Legislative Update

Greetings Crook County,

I’m happy to report that we are going into the fourth week of session. This past week, the Wyoming Legislature worked hard (and late) to give fair consideration and debate to as many bills as possible. Thursday was “crossover,” meaning that any bill that had not been passed out of their chamber of origin by then would not be further considered.

One of the bright spots of the week was having two of my children serve as pages on the House floor.

As I’ve mentioned before, there were a total of 398 bills filed in the House and Senate this session. As of today, there have been 121 bills passed out of the House that are now being considered in the Senate.

The Senate has passed 98 bills that the House is now working through. A total of 159 bills are no longer moving forward this session, 122 in the House and 37 in the Senate. 

I’m pleased to report that three of my bills have been passed out of the House of Representatives and are now being considered in the Senate. Should the Senate approve these bills, they will then go to Governor Mark Gordon for consideration.

• HB0155, Animal Shares: This bill specifies requirements for distribution of meat pursuant to ownership of an animal share. “Animal share” means an ownership interest in an animal or herd of animals created by a written contract between a consumer and a farmer or rancher that includes a bill of sale to the consumer for an ownership interest in the animal or herd and a boarding provision under which the consumer boards the animal or herd with the farmer or rancher and the consumer is entitled to receive a share of meat from the animal or herd. This bill was passed by the House 55-3 (two absent) on Thursday.

• HB 28, Firearm Regulation: This bill would prohibit governmental entities from operating firearm buyback programs with your tax dollars. This bill was passed by the House of Representatives 55-4 (one absent) last week.

• HB 56, Good neighbor authority: This bill would create the Wyoming state forestry good neighbor authority revolving account to support restoration efforts across private and public lands. This bill was approved unanimously by the House on Wednesday.

The Senate also passed HB134, Wyoming tourism account funding on Friday. This is the statewide lodging tax, which I did not support. Since the House has already approved the bill and only minor changes were made in the Senate, it has been sent to the House for concurrence and then will go to the Governor for signature.

One final update on the Budget. The House and Senate are now in conference committees, working to hash out differences in the two budgets. Once a compromise version of the Budget is approved by the conference committees, both the House and Senate will have the opportunity to vote on the final package.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me at 307-282-0968 or email me at [email protected]. You can also find updates about my work on my Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/Tyler4HD1.