WyoLeg: Week Seven Recap

Wins, losses, and what lies ahead.

Wins

When legislation reaches the Governor’s desk, he can sign it, veto it, or allow it to take effect without his signature.

The Governor began signing (and not signing) bills this week.

The following WYFC priorities have made it across the finish line:

✅ Repeal gun free zones: The Governor chose to allow this bill to become law without his signature- read his no signature letter here.

According to Governor Gordon, repealing dangerous gun free zones and restoring the Second Amendment is a “power grab.” We’re not sure what that means, but we’re grateful that House Bill 172, sponsored by WYFC member Representative Jeremy Haroldson, is now in the statute books.

✅ Homeschool freedom act: Wyoming is now the 12th state in America to have real homeschool freedom. Thanks to WYFC member Representative Tomi Strock, homeschool parents no longer have to notify and gain permission from the government to teach their kids at home.

✅ Invalidate illegal alien driver’s license: The governor chose not to sign this bill either- you can read his explanation of his decision here.

Formerly known as House Bill 116, this is the first of our Five and Dime bills to cross the finish line! WYFC member Representative Pepper Ottman carried this bill.

✅ CBDC Ban: This common sense bill bans central bank digital currencies — and the big state surveillance that comes with them— in Wyoming. Thank WYFC member Representative Daniel Singh for bringing this bill.

✅ Regulation of abortion mills: While an activist judge has placed our historic pro-life laws in limbo, the State of Wyoming has a duty to regulate abortion mills. If these facilities can’t agree to operate under a modicum of safety precautions, they’ll have to close their doors.

You can keep track of all the bills the Governor has acted on here.

Losses

It’s been a bloodbath for conservative bills in the upper chamber this week. In the last five days, the Senate has killed the following common sense bills: 

• A bill to protect all female athletes in Wyoming from K-12 to the intercollegiate level (House Bill 60, Student eligibility in sports, amendments). 

• A no-brainer bill to remove student IDs from the acceptable forms of voter ID (House Bill 160, Voter identification- revisions). 

• A well-vetted first step to ban foreign nationals from owning land in Wyoming (House Joint Resolution 2, Foreign adversaries, prohibited property ownership). 

• A bill to achieve real property tax reform (House Bill 282, Property tax- acquisition value). 

• Our best-in-the-nation bill to end lawfare and protect the First Amendment rights of Wyomingites (House Bill 223, Preventing strategic lawsuits against public participation). 

• Our bill to codify conscience protections for doctors and nurses (House Bill 222, Medical Ethics Defense Act). 

• A bill to bolster parental rights in education (House Bill 200, Parent rights, amendments). 

• A bill to prevent vaccine and masking mandate insanity (House Bill 96, Prohibiting mask, vaccine and testing discrimination). 

• A medical freedom bill to protect the ability of Wyomingites to accept blood transfusions of their choice during medical procedures (House Bill 135, Autologus or direct blood donations). 

• A pro-life bill to protect life affirming crisis pregnancy centers from attacks (House Bill 273, Wyoming pregnancy centers- autonomy and rights).

• Bills to ban ballot harvesting and unsupervised ballot drop boxes (House Bill 238, Ballot harvesting prohibition & House Bill 131, Ballot drop boxes- prohibition).

• A bill to prevent tax dollars from being spent on drag shows (HB0134, taxpayer funds- sexually explicit events prohibited).

What lies ahead

A good many conservative priorities still have an uncertain fate. Now is the time to call your legislators, and the Governor, to help advocate for the bills you care about. The following bills are still in limbo:

• Proof of voter residency & citizenship: This bill is headed to Governor Gordon’s desk after passage by both the House and the Senate. This is the #1 priority in our Five and Dime Plan.

• Prohibition on discriminatory DEI in Wyoming government: This bill faces one last vote in the Senate.

• Support for our core industries by ending woke ESG investing of our tax dollars: The Wyoming Senate buried our bill to ban ESG investing, but sent us a version of their own. The House strengthened their bill. It has two readings left in the House.

• Universal school choice: This bill is on the Governor’s desk after passage by both the House and the Senate.

• What is a Woman Act: This bill would codify common sense biological definitions of gender, and narrowly made it out of the Wyoming Senate on Friday— just before the deadline for bills to be debated in Committee of the Whole after our friend and hero Riley Gaines drew attention to the fact that it was getting buried by Senate leadership.

There’s a lot more work to be done in the final week of the legislative session. Stay tuned for updates.