The Wyoming Family Alliance’s campaign to elect school board members uses a candidate questionnaire that focuses far more on sex and genitals than it does on anything a school board member would actually need to know.
The sex-obsessed fundamentalists influencing Wyoming school board elections Read More »
From Idaho to Montana to Nebraska to Utah to Colorado, efforts to confront a lack of affordable housing are ongoing in basically all of Wyoming’s neighbors. Even though our own state has done basically nothing to confront the problem, we have plenty of models to look toward if lawmakers ever get the gumption to act.
Wyoming’s neighbors provide examples of housing solutions Read More »
Wyoming’s housing crisis came on fast, but solutions to it from political leaders are either incremental or nonexistent. In some towns, local officials have updated zoning regulations to allow for more construction. Federal rent assistant programs are backlogged, and the Legislature has done essentially nothing.
Slow or none: Wyoming lawmakers’ response to the housing crisis Read More »
In the second part of our housing series, Better Wyoming looks at the secondary problems caused by our housing crisis: intensified brain drain, lack of critical services, harm to the economy, and an overall impact on our communities’ well-being.
Wyoming’s unaffordable housing drives young families and businesses away Read More »
In the first part of a new series, Better Wyoming looks at the causes of our state’s housing crisis—including wealthy out-of-staters paying cash and driving up prices, short-term rentals depleting housing stocks, restrictive zoning, high construction materials costs, and more.
What causes Wyoming’s housing crisis? Read More »
The Wyoming Constitution is stricter than other states’ when it comes to education funding and prohibits giving public funds to private or religious schools or individuals. The Legislature ignored these provisions in creating the new program, while Gov. Gordon slightly reined it in with a line-item veto.
Wyoming legislators wanted to give property tax relief to seniors on fixed incomes, but gray-haired lawmakers couldn’t help giving a bit of relief to themselves—despite the Baby Boomer generation being the richest in history.
Fortunately, other successful property tax proposals this session were more thought-out.
Session recap: Harrison Ford and other needy Wyoming seniors receive property tax relief Read More »
With multiple bans already in place but tied up in the courts, the Wyoming Legislature’s attempt to criminalize abortion this year was at once an attempt at a back up plan in the likely event that the state Supreme Court rules in favor of abortion access, and at the same time and admission that the procedure is, in fact, healthcare.
SESSION RECAP: Vetoed abortion bill provides a preview for fights to come Read More »
Public schools are overseen by boards elected by their communities. But more and more Wyoming legislators want to divert public education funding to “education savings accounts” that fund private, religious, and home school operations with no oversight or accountability—a model that has failed in other Western states.
Lawmakers are looking to reverse years of K-12 budget cuts in hopes of convincing the Wyoming Supreme Court to look kindly upon them in June, when the court will hear arguments in a lawsuit brought by the state teachers union and several school districts. A committee has proposed a $68 million funding increase aimed at providing teachers raises in hopes that the court will rule that they have met their constitutional obligation to properly fund schools.
Session preview: Facing a lawsuit, Wyo. legislators look to increase teacher pay Read More »
