The further-right Wyoming Freedom Caucus released its 2026 legislative priorities this week ahead of the February budget session.
Those priorities include returning to pre-pandemic state spending levels, requiring Laramie County to use pen and paper ballots for elections, expanding parental rights, banning “obscene pornographic materials” from children’s sections in all libraries, codifying public access to judicial opinions and court documents, and overhauling the judicial nominating process following the state Supreme Court’s decision to protect abortion access.
In a press release ahead of a virtual press conference on Jan. 14, caucus Chair Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (R-Cody) wrote, “Last year, the bills in our Five and Dime plan were all enacted with veto-proof majorities. It’s clear why: the people of Wyoming demanded these common sense reforms after decades of liberals running the show in Cheyenne … Each of these priorities was driven by the people of Wyoming. Every bill is well-vetted. We’re ready to return to the Capitol to deliver real wins for the people of Wyoming.”
The caucus’s 2025 goals, known as the Five and Dime, included proof-of-residency voter registration laws, invalidating licenses issued by other states to undocumented immigrants, prohibiting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), banning environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, and slashing property taxes.
“Our top priority this session is to right-size the state’s budget,” said Rodriguez-Williams during the press conference.
Rep. John Bear (R-Gillette) said the interim Joint Appropriations Committee (JAC) was “chopping away” at Gov. Mark Gordon’s $11 billion biennial budget proposal during hearings this week.
“We’ve had a lot of squealing going on in the JAC from the Democrats, and the Republicans that really should be Democrats, because they say that we’re just destroying government,” said Bear. “Well, [there were] very few cases where we actually went back and reduced the base budget of these agencies. Most cases were just denying their opportunity to increase the budget.”
Some agency budget increases occurred in order to keep pace with inflation or because the number of enrollees in some social services programs has gone up in recent years.
Bear added that the caucus also cut state employee wage increases across the departments, but that the JAC made exceptions for state troopers and snowplow drivers, as well as some nurses.
The caucus’s goals for 2026 also include at least one election overhaul bill.
“Currently in Wyoming, 22 out of 23 counties default to pen and paper,” said caucus Vice Chair Rep. Christopher Knapp (R-Gillette). “There’s only one county that basically does the reverse. So to provide uniformity and also ensure that people have trust in the system, we’re going to put forward this bill that would basically leave pen and paper as the default method for Wyoming.”
Knapp said under that bill, people with disabilities will still be able to vote digitally. He said that using QR codes allows for “manipulation, or changes to occur” to ballots.
In August 2025, Sublette County Clerk Mary Langford read an email to the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee that she received from Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee about the effect of the pen and paper draft bill on her constituents. Currently, the county uses voting machines with touch screens to record votes.
“This would completely upend Laramie County's elections, a recipe for disaster for Wyoming's largest county that could impact elections across the state,” Langford read at the time. “Laramie County would have to completely change its operational plans. The county would have to acquire additional voting equipment, have equipment installed and tested by the vendor well in advance of performing the required logic and accuracy tests.”
County clerks across the state have told WPR that voter fraud is rare, and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, lists four instances of voter fraud in Wyoming since 1982.
A WPR investigation published in October 2025 found few formal complaints filed to the secretary of state’s office in Wyoming contain allegations of voter fraud, according to documents received through an open records request.
It’s unclear how successful the Freedom Caucus’s 2026 priorities will be in the upcoming session, given that a two-thirds majority of the chamber in question is needed for any given bill to clear introduction.
The budget session begins on Feb. 9.
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.
