Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, February 10th. I'm Mac Watson.

–

The 68th Wyoming Legislature Budget Session opened on Monday at the Capitol in Cheyenne. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports from the Capitol that the session started with Gov. Mark Gordon urged legislators to restore key portions of his November budget recommendation.

"Most of what he discussed, alongside touting Wyoming, its values, its industries, was asking lawmakers to reinstate his budget request, and that's because the joint appropriations committee got first slash at his draft budget and cut and denied various things from it, including a proposed $40 million cut to the University of Wyoming. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus in response, said Governor Gordon needs to chill with the spending and then the State of the Judiciary, Chief Justice Lynn Boomgaarden of the Wyoming Supreme Court delivered her speech on allowing the Wyoming judiciary to be a co equal and independent branch of government. She referenced the unavoidable that a January 6 opinion by the High Court casting abortion as a fundamental right and upholding it, striking down two laws that would have restricted it. She recognized that this is causing lawmakers to consider how the courts are structured, how judges and justices are chosen, and she urged them not to quote 'politicize' the courts. The Wyoming Senate held a series of introductory votes in which they decided which bills were even worth their consideration, and one of the bills that they decided in a 21-10 vote was not worth their consideration would have purged the Wyoming Business Council from Wyoming's law books altogether. However, even though the Business Council CEO Josh Dorell was pleased and called it 'a decisive win.' He said, 'Look out, because there is still a budget amendment that would defund the council.' Now it stands to reason that the Senate could change that budget amendment. Today's vote indicates they might, but it is viable at this juncture."

The legislative Joint Appropriations Committee proposed multiple cuts and denials to Gordon's recommendations, in its second-draft version of the budget. Now the Wyoming Legislature will grapple with the third and later drafts until it sends a budget to the governor's desk around the first week of March.

Read the full story HERE.

–

The Freedom Caucus of the Wyoming House of Representatives spelled out its priorities for the 2026 session of the Wyoming Legislature Monday, immediately after Gov. Mark Gordon delivered his State of the State address. Cowboy State Daily's David Madison reports that their press conference outside of the state capitol, was pointed and direct.

"When the governor referred to the Freedom Caucus as club 'No.' Now they took offense to that and put their own spin on that phrase a couple of times, and really said, we're about 'yes.' We're about 'yes' to our agenda, which has heavy emphasis on protecting unborn children and banning abortion, which has a lot of emphasis on getting smut out of libraries, and they took issue with the University of Wyoming as well. They also talked a lot about election reform, pen and paper ballots…also today, a big priority for the Freedom Caucus was to get a slate of election reform bills introduced to the house for consideration. They needed a two thirds majority to be introduced. They didn't get that coalition of Republicans and Democrats spoke out and voted down many of these measures.'

Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, from Cody, opened the press conference saying that "The Freedom Caucus exists for the people of Wyoming. We are doing the work of the people."

Read the full s