Gov. Mark Gordon thanked both chambers of the Legislature for eventually passing a budget significantly close to his original proposal during his final press conference of the budget session.
“I think it's wonderful that the House can take some credit, the Senate can take some credit and we can all talk about what was good for Wyoming,” Gordon said on the Zoom call with reporters.
He highlighted lawmakers’ ability to compromise on a budget, commented on the Freedom Caucus, addressed dry conditions across the West and reflected on his time as governor.
Session review
After a session that saw the “Checkgate” controversy, weekend lawmaking and long debates, the House and Senate ultimately agreed on a budget that Gordon called “close to 99%” similar to his own.
“I think it was great that the Legislature did decide to dive in the way they did,” said Gordon. “But in the end, I'm pretty thrilled with what we were able to come away with.”
Gordon has said he’s pleased the final budget included funding for state employee pay raises, the University of Wyoming and the state’s primary economic development agency, the Wyoming Business Council. Gordon also noted pushback from voters, adding he’ll be interested to see if that carries through to the primary election on Aug. 18.
However, the governor’s thrill on the budget had its limits.
He was confused as to how the Legislature failed to fund the SUN Bucks program that offers food assistance to families during school summer break.
He also reflected on how the makeup of the current Legislature led to some of those long nights of work on the budget.
“I worry sometimes with the sort of over-promise and under-deliver that we saw out of the Freedom Caucus this year,” he said when asked how he thinks the Freedom Caucus governed this session. This is the caucus’s first budget session with a majority of votes in the House. “And if you looked at the way the Freedom Caucus run parts of the session, they have a lot to learn. They're young, they're getting new to government. It's not, you know, completely unexpected. But, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't as clean a session as we've seen in the past.”
The Freedom Caucus capped the session with a call for reinforcements, with the goal of increasing their numbers in the House and gaining more allies in the Senate. The caucus suggested they made efforts to slow the growth of government but can’t halt it more without more lawmakers to fight alongside them.
“There seems to be this notion that somehow this is about power,” Gordon continued. “Do we have power or do they have power? And it's us [against] them, and, you know, we need more reinforcements, which sounds sort of like a battle, as opposed to what I think most people in Wyoming care about, which is: Are my kids gonna be safe? Is my community gonna be okay? Are my roads gonna be okay?”
Aside from the budget, Gordon praised the Legislature for creating the Energy Dominance Fund, which will offer grants and loans to attract fossil fuel, nuclear and rare earths projects to the state. It replaces a similar fund that previously supported innovative renewable and fossil fuel energy projects.
He also highlighted a bill he signed that bans abortions when there’s a “detectable fetal heartbeat.” In other states, this has been interpreted as a six-week ban. Wyoming’s new law, which is being challenged in court, does not offer exceptions for rape or incest.
Gordon said the government needed to take action.
“We needed to do something. We had no regulation at all. I am a pro-life governor,” he said. “I think it needs to have exceptions more than just the health of the mother. I think rape and incest is something that's critical to me, making sure that we don't have that particular problem.”
Gordon was also asked to compare his first year in office to now.
“We're certainly doing better by our kids. I worry a little bit that we've actually done well enough that we've kind of decided that maybe it isn't important for us to continue to grow, to continue to expand, which I think is unfortunate.”
Looking ahead
After a decade-long push to turn the state into a hub for new financial technologies, Wyoming Public Radio asked Gordon when Wyomingites might see a material return in the form of revenue from the state’s recently launched stable token. The governor said they’ve been “very cautious" and want to ensure that the token has “sufficient backstop.” However, Gordon believes the state will see returns from the stable token “probably a year or two out.”
Gordon touched on a few other topics, such as a recent federal funding announcement.
The Department of the Interior (DOI) revealed on Tuesday that $889 million of investment will go toward water-based infrastructure repairs across the West, including Wyoming.
Gordon thanked Pres. Trump for the funding.
“You could talk about projects all over the West,” said Gordon. “They were all built right around the turn of the century, for probably the first 25 years. So now to have this funding is absolutely critical.”
According to the DOI, the Goshen Irrigation District will receive $100 million for repairs to the Fort Laramie Tunnels, which collapsed in 2019.
The governor also spoke regarding the particularly dry winter season and how those conditions may lead to a “somewhat existential” fight for water rights.
“We want to make sure that Wyoming is well prepared to defend our interests, make sure that we don't lose the water that we absolutely control. But it's not just the Colorado River Basin that's of concern. It's also the Tongue River. It is also, basically, almost every drainage in the state,” he said.
Gordon said he expects decades of lawsuits on the Colorado River, but believes that all states are working towards a seven state solution. However, he said Wyoming and others might need to be prepared to prioritize what their hydrology can support.
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.
