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Session Recap: Funding restored, Wyoming must now work to rebuild its suicide prevention program from scratch
After completely defunding Wyoming’s statewide program in 2017, the Legislature allocated $2 million this year for suicide prevention. The scope of damage—and what a new program will look like—is unclear.
Medicaid work requirements didn’t pass this year, but they fit too well with Wyoming’s history of denying public assistance to assume they won’t be back
A work requirements bill passed the Senate with gusto, suggesting there’s no small number of lawmakers eager to kick folks in Wyoming off Medicaid.
Better Wyoming director Nate Martin appears on “Speak Your Piece” talk radio show
Better Wyoming director Nate Martin spoke with Darian Dudrick for the Cody-based “Speak Your Piece” talk radio show about what BW is, what we want, and how we’re going to get it.
Session recap: Another year, another effort to criminalize edible marijuana fails. Is the Legislature getting ready to turn a corner on cannabis?
In killing yet another proposal to criminalize edible cannabis, a House committee doubled down on its position that Wyoming needs marijuana reform
Session recap: How the death of “Wyoming Public Lands Day” illustrates mining’s grip on the Legislature
What should have been an uncontroversial win for public lands advocates became a way for mineral industry-connected lawmakers to demonstrate their supremacy.
Book review: The currents young Wyomingites swim against
In an essay for High Country News, BW director Nate Martin looks at two books that explain why Wyoming can’t keep its young talent.
Session recap: Wyoming hasn’t seen the last of pipeline protest bills like SF-74
The bill vetoed by Gov. Matt Mead that would have punished protesters like those at Standing Rock with imprisonment and absurd fines was a small part of a much larger fight. It’s likely to be back in some form soon.
Session recap: Criminal justice reform makes progress
After years of failed measures to decrease Wyoming’s prison population and otherwise improve the system, 2018 saw several positive bills pass.
House upholds Mead’s veto of pipeline protest bill, killing it for good (until next year)
The Legislature needed a two-thirds vote from each chamber to override Mead’s veto. The Senate mustered the votes, but the House did not.
House amendments might scuttle a consensus vote on pipeline protest bill
The Senate left the bill much as ALEC wrote it. But amendments in the House to address free speech and landowner concerns imight make it difficult to reconcile the two versions before the 2018 session closes.
Rumors of a budget deal suggest no deep cuts to public schools this year
This session that saw threats of public school funding cuts as large as $80 million a year. But as a final deal nears, only a small fraction of those cuts remain, which education advocates are scoring as a win.
Debate continues over controversial pipeline protest bill
The saga of Senate File 74 is not over yet. The controversial ALEC-written bill to severely punish pipeline protestors like […]
Education advocates reluctantly root for the lesser evil in the Senate
The Senate is considering a bill that would cut roughly $15 million a year from Wyoming public schools—but it’s far better than the Senate budget proposal, which would annually cut about $80 million.
Medicaid work requirements bill, aimed at Wyoming’s “poorest of the poor,” dies in House committee
Sen. Larry Hicks, the bill’s sponsor, said obtaining social services “is not a destination, but a journey.”
Wyoming GOP committeeman Charles Curley under fire for allegedly assaulting female colleague
The alleged assault took place after the Laramie County Republican’s Lincoln Day Dinner nearly two weeks ago. Despite being widely witnessed and discussed, the GOP has kept quiet about the incident and Curley has refused to resign.