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Better Wyoming is a communications and advocacy hub offering fresh alternatives to the stagnant ideas that have long dominated state politics. We educate, organize, and mobilize Wyoming residents to turn these possibilities into reality.

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More than a third of Wyomingites said they had stopped taking drugs as prescribed because of cost.

Wyoming lawmakers’ plan to import drugs from Canada won’t lower prescription costs

Working families and seniors across Wyoming are feeling the pinch of paying for steadily increasing drug costs. But the Legislature’s plan to import drugs from Canada won’t help.
Wyoming's voter registration laws focus solely on registering at the polls. But this one-trick pony doesn't ride too well when almost half the electorate is voting absentee.

Registering to vote at the polls in Wyoming is great … until it’s not

The main way to register to vote in Wyoming is at the polls. But a huge portion of the state’s electorate is avoiding the polls altogether during COVID-19. As the state’s aggressive voter purge laws disenrolled massive numbers of Wyoming voters, we’re left to wonder whether our registration laws need an update.
Wyoming's dependence on plummeting fossil fuel revenues has the state's whole education funding structure crumbling.

Wyoming lawmakers try to “recalibrate” school funding while the whole system collapses around us

The ho-hum, business-as-usual “recalibration” process to determine proper state education funding levels looks absurd in the face of a $500 million budget catastrophe.
A patient receives treatment at SageWest medical center in Riverton, which has discontinued services as a result of staffing difficulties.

Wyoming needs a strong healthcare system to help diversify its economy. It doesn’t have one.

Quality hospitals and healthcare will be critical to attracting new businesses and developing new industries in Wyoming, particularly in rural areas. But Wyoming’s healthcare system is struggling, which will make the difficult task of diversifying our economy even harder.
COVID-19 is just one reason why Wyoming should join its Western neighbors and expand mail-in voting.

Wyoming takes meek steps to increase mail-in voting in 2020. It should be doing more.

Vote-by-mail has been proven to dramatically increase voter turnout in our neighbors like Utah, Colorado, and Nebraska. Wyoming state leaders have hinted at an interest in expanding our mail-in program, but they are mostly dragging their feet.
"I'm not really here to solve problems. I just like wearing a suit!"

Wyoming faces the biggest financial crisis in its modern history. Lawmakers respond by doing nothing.

The Legislature’s Revenue Committee has one job: to develop proposals that allow Wyoming to adequately fund its public services and infrastructure. Now that fossil fuel mining taxes are going away, the committee has failed at its single job again and again and again.
Layoffs in Wyoming's energy sector have some legislators thinking twice about refusing federal funds that can provide folks healthcare.

COVID-19 prompts Wyoming lawmakers to reconsider Medicaid expansion

Unemployed workers losing their healthcare, rural hospitals losing revenue, and an uncertain future for Wyoming’s economy have the Legislature taking another look at its decision to refuse federal Medicaid funding.
"Let's see ... Where does this gadget stick in here?"

Wyoming Legislature plugs in for an unprecedented "virtual" special session

The Wyoming Legislature is bad at transparency, lacks modern technological infrastructure, and is about to convene an emergency "virtual" session the public can't attend to appropriate more than $1 billion in federal COVID-19 funding. What could possibly go wrong?
Widespread layoffs and cut hours have threatened Wyoming workers' ability to pay rent and their mortgages during the COVID crisis.

Proposal to help stop COVID-related evictions passes Wyoming legislative committee

The bill would create a program that uses federal emergency funds to reimburse landlords who have experienced rental losses as a result of COVID-19, protecting both landlord and renter. The Legislature will consider the proposal during a special session next week.
Wyoming's gender wage gap, low minimum wage, and lack of healthcare access make life difficult for many Wyoming women even during "normal" times.

Already behind, Wyoming women hit hard by COVID crisis

Low-wage workers living paycheck-to-paycheck are least prepared to grapple with layoffs and cut hours resulting from the COVID crisis. By far, most low-wage workers in Wyoming are women.
Gov. Gordon can direct the state attorney general to order sheriff's offices not to execute evictions.

Governor Gordon can and should stop COVID-related evictions in Wyoming

As unemployment spikes during the pandemic, Wyoming workers are increasingly unable to make housing payments. Federal measures and the goodwill of banks and landlords do not offer Wyoming families the housing protections they need.
Wyoming towns and counties rely on state funds to help pay for local services. But state funds are drying up.

Legislature passes a bill making it easier for Wyoming communities to tax themselves

The increased ability for towns and counties to raise revenues is a nod toward diversifying Wyoming's tax structure. But because the new revenues will come from sales tax, they will come at the highest cost to the state's poorest residents.
Inflation-based cost adjustments, special education, and school districts' discretionary funds were all decreased.

Wyoming schools spared deep funding cuts despite the Senate’s best efforts

A veto by Governor Mark Gordon helped House education advocates fend off severe funding cuts pushed by the Senate throughout the Wyoming Legislature’s 2020 session. But they couldn’t stop them all.
The "born alive" bill would create a law rarely, if ever, used. But it's an incremental tool in the larger anti-abortion effort.

Wyoming House advances last surviving abortion bill of the budget session

The bill would criminalize doctors who fail to perform life-saving measures for infants meant to be aborted but that are accidentally “born alive”—a law that would rarely, if ever, be applied in Wyoming, since abortions after 12 weeks are illegal here and fetuses are not viable until at least 20 - 23 weeks. Two other anti-abortion bills have been defeated.
Sen. Perkins might give handouts to coal companies, but not tax relief to poor folks or cost-of-living bumps for state retiree checks.

Wyoming Senate President singlehandedly kills two antipoverty bills

A tax rebate program for elderly and disabled poor people and a cost-of-living increase for retired state workers both passed the House. But the bills died in the desk of Senate President Drew Perkins, who refused to introduce them for consideration.
Read More Articles

Wyoming lawmakers’ plan to import drugs from Canada won’t lower prescription costs

Working families and seniors across Wyoming are feeling the pinch of paying for steadily increasing drug costs. But the Legislature’s plan to import drugs from ...
Read more

Registering to vote at the polls in Wyoming is great … until it’s not

The main way to register to vote in Wyoming is at the polls. But a huge portion of the state’s electorate is avoiding the polls ...
Read more

Wyoming lawmakers try to “recalibrate” school funding while the whole system collapses around us

The ho-hum, business-as-usual “recalibration” process to determine proper state education funding levels looks absurd in the face of a $500 million budget catastrophe. ...
Read more

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