Efforts to raise Wyoming’s minimum wage, provide tax relief to very poor elderly and disabled people, and help fund food pantries all died this session.
Gov. Mark Gordon allowed the bill to become law today without signing it. The debate over what Gordon called “flawed” legislation pitted “school choice” advocates against defenders of local control.
It was the third law passed in three years in Wyoming to attack women’s reproductive rights. Prior to 2017, an anti-abortion law had not passed here in nearly 30 years. Three other anti-choice bills proposed in 2019 were defeated.
Capital punishment is expensive, violates the sanctity of life, gives government too much power, and has grave consequences when it’s misapplied. For these and other reasons—put forth mainly by young conservatives—the Wyoming Legislature came very close to ending the death penalty this year.
Proposals to expand Medicaid, to study Medicaid expansion, and to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients all died this session.
Rape is common. Convictions for rape are exceedingly rare. But under Wyoming’s new law, a rapist must have been formally convicted of sexual assault before a civil court can take away his legal right to be daddy.
A dozen or so people braved the elements one snowy day during the 2019 session to support a hemp bill and educate legislators about the benefits of medical cannabis.
On an absurdly late final night of the 2019 session, Bebout went home before the House and Senate could hash out disagreements over his proposed oil tax break. In Bebout’s absence, the bill sputtered and died.
A bill to legalize hemp survived a last-ditch attack from law enforcement lobbyists and a temporary threat to its funding before it passed its final hurdles in the Legislature this week.
Opponents of the bill agreed that encouraging people to work is a good thing. But threatening to take away their healthcare isn’t the right way to do it.
The things we say to children can have deep, lasting, and sometimes harmful impacts. PFLAG – Laramie President Lorinda Lindley calls on Wyoming State Senator Lynn Hutchings to realize this, and to issue an apology to the students she dehumanized.
Under the proposed new law, Wyoming doctors who fail to report detailed information about abortions and the women who receive them could face $25,000 fines and the loss of their medical licenses.