The Joint Agriculture Committee just voted to bring back the Second Amendment Preservation Act from last session on a split-second, unannounced vote earlier this afternoon.
"Don't throw something at me before we adjourn," said Sen. RJ Kost
Rep. Robert Wharff, an Evanston Republican and a former guns rights lobbyist, introduced a motion to bring it up in a special session specifically meant to address new COVID relief funds.
He said they ran up against the clock during the regular session, and it would have passed.
Lots of procedural concerns from co-chairman Brian Boner, who questioned repeatedly why the bill wasn't introduced as an individual bill. Said added caused undue controversy to the process, and should reconsider if he wanted it to pass should it fail to pass muster.
"I have never seen this before in my six years in the Legislature," Boner said. Said that the interim process is meant for well-thought out conversations, not high pressured votes.
Said it's unfair to the public. Others, like Bouchard, arguing language they can bring topics as a "last point" in the agenda.
Passed 7-4 despite no public posting, less than 20 minutes of discussion, and immediately before adjournment.
The Second Amendment Preservation Act essentially boils down to "if the feds pass a law that takes away our gun rights, we won't enforce them."
Wonder if this starts a trend. Bringing up controversial bills in a special session is very new because we've never really had them. In what is supposed to be a part time Legi.
Rep. Gray says that the current Biden Administration policy to expand Medicaid to red states is "coercive." Asking if there are any legal challenges pending, but DOH staff say that most of the legal issues out there have "been resolved."
This is how our current environment as a non-expansion state compares to states that have expanded. Note the populations carved out here.
An official for the University of Wyoming's Center for Business and Economic Analysis walking through their version of the tax capacity study, with estimated from the minimum rate to if we went "full socialist" and maxed everything out.
Quite a bit.
Based off median income, we have room to raise taxes.
Here's us compared to states with no income tax... we could earn $2.3 billion if we adopted the median of their tax policies.
However, Texas and Washington have major metros. We don't. S. Dakota is the best match, which would net us about $1.1b extra per year.
Knapp, who now lives in California but is moving back to Gillette, said he’s wanted to go into public service since high school and that “now is a good time to do it.”
According to his LinkedIn, he works in Orange County and has been heavily involved in the O&G industry.
Did anyone else get a heads-up he was running? Nobody contacted me about him running until about 6 a.m. today and though I heard rumors someone was announcing in Campbell County last week, nobody knew who it was.
With more than a year until the Republican primaries, we now have seven challengers, including
The Legislature's Revenue Committee discussing the state's tax structure this morning.
Revenue Director Dan Noble says the state's tax structure is a regressive one: "Our tax structure is unstable. We base... more than half of our economy on price of commodities."
We also have the "second lowest" tax burden for a family of four in the United States, he said, and that our current tax structure could actually hinder the state's growth, due to the high cost of services and a thin tax base.
Watch live here:
Notes state and county officials are limited in their taxing authority. And tax administration is confusing.
"We spend probably more time than anything else appearing before the State Board of Equalization and the Supreme Court associated with mineral issues."
Lawmakers are allowed to participate remotely and won't be docked pay for it.
Lawmakers can only hold meetings at sites able to facilitate full remote meetings.
Much better than the policy they originally proposed.
The drawback is that we won't have meetings in rural areas that occasionally require field visits. If you look at the list, all the sites are places like Laramie, Rawlins, Jackson, Rock Springs, Casper, Cheyenne...
Interesting quote by Albert Sommers: "I think the public participation piece is probably going to be the most hotly debated [we have]." (1/2)
"One of the things that I've heard repeatedly from some of the chairs on the House side is the concern that if we don't have some throttle on who comes in when they come in, then we can get all manner of out of state people coming in at one, you know, kind of flooding in."