Campaign Spotlight

The final two weeks of a legislative session usually involves intense negotiations between the House and Senate over the budget. But this year, in an unprecedented event, the two chambers simply decided to not pass a budget, leaving millions of dollars of state programs unfunded.

Meanwhile, a handful of bills proceeded to the capitol toward the governor’s desk, while many others—including most election-related bills—died. The Freedom Caucus plugged through more anti-abortion bills, some bad education bills passed while others perished, and some common sense bills helping workers and seniors survived (barely).

At last, the session ended, and after overturning several of the governor’s vetoes, the legislators went home.

The fourth and fifth weeks of the 2025 legislative session included debate over the state budget. Lawmakers voted for or against funding for programs related to healthcare, public education, wildfire relief, and more.

In the final weeks of the session, the House and Senate will need to negotiate to find a compromise between their two separate plans to fund the state.

Meanwhile, several bills to decrease public school funding and divert funding to private schools advanced, along with proposals to politicize education and tax cuts for homeowners and coal companies that will defund local services in our communities.

In the second two weeks of the 2025 legislative session, the Freedom Caucus kept pounding away at its highest priorities in the House, including abortion restrictions, voter restrictions, and multiple bills to tear down public education.

Both chambers advanced even more property tax cut proposals, and in the Senate a resolution advanced in support of Wyoming seizing and selling federal public lands.

The House and Senate each worked on their own versions of the supplemental budget, but debates were still raging at our deadline. We will focus on the budget in Report 3.

In the first two weeks of the Wyoming Legislature’s 2025 session, the House prioritized Freedom Caucus bills over the normal functions of government, advancing do-nothing policies on hot-button social issues instead of addressing actual problems that impact our lives and communities.