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Wyoming students perform among the best in the nation. Will radical lawmakers ruin that?
National standardized tests show Wyoming fourth graders rank #1 nationwide in math, and our students perform far above average across subjects and grade levels. But the Wyoming Legislature, taken over by the far-right Freedom Caucus, is intent on cutting public teacher pay and promoting private religious schools. Will they wreck our K-12 system?
Want to slow Wyo’s boom-and-bust cycle? Tax Jackson.
Diversifying Wyoming’s economy will require diversifying its tax base. While raising taxes on average residents is a political non-starter, a new report shows Wyoming can significantly broaden its tax base by focusing on luxury real estate and the ultra-rich.
What will Wyo lawmakers do with an extra $3 billion this year?
Last year, facing a supposed “budget crisis,” the Legislature and Gov. Gordon cut hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding, eliminated hundreds of jobs, and refused cost-of-living raises for teachers during record inflation. Now that the oil and gas industry is booming and tax revenues have soared, the state has a $3 billion surplus. What will they do with it during the 2023 session that starts next week?
A brief history of failed “Wyoming solutions” to our state’s healthcare problems
For more than a decade, Wyoming lawmakers have insisted that, instead of expanding Medicaid, we should find a state-based approach to fixing our broken healthcare system. And for a decade, they have failed to come up with any such thing, just like every other state before them that eventually adopted the program.
Does Governor Gordon really care about mental health?
The governor convened a recent conference about Wyoming’s mental health crisis. But, at the same time, he says he opposes Medicaid expansion, which rural states across the U.S.—including every single one of our neighbors—have used to bring about actual solutions to their mental health challenges. If he really cares about Wyoming’s mental health crisis, why does he oppose a proven solution?
Education takes a backseat to “hot button” social issues in Wyo. school board races
Instead of focusing on teacher retention, balanced budgets, student mental health, and other less dramatic—yet critical—school district subjects, candidates across the state this year come straight out of protest groups focused on banning books and outlawing mask mandates.
Local Wyoming elections have climate impacts
Climate change is a global problem, but many of the decisions and actions to help fight it are local. As Wyoming voters head to the polls this fall, keep in mind that city, county, and state officials impact our climate resilience.
Post-“Roe” Wyo: The upcoming fight for abortion rights
Abortion remains temporarily legal in Wyoming as challenges to the Legislature’s 2022 “trigger ban” play out in court. If state judges ultimately decide that the ban is unconstitutional—a pretty likely outcome—the fight will move back to the Legislature and then, potentially, to a vote in 2024.
The 2022 general election this fall will play a large role in shaping these events, and in any case pro-choice advocates will need to organize to win.
Overturning Roe v. Wade did not end abortion rights in Wyoming. In fact, it was just the beginning.
GOP Medicaid expansion supporters defeat primary challengers
Many GOP lawmakers have wrung their hands and worried that doing what they know is right—supporting Medicaid expansion—would cost them at the polls. But overwhelmingly, GOP incumbents who backed Medicaid expansion won on Tuesday, dispelling those fears.
DERAILED: Everything you need to vote smart in the 2022 Wyoming primaries (Part 4)
Our “DERAILED” series explained why you should vote in the 2022 Wyoming primary elections. Now we tell you how. Find your new voting districts, polling place, and learn how to research your candidates to cast a smart ballot this August.
DERAILED: Special interest groups count on low turnout to influence Wyo. primaries (Part 3)
Many groups with narrow agendas target the primary elections in order to flip seats in the Wyoming Legislature, and they depend on low turnout to succeed.
The more Wyomingites vote in the elections that count, the less influence special interest groups will have over our state.
DERAILED: No matter what you learned in school, Wyoming Election Day is not in November (part 2)
Despite what we learn in school, Wyoming’s real Election Day is in August.
All six races for statewide and Congressional seats in 2022 will be decided by then, along with all but a handful of Legislative and county-level contests.
If you’re waiting until November to cast a ballot, you’re missing the chance to make your vote count.
DERAILED: The Wyo. Legislature’s 2022 trainwreck budget session (part 1)
The Wyoming Legislature’s 2022 budget session was a prime example of how our state lawmakers ignore the real problems of Wyoming and instead focus on emotional “hot button” national issues.
As home and healthcare prices go up, the struggling fossil fuel industries fail to pay for public schools, and Wyoming can’t keep young people living here to build a future, the Legislature is transfixed on issues they repeat from national media.
This is the kind of representation we get when only 30 percent of Wyoming residents vote in the elections that count: the primaries.
DERAILED: How Wyoming’s Legislature got off track, and how to steer it back (series intro)
The Wyoming Legislature has become more concerned with squabbling over hot-button national issues than addressing the real problems of our state. In a new series, Better Wyoming looks at how this happened, and what we need to do to get back on track.
Wyoming lawmakers stand by as two more hospitals close their maternity wards
Wyomingites understand that we do not have the cutting-edge medical facilities that big cities offer. But that does not mean we should force small-town women to face stressful and even dangerous situations in order to safely give birth.
Our state can have a hospital system that serves us all. But that means we need legislators who are willing to help support it.