Wyoming lawmakers on the Reapportionment Subcommittee met on Sept. 25 in Newcastle to hear from constituents about how seats in the state Legislature are divvied up and explore alternative districting methods.
The meeting came out of a bill passed in the last general session, SF 174, that sought to rectify differences in how the state and federal constitutions carve up legislative districts across the Equality State.
Wyoming’s constitution says counties should have at least one representative and one senator, and that districts should follow county lines.
The text of Article 3, Section 3 reads, “Each county shall constitute a senatorial and representative district; the senate and house of representatives shall be composed of members elected by the legal voters of the counties, respectively, every two (2) years. They shall be apportioned among the said counties as nearly as may be according to the number of their inhabitants.”
But an italicized footnote below alters that system: “This section is inconsistent with the application of the “one person, one vote” principle under circumstances as they presently exist in Wyoming. Consequently, the Wyoming legislature may disregard this provision when reapportioning either the senate or the house of representatives.”
That’s in response to a federal district court case in 1991.
The judge in Gorin v. Karpan ruled Wyoming’s districts violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution that requires equal voting weight for citizens, otherwise known as “one person, one vote.”
So, the districts were expanded to have similar population totals and include parts of more than one county, hence the footnote.
In recent years, some residents of Weston County and other smaller counties, like House Speaker Rep. Chip Neiman (R-Hulett) of Crook County, have said the current system gives unfair advantage to those with larger population centers and deprives counties like Weston of adequate representation.
“We are speedily moving toward a rural representation that is quickly disappearing,” said Neiman, a member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. “I think it takes 11 counties to equate to just the population of Gillette, Wyoming. Because of Wyoming’s rural nature versus urban, we are quickly moving toward a situation where, as we redistrict, we can go in and take a portion of a city and quickly outnumber a lot of folks that, when they have the chance to vote about a property tax increase, and it’s going to affect them dramatically because of the sheer volume of land area, their voice has been greatly diminished.”
But subcommittee co-chair Sen. Cale Case (R-Lander) said giving rural, less populous counties more of a say would cut both ways.
“I know that it feels like we need to save rural counties, and that we have to preserve this representation,” said Case. “The other side of the coin is, there will be people in the city of Gillette, the city of Cheyenne, that will feel that they’ve lost some of their voting weight. They will bring a lawsuit. The lawsuit could be on the same grounds as the Gorin v. Karpan lawsuit as before. Would it play out any differently? I’m not sure that it would.”
Neiman said the current legislative maps don’t give Weston County a lawmaker who solely represents them in the statehouse. For instance, Neiman’s district includes parts of Weston County, even though he lives in neighboring Crook County.
William Curley, an attorney, presented to the subcommittee an alternative to the current maps that would create a population-adjusted voting system for lawmakers, giving some lawmakers percentages of votes based on their county populations. It’s known as a weighted voting scheme. At the moment, no U.S. state legislature uses the concept.
“Our plan suggests that we adhere to [Wyoming’s constitution], we have, therefore, districts that are not equal in population, not even close to equal in population,” said Curley. “Their electeds, then, will not have approximately equal voting strength in the Legislature.”
Curley added that the Fourteenth Amendment, which changed how legislative districting works across the U.S. in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, could itself be subject to scrutiny in the current political climate.
“This modern ‘one man, one vote’ stuff is painted on by a liberal Warren Court,” he said, referring to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. “Maybe it should be challenged, and maybe it would win on a challenge in the more conservative court.”
Legislators will meet again to discuss the subject virtually and then present their findings to the interim Joint Corporations Committee.
If electeds end up drafting legislation to apportion the Legislature based on their meetings, it might be introduced during the legislative budget session in 2026.
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.
