And I think that that probably embarrassed some Senators and Representatives then,” said Obrecht. “And one of the recommendations within that report was that Wyoming create a nonpartisan central staffing agency. And that was what really gave rise to the Legislative Service Office.”
Before the office was created there was little in the way of guidelines or structuring for bill drafting, gumming up the wheels of local democracy. In response, the LSO was created by lawmakers in 1971.
“The Legislature had different attorneys around the state draft bills for them. And they would be of various quality. These guys were lawyers, but they weren't trained legislative lawyers, and they didn't have any real guidelines for drafting policies in which to base it on,” said Matt Obrecht, the current director of the LSO.
Wyoming’s LSO is the second smallest nonpartisan staffing agency in the country with only 45 employees. The LSO creates every draft for every bill made and provides lawmakers with research support for any bill.
“ When we get a bill drafting request from a legislator it's usually just legal research, but we'll look to see what other states have done,” said Obrecht. “Let's say it's a bill changing the overweight vehicle fees, a lot of times we'll find out what surrounding states do on that. And so our research department will then go out and find that information from other states’ Departments of Transportation [or] Departments of Roads and compile that into a research memo.”
In recent years, the number of bill drafts sent to the LSO from legislators for an initial legal review has continued to rise, increasing the workload of the LSO. In 2024, legislators requested 610 bill drafts. The 2025 session has seen over 800 draft bill requests to the LSO, with 555 bills receiving numbers and more than 180 introduced so far. However, despite the high number of bills, the Wyoming Legislature has one of the shortest meeting times of any legislature in the country, only meeting 40 days for the general session and 20 days for the budget session. The tension between lack of time and a high number of bills helps explain why deadlines and plans for bills often change as the session goes along.
“ Flexibility during that incredibly short session is absolutely vital to be able for [legislators] to be able to get their work done,” Obrecht said.
At the national level, newly elected members of Congress typically learn on the job. However, in Wyoming, the LSO offers training for newly elected legislators, as well as specialized sessions for those in leadership roles, such as committee chairs.
“ When someone’s first elected, they come beginning in December of that year for what we call a ‘new legislator school,’” Obrecht said.“They are walked through everything from how to read a law, how to read the budget, what goes into the budget, how to read agency budget requests, how to read amendments [and] how to request amendments.”
The LSO also actively engages in public outreach to help citizens better understand Wyoming's Legislative process. The office produces a series of citizen guides aimed at explaining various aspects of the Legislature, such as how to engage with lawmakers and follow the progress of bills.
