Denise Smith sat with her legs crossed on a blanket-covered sofa in her Rocky Gap home, reflecting on a life shaped by hard work and financial struggle. The 66-year-old woman has held jobs at factories, restaurants, museums and a pharmaceutical company. She recalled having employer-provided health insurance only three times before transitioning to disability coverage. 

Smith frequently avoided seeking health care due to the cost. She remembered when medical debt nearly forced her and her then husband into homelessness. When her son, Josiah, became critically ill, she saw firsthand what can happen when people don’t have access to health care. 

With President Donald Trump returning to the White House, and Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, conversations have begun in Washington about cutting Medicaid funding. Such cuts could trigger a state law that would reverse Virginia’s 2019 expansion of the insurance program if federal funding drops by even 1%, leaving hundreds of thousands of Virginians without health insurance.  

Many rural hospitals depend heavily on Medicaid expansion patients to stay financially viable. Without this funding, these hospitals could face financial strain, risking the services they provide to underserved communities.

Efforts are underway in Richmond to safeguard expansion. A budget amendment introduced by Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, and another by Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield County, seek to remove the trigger law and establish a committee to explore alternative funding options for Medicaid expansion.

For Virginians like the Smiths, Medicaid expansion has been a lifeline. 

Josiah Smith was 32 years old when he woke up one morning in 2014 with painfully swollen knees. 

He had worked since he was 16, but he never had a job that offered health insurance. And this was before Virginia had expanded Medicaid to include low-income adults like him. 

Unable to walk and rapidly losing weight, he went to a clinic near his Bland County home. He paid out of pocket for antibiotics, but the symptoms kept getting worse. 

His mother sought out low-income clinics and applied for charity programs. It took months to get testing done as she tried to figure out how to pay for the care and the doctors her son needed. 

He eventually was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation in the joints and at the base of the spine. Without treatment, it can lead to organ damage and vision problems.

That’s exactly what happened to Josiah. His family could only afford to buy the cheapest medications, and none of them worked. He lost sight in his right eye, and when he walks, his steps are slow and measured. 

His disease progressed. In 2015, he was approved for disability benefits, which included access to Medicaid. He found a monthly infusion that kept the swelling down, accessible to him only through Medicaid. 

“We have lived without Medicaid, so I can tell you what happens to people when they don’t have access to health care,” his mother said. It angers her, she says, because “they tell me that if they had caught it early enough it wouldn’t be this advanced.”

Hundreds of thousands of Virginians could lose coverage if Medicaid expansion is rescinded

In the western half of the state, more than 178,000 Virginians have received health care coverage under Medicaid expansion since the commonwealth implemented the program in 2019, according to data from the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services. Statewide, the number totals more than 630,000.

In all states, a person can qualify for Medicaid if they meet criteria based on income, household size, disability, family status and other factors, though eligibility rules can differ between states, according to Healthcare.gov. In states that have adopted Medicaid expansion, a person can qualify for Medicaid if their income is below 138% of the federal poverty level. 

Deeds expressed concern about the possibility that the 119th Congress could rescind Medicaid expansion.

“We’re going to be way up a creek without a paddle if that happens,” he said. 

Since the November election, Congressional Republican leaders have been increasingly open about their intent to make cuts to Medicaid, according to a health policy blog post by the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. 

U.S. Senate Republicans also attempted to dismantle the Affordable Care Act in 2017, under Trump’s first term, but they failed when Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, voted against the effort for a 51-49 majority in opposition of the effort. This year, with Trump back in the White House and a Republican majority in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, Congress appears poised to try again. 

Trump has already signaled his willingness to sign a bill that could end Medicaid expansion. In an executive order signed on his first day back in office, he rescinded an order by the Biden administration aimed at strengthening the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. 

Expansion of the Medicaid program was introduced in the Affordable Care Act, passed by Congress and signed by former President Barack Obama in 2010. Since then, Medicaid expansion has been adopted on a state-by-state basis. As of November, 41 states had adopted it. 

Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott County, was one of a number of General Assembly Republicans who broke from the party to vote in favor of expanding Medicaid in Virginia in 2018. In the end, 36 House Republicans and four Senate Republicans voted for the 2018 biennial budget that established Medicaid expansion in Virginia. 

“In Southwest Virginia, we had hospitals closing and folks who didn’t have health care opportunities having to drive two and three hours. People were actually dying because hospitals were closing,” Kilgore said. 

Kilgore saw expansion as a way to close a gap in services in his district and to support the health care needs of his constituents. 

“It was a tough time [to support expansion], and tough within the caucus, but other states were doing it — other Republican-led states were doing it and they were seeing great results from it. At the end of the day I thought it was best for a few of us to move forward with Medicaid expansion,” he said. 

A domino effect that may cause hospitals to shutter

Hospitals, particularly those in rural areas, rely heavily on revenue from patients covered under Medicaid expansion.

“Leading up to expansion, hospitals were mostly cutting back on services,” said Deepak Madala, director of Virginia’s insurance marketplace called ENROLL Virginia.

About 39% of the patients who stay at Russell County Hospital in Lebanon for 24 consecutive hours or more are covered by Medicaid, according to data from Virginia Health Information. 

At Twin County Regional Hospital in Galax, the number is 33%. At Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, 26.4%. 

The federal government currently covers 90% of Medicaid’s operating costs, with Virginia covering the remaining 10%. A portion of Virginia’s share comes from a tax on hospitals.

Deeds noted that if expansion coverage is rolled back, it could result in the closure of smaller hospitals across the state. 

The Virginia Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that advocates for low-income residents, has raised similar concerns. 

If federal funding for Medicaid were reduced, hospitals might need to shoulder a larger share of the program’s costs, said Emily Hardy, deputy director of the Center for Healthy Communities at the Virginia Poverty Law Center. 

But Deeds noted that the state is not financially prepared to pick up the 90% share currently paid by the federal government for the program. 

“Hospitals couldn’t afford to pick up the 90% that the feds are paying right now any more than Virginia could,” Deeds said. “Where’s that money going to come from?”

The federal government paid about $6.2 billion in fiscal year 2023 to fund Medicaid expansion in Virginia. The state was responsible for about $693 million in the same time frame. 

Before Medicaid expansion, Virginia had one of the highest uninsured rates in the country. In the year prior to expansion, about 27.6% of residents under 65 years old lacked health insurance. That’s about 5 percentage points above the national average, according to data from the National Institutes of Health.  

Many individuals could lose health insurance if Medicaid funding is reduced, and not all of those people would get coverage other ways, Madala said. 

When parents are enrolled in health insurance, their children are more likely to be covered as well. But if parents lose coverage, the whole family often loses it, Madala said. 

Funding cuts could also jeopardize Medicaid waiver programs, which are often the first to face reductions, Madala said.

Medicaid waivers provide coverage for services not typically included in standard Medicaid, such as long-term care and support for individuals with disabilities or chronic illnesses. These programs are already limited, with few providers available, and potential funding cuts could make access even more difficult. 

Virginia is already experiencing a shortfall in funding for Medicaid

A presentation by staff of the Virginia Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee to members during a November retreat outlined a shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars in the state’s current Medicaid funding forecast. Three primary drivers in the increase in cost to fund Medicaid include a rate of enrollment that is 30% higher than pre-pandemic numbers, an increase in care costs and an increase in services. 

Gov. Glenn Youngkin said during a presentation to the joint House and Senate money committee in December that he plans to meet the state’s current shortfall to fund Medicaid through a budget amendment request of over $687 million.

When asked repeatedly by reporters about his plan in January, should Congress roll back Medicaid expansion, Youngkin declined to answer and said the question was based on supposition.

Instead, Youngkin said that his job is to fully fund the state’s current Medicaid responsibilities. He noted that there has been a “rapid increase” in Medicaid costs in Virginia. 

Deeds pointed out that there would be recurring funding needs. Even if the state put all of its current budget surplus — forecast to be roughly $4.7 billion — toward fully funding Medicaid expansion, that money would need to be paid again the following year. 

Kilgore recalled the 2018 vote when the General Assembly adopted Medicaid expansion with the trigger language caveat that would roll back expansion in Virginia should the federal cost share ever dip below 90%. That language was included as a negotiation tactic to get the votes necessary to adopt the program’s expansion, he said. 

It won over enough Republicans to get the bill passed, but many remained steadfast in their opposition. 

“I voted against it,” said Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg. “You’re seeing why, now.”

Peake said he has not seen a government program that hasn’t expanded “exponentially” beyond what the legislative body discussed at the time of passage. He said he was also concerned, in 2018, about the possibility of Medicaid expansion being rolled back by Congress after it was adopted at the state level. 

“You do not want to count on the federal government keeping up with commitments that it made to us on spending. It’s never guaranteed,” he said. 

Peake said he is sympathetic to people who do not have access to health care, but he said he believes going through the private sector is better than relying on a program that now finds itself in a precarious position. 

What legislators are doing

Deeds introduced a budget amendment this year that would remove the trigger language from state law. Under the amendment, should the federal match rate change, a legislative committee would be established to consider ways to adjust to the federal action while preserving access to health coverage for as many Medicaid enrollees as possible.

“At this point, to a large extent, it is supposition. It is just speculation in terms of what’s going to happen in Congress, what’s going to happen in Washington,” he said. “I worry about it a lot — I guess you can’t worry about what you can’t control; you just have to be prepared for whatever’s going to happen.”

Representatives Morgan Griffith, R-Salem; Ben Cline, R-Botetourt County; and John McGuire, R-Goochland County, did not respond when asked about whether Congress would attempt to roll back Medicaid expansion.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he plans to strongly oppose any proposal to cut Medicaid funding. He, and his Democratic counterparts in Congress, are in the minority for at least the next two years. 

Kilgore said he isn’t concerned about expansion being rescinded under the 119th Congress. 

“It’s a way that we provide health care services to those in need. I think it’s going to continue,” he said. “I don’t see much appetite for that in folks I’ve talked to.”

Kilgore also said he would have to see a fiscal impact study on how Deeds’ budget amendment to do away with trigger language in the 2018 biennial budget could affect the state budget before he was able to support it. 

A collage of pictures rests on the mantel behind the wood-burning stove in Denise Smith’s home. A bearded man with a banjo under his arm is pictured; his name was Eddie Atwell. 

“He was my fella,” Smith said. The couple spent 20 years together, but Atwell died last year at the age of 70. 

Years earlier, Atwell had suffered a heart attack but avoided going to the doctor because he didn’t have health insurance. When he experienced a second heart attack, he finally had insurance, but it was too late. Doctors told him they couldn’t repair his heart due to the damage caused by the first heart attack. He died shortly after, Smith said.

“[Health care] isn’t something you can choose to live without,” Smith said. “You can choose to live without a car. You can ride a bicycle, you can walk, you can take the bus. It’s not going to kill you not having it. But not having health care can kill you.”

The post Hundreds of thousands of Virginians could lose insurance coverage if Medicaid expansion is rolled back appeared first on Cardinal News.

Farmers have begun raising concerns about the potential impact of President Donald Trump’s mass deportations on their operations, but the president’s nominee for agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, said any issues stemming from a lost labor force are “hypothetical.”

If farms are affected by mass deportations, she and other administration officials would “hopefully solve some of these problems,” Rollins said during her nomination hearing in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Thursday. When a senator remarked he hoped the issues caused by mass deportations were hypothetical, Rollins said, “I do, too.”

These comments stand in contrast with those of other Trump policy officials regarding mass deportations. In an interview with The New York Times in 2023, Stephen Miller, now a deputy chief of staff in the White House, said the deportations would have a major impact: “Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption celebrated by American workers.”

Before Trump was elected, experts and farmworker rights advocates said mass deportations could lead to the agriculture industry’s collapse. Nationwide, an estimated 42% of farm workers were undocumented in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.

Given how long farms have relied on undocumented labor, no other workforce currently exists that could replace unauthorized workers.

Rollins said Trump would not forget about farmers’ needs when implementing his deportation plans. While she agreed with the policies, she said she would listen to farmers and act accordingly, likely by augmenting the H-2A program, which brings foreign workers into the U.S. temporarily to pick crops. The program is run by the U.S. Department of Labor.

“The president’s vision of a secure border and mass deportation at a scale that matters is something I support,” Rollins said during Thursday’s hearing. “You may argue that is in conflict” with my duties to support agriculture, she added, but, “having both of those as key priorities, my job is to work with the secretary of labor on the H-2A program.”

The H-2A program is rife with well-documented abuse and wage theft. There have already been warnings that increased use of the program could overwhelm the government and negatively impact workers’ rights.

Rollins was also asked if she thought deporting farmworkers could increase food prices, as Trump campaigned on the high cost of groceries. She again said that was a hypothetical issue.

While food prices have outstripped the rate of inflation in recent years, one reason food has remained relatively affordable in the U.S. is because farm labor can be cheap. In the Times interview, Miller said Americans would replace the deported workers and “be offered higher wages with better benefits to fill these jobs.”

Rollins and Republican senators on the Senate’s agriculture committee emphasized her rural roots and her time in 4H, but Rollins does not have extensive experience in the agriculture industry. Multiple times, she told senators that she looked forward to learning more about an issue they asked about, including the increase in bird flu among poultry and livestock.

She repeatedly said Thursday she would rely on data to help drive decision-making. But, when discussing undocumented labor on farms, she said no one knew how many people might be affected by Trump’s mass deportations.

“We don’t know, first of all, who ‘they’ are,” Rollins said, putting air quotes around “they.” “We all throw numbers around. 40%, 50%, 60%. The answer is we just don’t know.”

While the exact figure may not be known, the U.S. Department of Labor publishes a survey with well-regarded and oft-cited data on the number of undocumented farmworkers. According to the survey, about 40% of America’s 2 million farmworkers are not authorized to work in the country.

Several agricultural industries rely on undocumented labor. For instance, dairy farms are not eligible for H-2A visa labor — often trumpeted as a labor solution — and often do not ask about employees’ statuses. The meatpacking industry, subjected to immigration raids under the first Trump administration, also uses undocumented labor.

One of the largest meatpacking companies in the country, Tyson Foods, told Investigate Midwest it would not be affected by any mass deportations, however.

“Tyson Foods is strongly opposed to illegal immigration, and we fully participate with the federal government’s E-Verify and IMAGE programs,” a Tyson Foods spokesperson said. “We employ 120,000 team members in the United States, all of whom are required to be legally authorized to work in this country and any enforcement against undocumented workers would not have an impact on our company.”

Near the end of Rollins’ nomination hearing, Sen. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, asked Rollins how farms would replace their workforce if mass deportation plans materialized.

“Americans don’t want to do that work,” he said. “It’s frankly too backbreaking, so who is going to work the farms?”

Rollins responded by saying, “President Trump ran and was overwhelmingly elected on the priority of border security and mass deportation.” Trump’s margin of victory in November was the fourth-smallest since 1960, at 1.62%, according to PBS. “The American people have asked for a secure border and a system where they do not have to be concerned with the millions and millions that crossed here illegally and brought a lot of strife and unsafe communities to America.”

She added there might need to be changes made to the H-2A program to address a lost workforce. 

“I will work around the clock with our new labor secretary, if she’s confirmed,” she said. 

Then, Schiff asked, “If they’re gone, who’s going to do that work?”

“As these processes and programs are being implemented under this new administration and with the full support of the majority of Americans,” Rollins replied. “I think that we — as the leaders in agriculture, myself as the leader at USDA, you on this committee as well as others on the committee — that we will work together to understand and hopefully solve some of these problems. 

“The dairy cattle have to be milked,” she added, “but if we have a mass deportation program underway, then there is a lot of work that we need to do through the labor department and working with Congress to solve for a lot of this through our current labor programs that are already on the books.”

Schiff then asked about food prices. “If we deport a large percentage of our farm workforce, farm labor is going to be scarce,” he said. “Isn’t that inevitably going to push up food prices? And if so, isn’t that in sharp contrast with what the president said he wanted to do to bring down egg prices and food prices?”

“First of all, we’re speaking in hypotheticals,” Rollins said. “But, certainly, these are hypotheticals that we do need to be thinking through. It’s a very fair point. The president has made food inflation and the cost of food one of his top priorities. I have worked alongside him and have been part of his team for many years now. I believe in his vision and his commitment to America and to his promises, and in so doing, we will be able to find in our toolkit what we need to do to solve for any hypothetical issues that turn out to be real moving forward over the coming months and years.”

“I hope they’re hypothetical,” Schiff responded.

“I do, too,” Rollins said.

“I fear they’re all too real,” Schiff said.

The post Trump ag secretary nominee says food issues from mass deportations are ‘hypothetical’ appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

Editor’s Note: This post is from our data newsletter, the Rural Index, headed by Sarah Melotte, the Daily Yonder’s data reporter. Subscribe to get a weekly map or graph straight to your inbox.

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People flee at the onset of a natural disaster. We know this. For those willing and able to leave, there’s the usual scramble. Where are my children’s baby pictures, my social security card? What do I do about my grandmother’s china?

But what happens in the weeks, months, and years following a disaster, when the ash settles and our attention shifts to the next  crisis?

In 2017, the Umpqua North Complex fires burned 43,158 acres in Douglas County, Oregon, a rural community in the southwest part of the state. Some people did leave. From 2020 to 2023, 1,100 people moved out of the county. But during the same period, 4,200 people moved into Douglas County, for a net gain of 5,400. . 

Net migration (the difference between the number of people who move to a county minus the people who leave) resulted in a gain of 20,000 residents in rural Oregon counties during the same time period. 

But this phenomenon isn’t particular to Oregon, or even the Pacific Northwest. Across the nation, people are moving to rural counties with a high risk of wildfires, according to data from Wildfire Risk to Communities, a joint project by Headwaters Economics and the Fire Modeling Institute of the Rocky Mountain Research Station of the Forest Service. 

Rural counties with high wildfire risk gained 2.5% of their total 2020 population in net migration between 2020 and 2023, representing a gain of 540,000 residents. Rural counties without high wildfire risk only gained about 1% of their total 2020 population in net migration, meanwhile. 

Nearly two-thirds of high risk rural counties experienced a net positive migration between 2020 and 2023 compared to only 60% of rural counties at-large.

Metropolitan areas with high risk of wildfires only gained about half a percentage point of their total 2020 population in net migration, representing an additional 1 million residents. 

The Wildfire Risk to Communities categorizes counties as high risk of wildfire if they score above the 84th percentile on their dataset’s wildfire risk index. To put it simply, counties are at high risk of wildfires if 84% of all other counties score lower than them on the index.

Nearly half (48%) of the growth in rural counties at high risk of wildfire happened in the Southeast among rural counties like coastal Georgetown, South Carolina, a popular vacation spot. 

These Southeastern counties are not places we usually picture when we think of wildfires, but fire has been a central part of the Southeastern coastal ecosystem for millions of years. Wildfires are particularly important for southern trees like the longleaf pine, which needs fire to germinate its seeds.

But Southeastern counties in general don’t rank as high on the wildfire risk index compared to rural counties in Western states. The average rural county in the South scores in the 60th percentile on the wildfire risk index, but the Coastal West, a region that includes the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, scored, on average, in the 77th percentile. 

When you signed up for “Rural Index,” I promised you one map every two weeks, but I’ve included a second one in this issue. My treat. Don’t get used to it. 

Rural counties that scored higher than the 90th percentile in the wildfire risk index had a net increase of 82,700 people between 2020 and 2023. 

In the Northwest states of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, rural counties that scored over the 90th percentile had a net migration that equaled 10% of their 2020 population, representing a net gain of about 24,000 newcomers.

The wildfire risk dataset shows a mild relationship between how a county scores on the wildfire risk index and the county’s net migration. The higher the wildfire risk index, or percentile, the greater the net migration. 

But wildfire risk only explains a small portion of the increase in net migration in recent years. Many of rural America’s riskiest counties are in picturesque regions, like the counties surrounding Zion National Park in Utah. My previous reporting for the Daily Yonder explored how areas with outdoor amenities gained population faster than other rural areas. 

I suppose now is a good time to remind you that correlation does not equal causation. Wildfires are not causing people to move to risky areas, in other words. That would be absurd. But wildfires seem to be a risk many folks don’t mind taking if it means they get to live near some of America’s most breathtaking views.

The post Rural Wildfire Risk Doesn’t Stop New Residents appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

CHEYENNE—A disagreement between Wyoming’s state and local election officials over ballot drop boxes came to a boil Wednesday at the Capitol as lawmakers debated prohibiting their use in state statute. 

Wyoming’s county clerks have utilized drop boxes for decades, long before they took on controversy in the 2020 election, thanks in large part to the film “2,000 Mules.”

The film largely rested on the premise that ballot drop boxes were used in widespread voter fraud. Since then, the film’s distributor apologized and pulled it from its platform, and Dinesh D’Souza, the film’s director, also apologized and admitted that part of the film’s analysis was “on the basis of inaccurate information.” 

Nevertheless, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray continues to push for an end to drop box use in Wyoming. 

“This should come as no surprise to anyone in the room, but I am a huge supporter of this bill,” Gray told the House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee on Wednesday as it considered House Bill 131, “Ballot drop boxes-prohibition.” 

Indeed, Gray ran for office in 2022 on a promise to ban ballot drop boxes. Wednesday he reminded the committee of that, harkening back to a “very, very vigorous primary,” wherein drop boxes were “the defining issue.”

Gray also reiterated his opinion Wednesday that state law does not allow for ballot drop boxes. 

According to state law, “Upon receipt, a qualified elector shall mark the ballot and sign the affidavit. The ballot shall then be sealed in the inner ballot envelope and mailed or delivered to the clerk.”

Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, responded to Gray’s comments with a question. 

“It sounded like you accused every county clerk who had drop boxes of breaking the law,” Yin said. “If that is the case, and you think that they diluted your power, because if that’s the case, why didn’t you file suit against them?”

Gray blamed Wyoming’s attorney general for declining “to take any action on it,” before Yin pressed him once more. 

“Just to make it very clear, your position is that the country clerks broke the law?” Yin asked. 

“I do not believe ballot drop boxes are authorized,” Gray responded.

Sixteen county clerks attended the meeting, including Platte County Clerk Malcolm Ervin, who serves as president for the County Clerks’ Association of Wyoming. 

“It’s unfortunate that the secretary would allude or insinuate that somehow these counties have violated the law or their oath,” Ervin told the committee. “That’s a serious insinuation.”

Ervin also pushed back on Gray’s repeated claims that the clerks’ interpretation of state law as being permissive to drop boxes was “strained” and only came about during the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“It’s ironic that the word gaslighting was used by the secretary, because that’s exactly what he’s trying to do to you here,” Ervin said. 

“He says the use of ballot drop boxes and this interpretation of the county clerks came about because of a strained interpretation in 2020,” Ervin said. “Despite [the clerks] having told the secretary that’s not true a number of times, he continues to propagate that untruth.”

The clerks association does not have a stance on the bill, Ervin added. 

“What we want to do is offer facts when you make that decision,” he said. 

Part of Gray’s argument against the drop boxes has been that it violates the section of the election code that requires uniformity. 

“If you have a different system for each county in these races, then you don’t have a uniform system,” Gray said. “And that is problematic in terms of running a uniform statewide election.”

The committee voted 11-1 to pass the bill with two amendments, one of which came at the request of the clerks. Yin was the lone opposing vote. 

How we got here

In June, Gray sent a letter to all 23 county clerks, urging them to ditch ballot drop boxes ahead of the absentee voting period, arguing Wyoming law does not permit them. Gray also announced in the letter he would rescind several directives issued by former Secretary of State Ed Buchanan related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the rescinded directives did not involve ballot drop boxes.

“We hold that the use of ballot drop boxes as a method of ballot delivery is safe, secure and statutorily authorized,” the clerks’ association wrote in its response to Gray. 

Ultimately, the seven counties — Albany, Carbon, Converse, Fremont, Laramie, Sweetwater and Teton — that provided ballot drop boxes in 2022 did so again in 2024. 

Gray announced his intent to ask lawmakers to ban ballot drop boxes in state law at a December press conference. 

Committee colloquy 

Rep. Chris Knapp, a Freedom Caucus Republican from Gillette, is the main sponsor of HB 131. 

“In our statute, there is no such thing as a drop box. It’s not defined in our statute, and so this bill basically makes it clear that returning a ballot gets hand delivered to the clerk,” Knapp told the committee. 

As lawmakers discussed the bill, Rep. Gary Brown, R-Cheyenne, asked the clerks what section of state statute “grants you the right to use the drop boxes?”

Ervin pointed to the election code that specifies ballots shall be “delivered to the clerk.”

“That’s been the interpretation of the county clerks for at least 30 years, if not longer, and that’s been shared by a number of secretaries, one of whom is now a district court judge,” Ervin said, referring to Buchanan. 

Several other clerks testified, including Lisa Smith of Carbon County, who described the security measures involved with her office’s drop box.

Since 2016, Smith said the drop box has provided a way for residents to drop off ballots as well as other items like treasurer payments. But her office is the only one that has a key or access to the inside of the drop box. 

“It’s adjacent to the building. We have four cameras with two separate security systems, and all recorded footage is reviewed daily,” Smith said. “So anything that is captured, it’s not a 24-hour running tape, it’s motion censored. So it’s recording when there’s motion, even if it’s a deer. So that footage is actually reviewed by the county clerk daily, and a log is kept.”

That footage is also backed up by the county’s IT department and the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office, Smith said. 

“We don’t even really advertise that a ballot drop box is available, but people are used to it because it’s been happening for quite some time,” Smith said. 

Converse County Clerk Karen Rimmer said her office’s decision to use a ballot drop box “was strictly for the benefit of the voters who live there, the people that elected me to be their county clerk and conduct the election on their behalf.”

Rimmer said she also sought the advice of her county attorney, who did not share Gray’s interpretation of state law. 

Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese told the committee she previously emailed Gray, inviting him to Lander to see the county’s drop box for himself. 

Freese said she suggested they look at the security footage together and “collaborate on how to better do this if you think it isn’t adequate.

“I did not receive a response at all — at all. Not even ‘I don’t have time, I don’t want to see it.’ Nothing. Not one thing,” Freese said. 

Later in the meeting, Gray said he didn’t respond to Freese because he’s long maintained that he does not see the drop boxes as statutorily authorized.  

Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Cheyenne, asked Freese if she ever considered having the clerk’s office open 24/7 during the election in order to avoid having a drop box. 

“Clerks spent a lot of time at the courthouse. I will tell you that. That’s not very far off that we’re not almost there 24/7” Freese said. 

Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee provided some numbers for the committee to consider. 

Thirty-six percent of Laramie County voters in the 2024 general election, for example, cast their ballot by returning it to the clerk via drop box, Lee said. 

“To bring this a little closer to home, nearly a third of the 2024 general election ballots that were delivered in the drop box were from constituents of Representative Brown, Johnson and Lucas,” Lee added. 

The three Cheyenne lawmakers are members of the committee.  

When Rep. Ann Lucas asked how many ballots were delivered late by the United States Postal Service, Lee said “they’re still coming in.”

Amendments

While the clerks’ association did not take a position on the bill, Ervin said there were six areas in the bill where the clerks could use clarification. 

If a ballot is hand delivered to another county office, for example, could the clerk’s office accept the ballot? Would a drop box within the clerk’s office be permissible? If a ballot is dropped into a clerk’s general business box, would there be a remedy available to the clerks to contact that voter? Can a private courier, such as FedEx, be used to mail an absentee ballot? Would the prohibition apply to mail ballot elections for special districts? 

And can a ballot be hand delivered to a sworn election judge?

The committee addressed just one of those concerns by specifying that only USPS could be used to mail absentee ballots. 

Lawmakers also amended the bill to allow voters to hand deliver ballots to municipal clerks, as suggested to the committee by Joey Correnti, a podcaster and executive director of Rural Wyoming Matters. 

The bill will now be debated by the entire House.

The post Wyoming county clerks push back against Gray’s ballot drop box stance appeared first on WyoFile .

Reeling from losses to land and livestock, many farmers are holding out for help. If it doesn’t come soon, spring may yield a bitter harvest.

Promised lands: Western NC farmers wait for Helene aid to come. And wait. is a story from Carolina Public Press, an award-winning independent newsroom. Our breakthrough journalism shines a light on the critical overlooked and under-reported issues facing North Carolina’s 10.4 million residents. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

When James Dowell started running in 2019, he soon noticed that the running community in Charlottesville skewed white. Not wanting to be the only Black person running in the city’s streets, he knew change was needed. 

That same year, Dowell, along with Wes Bellamy and William Jones III, created Prolyfyck Run Crew, a Black-led running group that’s building a community for Black runners in Charlottesville.

In the beginning, the Prolyfyck founders invited their friends to run with them. Dowell said only 10 people would show up each time, but that changed once the COVID-19 pandemic started. People needed an excuse to be outdoors, Dowell said, and once Prolyfyck restarted their runs, the group grew “tremendously.”

Now, dozens of runners and walkers of various ages and backgrounds show up around 6 a.m. at the Jefferson School of African American Heritage parking lot every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to run or walk four miles. The group runs through predominantly Black neighborhoods in the city, such as 10th & Page and Fifeville, said Dowell.

“There’s joy in seeing other folks approach something that they aren’t typically exposed to as children, or through peers and family members,” said Dowell. “So to see that shift in five years of us creating this space for folks to feel seen and comfortable enough to do something that’s uncomfortable, that brings joy within itself.”

Prolyfyck is not alone in recognizing and trying to address this need. Research shows that there are many health disparities affecting Black Americans that can be prevented or mediated by physical activity, including diabetes, hypertension and obesity, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Yet, safety concerns coupled with fear of racial profiling in predominantly white neighborhoods can often make Black people hesitant to run or walk outdoors.

Prolyfyck has partnered with two other outdoor groups to co-host “Everybody Outside: Finding Joy and Belonging in the Outdoors” on Jan. 25, an event focused on outdoor inclusion, as part of the University of Virginia’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’s Community Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration. Alison Désir, the author of “Running While Black” and founder of the Black running group Harlem Run, will be the keynote speaker. Black Girls Hike RVA, a Richmond-based hiking group for women of color that was co-founded by Nicole Boyd and Shara Cade, also will co-host the event.

Each of the three groups center their missions around the same goal – getting more Black people involved in outdoor activities, particularly hiking, running and walking.

Like Dowell, when Désir first started running in 2011, she rarely saw people who looked like her, she said. In her book, she recounts her journey from running as a hobby to becoming an advocate for more Black people in the running community. And, while running provided her mental and physical health benefits, her book describes how she learned to navigate certain routes to avoid potential confrontations as a Black woman. 

“There’s also very real fear and danger of what happens when you go to places people don’t anticipate seeing you or don’t want you,” Désir told Charlottesville Tomorrow in a recent interview.

The desire for inclusion inspired Désir to start Harlem Run in 2013. Since Désir started her work, she has noticed a gradual rise in Black people in running. But the numbers are still low, she said. 

“Black people are still disproportionately represented in the outdoor industry,” said Désir. “There’s been an increase, but not to the extent of nearing equity when it comes to running outdoors.” 

Boyd, Cade and Dowell were similarly moved to start their own activity groups. 

“It’s been amazing to lead Black and brown women of all ages and backgrounds on hikes whether it’s her first time or her fiftieth time hiking,” said Boyd and Cade in an email. “Being together, supporting each other and sharing our stories has been incredible.” 

Dowelll says he hopes people who attend “Everybody Outside” will leave Saturday’s program with the determination — and courage — to pursue outdoor activities on their own. 

“I’m excited for the audience to hear these voices — specifically from Black women — and how to navigate the difficulties they’re hit with when in the outdoors,” Dowell said. 

Take Action

“Everybody Outside: Finding Joy and Belonging in the Outdoors” is an event that focuses on creating space for Black people in outdoor activities. The event will feature a two-mile walk on the Rivanna Trail beginning at 9:30 a.m. at 1909 Chesapeake St. A conversation with Alison Désir, author “Running While Black,” James Dowell of Prolyfyck Run Crew and Nicole Boyd and Shara Cade of Black Girls Hike RVA will follow at 11:30 a.m. at the Irving Theater at the CODE Building at 240 W. Main St. Désir also will sign copies of her book. Lunch will be provided at no cost. If you are interested in attending, you can register here. 

The post Founders of central Virginia outdoor activity groups want more Black people to hike, run or walk — here’s why appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

On his final day in office, President Joe Biden commuted Leonard Peltier, an 80-year-old Turtle Mountain Chippewa man convicted of killing two FBI agents. Many Indigenous communities around the state and nation are celebrating the decision.

Wyoming has for decades incarcerated juvenile offenders at the highest rates in the nation. 

The state’s multi-year efforts to reduce those numbers have been hampered, in part, by an unclear picture of why kids enter the justice system and whether incarceration seems to help. A bill to strengthen data and information sharing about state-supervised youth, including those in the juvenile justice system, died without debate in the House Judiciary Committee last week. 

The five no votes came from freshman lawmakers aligned with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, a 12-year veteran of the House, led the effort to craft the measure. He took the bill’s failure as evidence more could have been done to communicate the backstory behind the need for more data.

“We didn’t just come up with this on a Saturday night while we were eating popcorn,” Larsen said of the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee-sponsored legislation. “We’ve gone through two interims of looking at this.” 

Why it matters 

While many of Wyoming’s neighboring states have decreased their use of juvenile incarceration, the Equality State once again posted the highest rate in the nation, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2021, Wyoming courts removed adjudicated delinquents — juvenile justice-specific terminology for young people convicted of crimes — from their homes and placed them in public and private facilities at over three times the national average. The majority of the offenses were non-violent, and 13% were technical violations — in other words, kids failing to comply with the terms of their probation, be it missing a drug test or poor academic performance. 

Research has found juvenile incarceration does not significantly deter delinquent behavior or improve public safety while leading to poor outcomes for young people — from lower academic performance to higher suicide rates. Instead, studies show that community-based programs, which address the root causes of delinquent behavior while keeping kids close to home, lead to better outcomes and do so with a smaller price tag for the state. 

Five years after South Dakota implemented juvenile justice reform — investing $6.1 million in expanded community-based programs in 2015 — the state cut the number of incarcerated youth in half and reduced its juvenile corrections budget.

The fiscal implications of Wyoming’s high juvenile incarceration rate have not been lost on lawmakers here. In 2021, the Joint Judiciary Committee agreed to study Wyoming’s juvenile justice system during the legislative off-season, acknowledging that “youth confinement is one of the largest expenditures for the Department of Family Services.” 

House Bill 48, “Department of family services-confidentiality amendments,” which died in the House Judiciary Committee last week, was seen as an important step in a multi-year effort to understand what’s driving Wyoming’s heavy, and expensive, reliance on juvenile incarceration. 

How we got here

Back in 2021, when the Joint Judiciary Committee set out to study juvenile justice, the panel’s members quickly realized the first problem they would need to tackle was a lack of consistent data.

That’s in part because Wyoming doesn’t have a statewide juvenile justice system. Instead of sending all juvenile cases to juvenile court, county attorneys have discretion — a policy known as single point of entry — and each county takes a different approach. Some will funnel juvenile cases to municipal and circuit courts, some rely on juvenile courts and others routinely use all three. There are also counties with diversion programs designed to keep juvenile offenders out of court altogether and others that rely heavily on juvenile probation programs. 

But no matter what a county decides to do, once a court orders a young person into custody, the state pays the bill. And for decades the state had no way of assessing what was happening at the county level to drive up, or drive down, juvenile incarceration rates, or whether money spent to confine kids was having the desired effect. 

Wyoming didn’t know high school graduation rates or recidivism rates for juvenile offenders, or how often they reoffend as adults. 

Acknowledging it’s hard to manage what you can’t measure, the Wyoming Legislature passed a Joint Judiciary Committee-sponsored bill in 2022 mandating the Department of Family Services set up the Juvenile Justice Information System. 

While DFS oversees out-of-home placements and juvenile incarceration, the agency quickly realized that pre-existing privacy laws would make it hard to fulfill the Legislature’s mandate for a comprehensive system tracking how kids enter the system or what happens after. That’s because DFS, the Wyoming Department of Health, the Wyoming Department of Education, the Wyoming Department of Corrections and the court system, which all hold pieces of the puzzle, are limited in what information they can exchange.

Solving that problem was a top priority of the Legislature’s Mental Health and Vulnerable Adult Task Force, which convened over the last two years. House Bill 48 was the fruit of that labor. 

Larsen, the Lander representative who co-chaired the task force, said enhanced data sharing is about helping state agencies better serve constituents and operate more effectively and cost-efficiently. 

“I think data really helps us identify what programs are needed and what programs aren’t,” Larsen told WyoFile.

Balancing the state’s desire to evaluate programs with privacy and confidentiality was a focus of the task force, Larsen said, given the vulnerability of the families DFS serves. 

“We should always be nervous about privacy,” Larsen said, which is why so much time went into “House Bill 48 which really addresses a very delicate, sensitive issue.”  

Those concerns were also on DFS Director Korin Schmidt’s mind when she testified to the House Judiciary Committee about the need for HB 48. 

“We take seriously the confidentiality of the information that we gather,” Schmidt said. “However, the confidentiality statutes, in large part … were created in the ‘70s, and they didn’t contemplate a time where maybe we could help these families a little bit earlier, a little bit more effectively, while also being good stewards of the dollar, while also ensuring efficiencies across our systems, both internally and externally.”  

State agencies are simply unable to answer many fundamental questions about juvenile justice, Schmidt told the committee. 

“We have frequently been asked the question: How many kids that you serve in your juvenile justice system go into the Department of Corrections system? We can’t answer that question,” Schmidt said. “And one of the reasons we can’t answer that question is because of our confidentiality statutes.”

House Bill 48 would give the DFS director authority to initiate changes in how data is shared between state agencies through a rules-changing process requiring public and legislative input. 

That ensures “the general public also knows what it is that we are doing in a very transparent way,” Schmidt said.  

Those guardrails did not persuade the majority of the House Judiciary Committee — the bill died on a 5-4 vote. Reps. Laurie Bratten from Sheridan and Marlene Brady from Rock Springs, briefly mentioned privacy concerns before casting no votes, along with Republican Reps. Tom Kelly from Sheridan, Jayme Lien from Casper and Joe Webb from Lyman.

What now? 

Juvenile justice data sharing was just one piece of HB 48. The bill would also have enhanced DFS’ ability to evaluate its other programs — helping abuse and neglect victims, for example — and opened up opportunities for cross-agency referrals between DFS case workers, public health nurses and mental health providers. 

While HB 48 died in committee, Larsen said, that doesn’t mean solutions are off the table this session. He suggested individual lawmakers may bring their own versions of the bill. 

Lawmakers have until Jan. 29 to introduce bills in the Senate and Feb. 3 in the House. 

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Learn more: Listen to Juvenile (in)justice from Reveal.

The post Wyoming locks up kids at the highest rates in the nation. Bill to help understand why died without debate. appeared first on WyoFile .

RENOVO — Tracy Bruno had just ordered breakfast at Socky’s Restaurant when she suddenly felt dizzy.

The next thing she knew, her husband Gene Bruno, the mayor of Renovo Borough, was calling 911. But rather than wait for first responders, the couple decided to drive five minutes to Bucktail Medical Center, rural Clinton County’s only inpatient hospital.

Bruno, who had felt sick all weekend and planned to see a doctor on Monday, was treated for hypoglycemia. Without Bucktail Medical Center, her options for care would’ve been 35 minutes away in Lock Haven at an outpatient center or an hour away in a Lycoming County hospital.