March 28, 2024
Photo – Wyoming Capitol Building – Bigfoot99 file photo
The Wyoming Legislature adjourned this year’s budget session on Friday, March 8, but as baseball legend Yogi Berra once noted, “It ain’t over til it’s over.”
And for Wyoming lawmakers, it’s far from over.
Wyoming lawmakers are taking an official vote on whether to call themselves back to the state Capitol in Cheyenne for a special session. A simple majority vote is all that is necessary for state lawmakers to reconvene and finish their business.
Legislative leaders, Senate President Ogden Driskill and House Speaker Albert Sommers, are opposed to a special session. The two wrote yesterday, “Without special rules governing the special session, it’s likely to be a Pandora’s Box scenario devolving into a mini-session akin to what we witnessed in the 2021 special session, where 41 bills were filed, and only one passed.”
Wyoming Freedom Caucus chair, Rep. John Bear of Gillette, openly mocked Driskell and Sommers with a Facebook post shortly after the leaders announced their opposition to a special session.
“In other words, please wait until it is not an election year so that we can all vote our conscience rather than what the people desire,” Bear’s post stated.
Early signs Wednesday indicated that 12 senators and 26 representatives said they would like a vote on whether to call for a special session. The Senate will have to pick up four votes and the House six for a special session to be convened.
The need for a special session was triggered on Monday by Senate File 54. Governor Mark Gordon vetoed the bill that would have provided Wyoming property owners with a 25% reduction off the market value of their home up to a value of $2 million.
The prospect of conservative lawmakers is a Mulligan at the budget along with other bills the governor vetoed last week, has leadership worried.
Driskell and Sommers say they would favor the special session if it could focus on a single issue—the 25% tax exemption for property owners. Without special rules limiting the agenda to SF 54, they are opposed because of a special session’s price tag of $35,000 a day to have lawmakers return to Cheyenne for a week or ten days.
Legislative leaders flip-flopped on the idea of a special session. Over the weekend Driskell and Sommers issued a statement saying no. On Monday night, they issued another joint statement saying they were considering a joint session. After 12 more hours passed, they said no to a special session.
In another editorial decrying a special session, Driskell and Sommers blamed lawmakers who are asking for the special session, saying they are the ones who wasted time during the regular session with “procedural motions and filibustering debate.”
Conservative groups in Wyoming have called for a special session after a series of vetoes Governor Gordon issued last week.
Rep. Bear and Sen. Cheri Steinmetz of Lingle both called for a special session of the Wyoming Legislature over the weekend, citing Gov. Gordon’s vetoes of bills receiving overwhelming support by lawmakers during the session, which may now go into extra innings.
Bear argued this week that in 1981, the Legislature convened for two days, and during that time considered 30 bills, including a budget.
