We're building

Hardworking Wyomingites are tired of politicians hell-bent on creating conflict.

We want solutions to our state’s real problems and opportunities to build a future for our families and communities — That’s why we’re working to educate, organize, and mobilize folks on behalf of statewide change.

It’s up to us to build a better Wyoming.

What makes a better Wyoming

Lander community members doing a lit drop

Strong Communities

1.10.23HealthyWyomingMedicaidExpansionRallyWeb-77

Engaged citizens and a responsive government

A Grandfather with his grandson in the carpentry workshop teaching the grandson carpentry skills

Opportunities to build a brighter future

2025 Wyo. Legislature Grassroots Accountability Campaign

Help Better Wyoming educate your local community and hold lawmakers accountable during the 2025 legislative session. Our semi-weekly Accountability Reports will contain votes, quotes, and notes about how your local legislators approach our state’s most pressing issues. But we need folks like YOU to help share the information with your networks and neighbors so your local community can decide if your lawmakers’ actions align with their values.

Updates

Senators applauding on the floor

Statewide Accountability Report 4: Feb. 24 – Mar. 7

March 4, 2025

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.

Read More
Charles Scott laughing at a joke on the floor

Statewide Accountability Report #3: Feb. 10 – 21

February 17, 2025

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.

Read More
Wyoming Senators talking about bills on the floor

Statewide Accountability Report #2: Jan. 27 – Feb. 7

February 3, 2025

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.

Read More

Together, we can build a Better Wyoming

Reporting and Commentary

SESSION RECAP: Vetoed abortion bill provides a preview for fights to come

April 6, 2024

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.

Read More

Session preview: Wyo. lawmakers want to send taxpayer money to schools with no accountability

February 9, 2024

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.

Read More

Session preview: Facing a lawsuit, Wyo. legislators look to increase teacher pay

February 1, 2024

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.

Read More

The Community Compass

Sign up for Better Wyoming’s new weekly newsletter, The Community Compass, where we share with you the most important Wyoming stories this week and tell you why they matter.