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Voters in Campbell and Johnson Counties weighed in last week on an issue that has long divided voters in Wyoming: whether to tax themselves for government services. For the third time in Campbell County’s history, voters faced the question of whether to raise taxes to pay for an independent community college district. The latest iteration was a reaction to significant cuts to Gillette College’s budget by the Sheridan-based trustees of the Northern Wyoming Community College District. In Johnson County, voters were given the choice to add 1% to...
A progress report to members of the Joint Committee on Minerals, Business & Economic Development in Laramie Thursday offered mostly good news to proponents of building a first-of-its-kind nuclear reactor in Wyoming. Even with the backing of the Biden White House and the U.S. Department of Energy, however, the nascent plan still faces numerous administrative and legislative hurdles. Officials with Rocky Mountain Power — who will facilitate construction of the project alongside billionaire tech entrepreneur Bill Gates’ company, TerraPower — t...
When Susan Gore arrived in Wyoming more than two decades ago, the heir to the Gore-Tex fortune was a minor player in the state’s politics. Campaign finance documents show limited involvement in Wyoming politics until the late 2000s. Even then, her influence was fairly narrow, and her contributions hewed closely to the policy agenda espoused by Wyoming Liberty Group — the Libertarian-leaning think tank she founded in 2008. Campaign finances records, however, show Gore’s spending grew dramatically over time. By 2020 she had become a key finan...
Breaking with the longstanding norm of intraparty candidate neutrality, a Wyoming Republican Party official asked members of Congress for help vetting potential challengers to U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney in next year’s Republican primary. According to emails obtained by WyoFile, Wyoming Republican Party Revenue Committee Chairman Jeff Wallack contacted staffers for Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) on June 15 “seeking veterans in Congress to vet our retired military candidates Denton Knapp and Bryan Miller.” Crenshaw, a Cheney ally and former Navy Seal,...
Wealthy conservative donor Susan Gore was a key financier of a years-long effort to spy on Wyoming Democrats and Republicans, an article published Friday by the New York Times revealed, shining a light on the lengths to which the Gore-Tex heiress and Wyoming Liberty Group founder has gone to influence the state’s politics. The report alleges Gore helped finance the infiltration of numerous political organizations in the state by a pair of “spies” tied to the right-wing group Project Veritas. Their targets were varied, according to the inves...
Wyoming lawmakers have begun the lengthy and involved process of redrawing legislative district maps for the next decade. The Joint Committee on Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions’s June 7 meeting marked the beginning of months of data crunching, discussion and negotiation on how population changes recorded in the 2020 census will affect representation in the Wyoming Legislature. The results could impact sitting legislators, shift the voting tendencies of individual districts, affect the partisan representation in the House a...
Within minutes of Wednesday’s vote to oust Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney from her House Republican Conference leadership position, a handful of her Republican colleagues, including Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Ken Buck of Colorado — released statements supportive of Cheney. Others, like disgraced New York Republican Congressman Tom Reed, expressed dismay over the vote and what it stood for. Namely, the party’s unwavering loyalty to Trump, and general concern of the direction of the Republican Party, which demoted Cheney for her criti...
The Wyoming Legislature entered the 2021 legislative session with a lofty agenda to cut education spending, stall revenue declines and guide a Wyoming economy battered by COVID-19 to a sustainable future. But in one of the longest legislative sessions in history, lawmakers accomplished few of those goals. While ratifying significant cuts to government previously proposed by Gov. Mark Gordon, they killed numerous proposals to raise revenues to offset those cuts. And with education funding a top priority, an education funding reform bill died on...
Jon Conrad was done with sitting on the sidelines. The Evanston resident had been engaged at the state level for decades. Conrad had served under former Govs. Matt Mead and Dave Freudenthal, as chair of the Wyoming Workforce Development Council and as vice chair of the Wyoming Board of Parole. For the last two years, he’s worked as the governmental affairs officer for his company, Tata Chemicals. He had been civic-minded at home as well, closely involved in economic development activities across Uinta County. On paper, Conrad looked like the m...
CHEYENNE – What can cash-strapped Wyoming do with $1.3 billion from the federal government? Plenty, if you ask members of the Wyoming Legislature. Yet lawmakers are hesitant to say such a windfall can solve the current budget crisis. It will take time to fully understand the restrictions on spending, they say, and could be months before the specifics are understood well enough to act on — a delay that may necessitate a special legislative session this spring or summer, according to Speaker of the House Eric Barlow (R-Gillette). On March 11,...
The Three Percenters movement has gained representation in the Wyoming Legislature — at least symbolically. A photograph resurfaced this week of freshman Rep. Marshall Burt (L-Green River) that shows a tattoo on his left forearm — the Roman numeral “III” surrounded by 13 stars, above the year 1776. The symbol is commonly associated with a far-right, anti-government movement and the popularization of militia groups. In a written statement this week, Burt said he is not involved in any militia groups, and got the tattoo because he enjoyed...
CASPER — The Wyoming Republican Party’s state central committee voted by a resounding margin Saturday to censure Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney for her vote to impeach then-President Donald Trump, making her the third person to be censured by the party in less than a year. The voice vote came after just 11 minutes of debate, marking the party’s ultimate rebuke of Cheney after weeks of escalating anger from conservative activists across Wyoming. Fewer than 10 members voted against the censure. Joe McGinley — chairman of the Natrona County Re...
CASPER — The chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party on Friday said Western states are “paying attention” to the effort by some in Texas’ far-right to try to secede from the United States. Appearing on former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast last week to discuss Rep. Liz Cheney’s vote to impeach Trump, Eathorne made the comment in response to a Bannon question about what conservatives should keep in mind in light of their movement’s recent political losses. “We need to focus on the fundamentals,” Eath...
CASPER — A lawsuit filed this month against the Food and Drug Administration in U.S. District Court alleges the owner of Cody Labs misled federal regulators when it moved production of a drug from its Cody manufacturing facility to upstate New York last year. Competing drug company Genus Life Sciences filed the suit in the District of Maryland Southern Division seeking to overturn approval of a drug the FDA approved earlier this year. It alleges that drug company Lannett lied to federal regulators when it stated in numerous documents it w...
CASPER — Wyoming lawmakers are considering allowing the shipment of Wyoming-made liquor across state lines as a part of a package of bills allowing greater flexibility for the state’s small distillers amid mounting economic challenges brought on by COVID-19. Spurred by concerns of distillers like Casper’s Backwards Distilling and Kirby-based manufacturer Wyoming Whiskey, members of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions voted almost unanimously to draft legislation allowing multiple retail...
CASPER — The new owners of 5 million combined acres of land and mineral rights in southern Wyoming say they plan to pursue opportunities to expand renewable energy development in addition to existing drilling and mining activity — a potential new source of revenue for the state as a third-party investment company takes over land long held by oil companies Anadarko and Occidental Petroleum. In a Friday interview with the Star-Tribune, Jon Lamb, the CEO of the purchasing firm Orion Resource Partners, and Johnny DeCooman, the new CEO of Swe...
CASPER – As COVID-19’s interruptions on everyday life began stretching into the late-spring and early summer, voters around the country began looking toward their upcoming elections – and a pivotal presidential election in November – with apprehension and uncertainty about how exactly things would work. From logistical questions like whether we’d be waiting days or weeks for the results of the election, to the practical questions of finding an alternative to voting in a crowded gymnasium or post office, the early days of the pandemic offered l...
CASPER — If Wyoming plans to double down on minerals to save its future, then trona – one of the Equality State’s most critical natural resources – is probably its safest bet. Worldwide, Wyoming stands as one of the world’s richest stores of the mineral, whose natural byproduct – soda ash – is a key ingredient in everything from the baking soda in your kitchen to the glass facades of the world’s skyscrapers. The fate of the mineral is also closely tied to the world’s GDP and, with strong domestic demand, it remains a reliable source of revenue...
CASPER — Gov. Mark Gordon has signed off on more than $250 million in state budget cuts that includes furloughs and layoffs for state employees, a significant hit to senior services and a $90 million reduction to the Department of Health amid a worsening pandemic. “This is an incredibly difficult task but we must respond to the financial circumstances the state is facing,” Gordon said in a statement. “These cuts will impact families across the state, will affect the services we provide and will have an effect on dollars that flow into the pri...
CASPER — Wyoming is expected to bid on 5 million combined acres of land sometime this week after the State Loan and Investment Board authorized the treasurer’s office Monday to make a play on the Occidental Petroleum property. The language of the bid process, which was approved by the state’s top-five elected officials after eight hours of deliberations, gives Wyoming Chief Investment Officer Patrick Fleming the authority to make a formal bid on the lands, which include 1 million acres of checkerboarded surface parcels in southern Wyomi...
CASPER — Legislative leaders voted unanimously on Thursday to pursue several pieces of emergency legislation, all but guaranteeing the Wyoming Legislature will meet in its first special session since 2004. In a conference call with Management Council on Thursday morning, Gov. Mark Gordon outlined a tentative agenda for state lawmakers in the coming months to begin to immediately stabilize the state’s economy – which is projected to experience revenue declines anywhere between $555 million and $2.8 billion due to COVID-19 and an overseas price w...
Casper Star-Tribune Via Wyoming News Exchange CASPER — Gov. Mark Gordon joined in signing a letter to congressional leadership seeking additional funding for states in Congress’ nearly $2 trillion stimulus bill that’s intended to help address the economic fallout from the COVID-19 outbreak. The letter — signed by 20 other Republican governors — seeks additional funding for states within a “phase three” spending bill currently under debate by Congress. Negotiations on that bill were still ongoing as of Monday afternoon. “We are working to less...
CHEYENNE — Wyoming may be a frontier state, but it sure loves its fences. More than a century ago, Wyoming built its stock with fences, its forebears reining in the wild, open spaces with apportioned grazing lands and property lines all neatly demarcated within the otherwise craggy and rugged state’s clean, rectangular border. But as the state enters a new frontier — with eyes toward conquering emerging marketplaces in technology — can Wyoming’s current leadership similarly rein in the borderless expanses of the internet? Is it feasible...
CASPER — Like a near-consensus of the world’s scientific community, Gov. Mark Gordon believes in climate change. Like many across the planet, Gordon believes the problem is a man-made one, and that something needs to be done about it. But – as he’s maintained on the campaign trail and into his second year in office – it doesn’t need to come at the cost of fossil fuels. It was a tumultuous first year for Gordon, whose plans to move the state’s coal industry toward the experimental world of carbon capture technology came amid a number of coa...
CASPER — In 2016, the Russian government successfully hacked America’s elections. It hijacked messaging, assisted certain candidates and, in some cases, even managed to breach a state’s voter registration system. With the 2020 election approaching, states around the country are working diligently to avoid further influence in their elections, doing everything from upgrading their voting systems to taking a magnifying glass to their own practices in-house. But election interference, according to the nonpartisan Alliance for Securing Democ...
