A legislative committee narrowly advanced a measure on Friday to repeal sales tax on electricity in the midst of rising electrical rates — a $43.4 million annual savings for ratepayers, according to the bill’s fiscal note.

But there’s a huge downside to Senate File 128, “Repeal of sales tax on electricity,” according to critics and even some supporters of the concept.

By far, Wyoming’s largest electrical consumers are industrial users: mines, oil and natural gas producers and refiners, and especially a booming data center industry in Laramie County. Many towns and counties rely on sales taxes from those industries — including from electricity — to support public services, including services those very industries necessitate.

For example, Evansville Police Chief Mike Thompson described the revenue base of his 2,700 person community as more industrial than residential. The Casper-adjacent town, home to an oil refinery and a multitude of other large industrial operations, is almost completely reliant on various sales taxes to support public services.

“It’s going to cripple our community,” Thompson said.

Likewise, Cheyenne has seen wild success in courting manufacturing and data facilities — enterprises whose primary net contribution to the city and county are taxes, Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins testified before the Senate Revenue Committee.

“I see data centers as our Jonah field,” Collins said, referencing Sublette County’s famed oil and gas development. “I see them as our Campbell County coal mines. We don’t have great mineral wealth here in Laramie County to fuel our economy, as many parts of our state do.”

Demand for electricity in and around Cheyenne is projected to increase from about 350 megawatts today to 1,200 megawatts by 2030, based on anticipated growth in manufacturing and data centers, according to Collins. “So in today’s dollars, that would cost Cheyenne about $4.4 million if we take the sales tax off electricity,” he said.

Those concerns were echoed by the Wyoming Association of Municipalities and Wyoming County Commissioners Association. They noted that proposed tax reductions for homeowners, as well as a wide range of pending tax reductions for extractive industries, will likely starve small governments of the revenue they need.

All of those anxieties might be assuaged, however, according to the bill’s proponents, including lead sponsor Republican Sen. Troy McKeown from Gillette. Lawmakers are working to partially negate the revenue loss from property tax relief for towns and counties McKeown said. Plus, according to Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, there are plans in the works to offset local governments’ losses from SF 128 with a new tax that taps electric utilities and their customers outside Wyoming.

“It’s going to cripple our community.”

Mike Thompson, Evansville Police Chief

“We would export a very large amount of tax burden and we would collect more than the sales tax we’re giving up,” Case said.

Lawmakers discussed such a strategy in April, noting Wyoming is particularly suited to shift the tax burden because it exports more electricity than it uses — although the volume of that export of electrons has been declining in recent years, according to Power Company of Wyoming Director of Communications and Government Relations Kara Choquette, who testified before the committee and participated in interim deliberations on the topic.

Nonetheless, a bill to implement a new tax to offset the revenue loss of SF 128 had yet to materialize by Friday afternoon.

“There’s a bill to be filed in the House that accomplishes — kind of looks at these things so they have to all fit together,” Case said. “It’s complicated.”

Underpinning that potential bill is a report by a legislative “electric tax subcommittee,” which was appropriated $50,000 to hire a law firm to analyse the legality of imposing taxes that extend beyond Wyoming’s borders. The Senate Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee, chaired by Case, met behind closed doors with the hired lawyers at the Capitol on Thursday to hear their analysis.

“The purpose of the briefing yesterday was to hear from our lawyers that we hired,” Case told the Revenue Committee on Friday. “So it was privileged lawyer communications.”

Based on that briefing, “It’s clear that we can do that,” Case added. “We absolutely can do that.”

Whether or not such a bill materializes in time to offset revenue losses from SF 128, a bevy of lobbyists, who regularly comment on legislation, said they emphatically support the bill, including those representing Wyoming rural electric co-ops, Wyoming agricultural industries, the Petroleum Association of Wyoming and Wyoming Mining Association. Monthly electricity bills are one of the top expenses for doing business, they testified.

“We have a far larger industrial load in Wyoming than you do residential — that’s not true for most states,” Jody Levin told lawmakers on behalf of the trona industry and the Wyoming Mining Association. “So the increases that we have seen in electricity have been borne largely by your industrial consumers.”

McKeown tested Evansville Police Chief Thompson’s claims regarding the potential impact to his community, and bristled at his pleas for more careful scrutiny of the measure. “It’s actually pretty simple. It just takes the sales [tax] off electricity,” McKeown murmured to a fellow committee member before asking for a vote.

The measure advanced with a 3-2 vote.

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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.

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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. 

---

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

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CHEYENNE—Rep. Dalton Banks, a twentysomething Republican rancher from Big Horn County, was clear about his goals for a measure that could inhibit Wyoming’s ability to pull off land deals with the federal government: He wants to ensure something like the divisive, $100 million Kelly Parcel deal doesn’t happen again. 

“I don’t think that it’s in the best interest of Wyoming that we let them gain more access to our ground,” Banks told fellow lawmakers Thursday. “I also think it’s in the best interest of Wyoming that we don’t allow just outright sales of state ground.” 

Banks’ House Bill 118, “Limitations on net land gains for the federal government,” proposes one short addition to the current statute. “No exchange executed under this section shall result in a net gain of surface rights or mineral rights to the federal government,” the bill states.

The slate of all-Republican co-sponsors includes Reps. Ocean Andrew of Laramie, Jeremy Haroldson of Wheatland, Reuben Tarver of Gillette, John Winter of Thermopolis and Sens. Bob Ide of Casper, John Kolb of Rock Springs and Cheri Steinmetz of Torrington. Banks and most of his cosponsors are counted among the hard-line cohort that includes the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and its Wyoming Senate allies. 

If enacted unchanged, the bill would add a new legal directive for Wyoming land managers, who often pursue land sales and swaps with the federal government. Some of those deals are compelled by the Wyoming Constitution, which requires officials to maximize revenues from school trust lands to fund public education. 

“We have rules and regulations, and we also have statutes that have been provided to us, and they’re a little bit contrary to what the intent of the bill is,” Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments Acting Director Jason Crowder told the House Agriculture, State and Public Lands & Water Resources Committee Thursday as the panel took public comment and expert testimony on the measure. 

The Office of State Lands and Investments, he explained, is charged with protecting and increasing the value of “the whole corpus” of the state’s lands and associated trust accounts. 

“Land transactions are the best way for us to do that,” Crowder said. 

In the case of the Kelly Parcel, the $100 million Wyoming received for 640 acres was $38 million more than the property’s appraised value. When the State Board of Land Commissioners OK’d the sale in a 3-2 vote, Treasurer Curt Meier said that, through investments, his office could turn the proceeds into $1.6 billion. 

“That could be a perpetual, actually generational fund that would benefit the students and the education system of the state of Wyoming,” the treasurer said at the time. 

Not all of his board colleagues agreed. Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder contested the sale, pushing instead for a land swap that would return fossil-fuel-rich federal land in the Powder River Basin. 

Degenfelder, the daughter of an oilman, spoke in support of Banks’ bill. 

“I fundamentally agree with the concept that we cannot continue to increase federal ownership of the state of Wyoming,” the superintendent told the House Ag committee. “48% of the surface is owned by the federal government, 65% of mineral acreage is owned by the federal government. We cannot afford to increase that number.” 

Lawmakers echoed displeasure with federal land management inside Wyoming’s borders. Banks cited both the Bureau of Land Management’s recent revisions of resource management plans for the Red Desert region and the Powder River Basin.

Tarver, a co-sponsor representing Gillette, wasn’t on the committee and couldn’t move to amend it, but suggested sweetening the pot for Wyoming and requiring a 10-to-1 or 100-to-1 acre requirement for any land deals. 

“I don’t see where the federal government manages absolutely anything very well,” Tarver said. “Everything they touch turns into a problem for the state of Wyoming.” 

Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, asked her fellow representative if he’d be OK with the bill if it infringed on private property owners’ rights to sell their land to the federal government. 

Tarver didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely,” he said.

Even a 1-to-1 acre requirement — as the bill is written — could dismantle some deals in the works. Crowder, with the Office of State Lands and Investments, cited the proposed land exchange with the Medicine Bow National Forest, as a potential casualty. The deal would enable construction of a 264-foot-high dam that would benefit a few dozen irrigators. 

The Medicine Bow deal’s benefit to an agricultural community didn’t sway Kelly Carpenter, a lobbyist for the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, who testified in support of the legislation. 

House Bill 118 passed through the House Agriculture Committee in an 8-1 vote after minimal debate, with Provenza opposed. It heads next to the Wyoming House of Representatives, where it’ll need to be read, and voted on, three times on the lower chamber’s floor. 

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Gov. Mark Gordon will consider whether to begin the process for removing Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock from office after receiving a complaint from eight local qualified electors who allege “acts of misconduct and malfeasance,” according to a Friday press release from the governor’s office. 

The release did not detail the allegations or name the complainants, but this is not the first time Weston County’s elections practices have been scrutinized. Following November’s general election, an initial miscount caused by an error of Hadlock’s drew fierce criticism from Weston County voters.  

“Given the very serious nature of the potential consequences involved, removal of an official duly elected by the voters of Weston County, preserving the objectivity and integrity of this process is crucial,” Gordon’s press release said. 

State law lays out a process for the governor to “commence action” in removing a county officer who is “guilty of misconduct or malfeasance in office” by filing a petition in district court. In other words, if Gordon finds in his review of the complaint against Hadlock that she appears to be guilty, the governor can request the clerk be tried in district court for misconduct or malfeasance in office. 

“Consequently, the Governor will have no comment on this investigation while it is ongoing, focusing instead on reviewing and determining relevant facts,” the press release said. 

In November, Secretary of State Chuck Gray said his office was planning a “more full analysis evaluating [the clerk’s] conduct” to present to the Attorney General’s office. Gray did not have an update on the matter at a press conference last week, but told WyoFile Friday that his office will be releasing the results of its investigation in early 2025.

How we got here

For the general election, Hadlock printed three versions of the ballot due to errors on the first two, Gray told the Wyoming State Canvassing Board in November. 

It’s not unusual for clerks to reprint ballots, but it became a problem when some voters were given the erroneous first and second versions. As a result, tabulators miscounted votes in a county commission race as well as the competition for House District 1, where House Speaker-elect Rep. Chip Neiman (R-Hulett) was running unopposed for reelection. 

The initial, unofficial results for Weston County showed Neiman received 166 votes while 1,289 left that part of the ballot blank, also known as an undervote. That count caught Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s attention on election night, he said, and when Hadlock didn’t answer his calls, he sent the sheriff’s office to her home. 

Hadlock initially denied there was an issue, Gray said, but ultimately agreed to the secretary of state’s request that her office complete a hand tabulation of the ballots, which confirmed her mistake. 

The recount showed that Neiman received 1,269 votes, and the results were certified by the county canvassing board. 

The state canvassing board also certified Weston County’s results, but at the objection of local voters who asked at the meeting that they delay doing so. Newcastle Mayor Pam Gualtieri was among the objectors. 

“As the mayor, it’s my job to take care of [local citizens], and we would like to see Weston County hand-counted by another county, not ours,” Gualtieri told the board. 

Gualtieri reiterated those concerns to WyoFile Friday. Though she was not one of the eight residents who filed the verified complaint, she wants to see some accountability. 

“A lot of residents just don’t feel like it was taken seriously [by the clerk,] and it’s affecting their thoughts on the next election,” Gualtieri said.

Only two races were recounted in Weston County, but Gualtieri said that’s needed in every race. 

“Even the people who ran in the election are concerned if their numbers are correct, if they’re supposed to have those positions or not,” she said.

Whatever the outcome of the complaint, Gualtieri said Weston County has a long road ahead of itself. 

“It’s easier to lose trust than it is to gain the trust,” Gualtieri said. 

Hadlock did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment. 

This is a breaking news story and may be updated. 

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Republican legislators are planning to bring at least four bills to Wyoming’s 2025 general session aimed at restricting transgender people’s participation in certain sports and access to public bathrooms and other spaces. 

Lawmakers’ increasing focus on transgender issues comes on the heels of controversy at the University of Wyoming involving its women’s volleyball team and an alleged transgender player on an opposing team. It also follows an expensive and hard-fought campaign season that saw the Wyoming Freedom Caucus win control of the House and move the body further to the right. 

The exact details of the legislation remain to be seen — none of the bills had been published by press time — but they vary in scope, according to several lawmakers who spoke with WyoFile. They are being drafted less than a year after Wyoming banned gender-affirming care for minors including puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

Rep. Martha Lawley (R-Worland), who announced in an op-ed plans to bring both a sports bill and a private spaces bill, said she sees the legislation as an opportunity for lawmakers to unify around a single issue. 

“I would like this to become something that’s more about the cooperation that we can engage in when we really want to,” Lawley told WyoFile. “And if there’s one place that we could showcase that it would be on an issue like this.”

One of Lawley’s bills would expand Wyoming’s transgender athlete ban beyond its current limitation on middle and high school girls sports to include elementary school and intercollegiate competition. The second measure would prohibit transgender girls and women from using women’s public bathrooms, locker rooms, showers and correctional facilities. 

Lawley defeated a Freedom Caucus-backed opponent in the primary election. Whether the group brings its own legislation on the two related matters is not yet clear. Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (R-Cody) told WyoFile, “We haven’t seen [Lawley’s bills] yet, but we are pleased to see her being more responsive to the will of the people of Wyoming.” 

Meanwhile, Sen. Wendy Schuler (R-Evanston) — the lead sponsor of the 2023 sports bill that became law without Gov. Mark Gordon’s signature — told WyoFile she’ll also bring legislation to extend sports ban to the collegiate level. Plus, Park County lawmakers are expected to bring a bathroom bill in support of a resolution passed by Powell’s school board last month. 

Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie) told WyoFile she’s saddened by the forthcoming slate of legislation. 

“I know that my colleagues are good people. I know that we all want to solve issues and problems, and so when I see this divergence from what I believe are our shared values, it’s just disappointing,” she said, adding that she’d prefer to see lawmakers coalesce around other issues like wildfires, affordable housing and recent trona mine layoffs in southwest Wyoming. 

“We have real problems here,” Provenza said. “I thought I was coming [to the Legislature] to solve problems and not attack people in my district, because that’s who this impacts — it’s my district.”

Sports bans

The University of Wyoming women’s volleyball team forfeited an Oct. 5 match against San José State University because the rival team is alleged to have a transgender player. 

Wyoming’s players were split 9-9, with one abstention in their team vote on whether to play the Spartans. Records indicate the decision to forfeit was ultimately made for them by higher-ups after pressure mounted from the public and elected officials.The circumstances in part inspired Lawley’s legislation. 

“What happened with the volleyball was very eye-opening, I think, for a lot of people in Wyoming,” Lawley said. “I had a lot of response from constituents about that when it was happening. They were very appreciative of the decision made by the University of Wyoming. They felt it was the right decision. Honestly, their only criticism was, ‘Why did it take so long? Why was that so hard to do or figure out?’”

Lawley said her bill would provide clarity in future situations by requiring eligibility standards for intercollegiate sports at UW and Wyoming’s community colleges to be based on biological sex. It would also prohibit teams from competing against out-of-state transgender players. 

“This isn’t about shutting anyone out—it’s about giving every young woman the chance to compete on a level playing field,” Lawley wrote in her op-ed. “The amendment provides legal remedies to hold institutions accountable if those rights are violated.” 

The legislation also extends the ban already on the books to include all grade levels in the K-12 system. As written, the law only applies to middle and high school girls sports. 

While Schuler said she’ll likely support Lawley’s bill, she’s also planning to bring a version that would only include intercollegiate sports. 

“Mine is just a little bit more simple,” Schuler said. 

When Schuler first brought legislation in 2023 to impose the ban, she originally included collegiate sports. She eased off that, however, when UW asked her to allow the National Collegiate Athletic Association to sort things out instead. 

But the NCAA, “they just haven’t done that,” Schuler said. This time, Schuler hasn’t gotten approval from UW, she said, but “they didn’t try to discourage me. Let’s just put it that way.”

Private spaces 

In November, the Park County School District #1 Board of Trustees voted unanimously for a resolution that calls on lawmakers to pass legislation related to restroom use, the Powell-Tribune reported. 

“Due to conflicting case law and legal authority, the current legal and legislative landscape of the United States and Wyoming does not provide a clear foundation for individual school districts to set policy surrounding the issue of sex-based restroom use,” the resolution reads. 

“The district will advocate in the 2025 legislative session and support the passage of legislation similar to Oklahoma Statute 70-1-125 ‘Restrooms in Public Schools’ which will clarify the issue of restroom use for all Wyoming school districts,” the resolution states. 

The 2022 Oklahoma law requires restrooms or locker rooms in public schools to be designated exclusively based on biological sex. 

Lawley said she’s heard Park County lawmakers are planning to bring their own legislation to account for the resolution. Meanwhile, her legislation would cast a wider net than Oklahoma’s, applying the law to not just public schools but other public buildings such as correctional facilities. 

“We have all heard stories of discomfort and fear when policies aren’t clear, leaving institutions scrambling to balance privacy concerns with the risk of lawsuits,” Lawley wrote in her op-ed. “It’s time for the Legislature to act.”

As for enforcement, Lawley said her private spaces bill would give anyone legal standing in court should they sue a school district or other public entity for not complying with the law — also known as a private right of action. Similarly in Texas, a private right of action allows private individuals to sue abortion providers or anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion in a Texas court. 

“Other states have used funding as a motivation, and that could be something we look at again,” Lawley said. That could prove to be complicated, however, since the state is constitutionally obligated to fully fund public education. 

The Wyoming Legislature’s general session starts Jan. 14. 

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Plans to better conserve sage grouse on 65 million federal acres of the imperiled birds’ embattled habitat are being simultaneously cast by competing interest as either overly burdensome on western states, a script for extinction or a Goldilocksesque ideal level of protection. 

Drafts of the Bureau of Land Management’s divisive plans were met with cautious optimism early this year by Wyoming leaders and advocacy groups with a stake in sage grouse management. But that support evaporated last week when the BLM rolled out its final environmental impact statement outlining its revisions to the 9-year-old plans that guide sage grouse management today.

“The thing that changed — which changed the tenor of our comments — is that nothing changed,” said Bob Budd, who chairs Wyoming’s Sage Grouse Implementation Team. 

Budd and others in Wyoming had been optimistic because the state thought BLM was working “together on it” and that changes requested by state managers would be accommodated, he told WyoFile.

“We brought science to the table and said, ‘Look, here’s the way this ought to be handled,” Budd said. “It was ignored.” 

BLM’s final proposal amends 77 resource management plans across sage grouse habitat in 10 western states — revising policies on about 45% of the remaining sagebrush-studded landscapes where the chicken-sized birds dwell. The policies, according to the BLM, blend a “west-wide management approach with unique policies in the individual states.”

“Our environmental analysis, aided by a wealth of information from our partners, indicates that these proposed updates — which are the result of decades of sustained collaborative efforts — are the best way to ensure the health of these lands and local economies now and into the future,” BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a statement. 

The revisions intend to reverse sagebrush habitat losses that are contributing to the long-term decline of sage grouse. Populations naturally swing up and down — Wyoming bird numbers are up, at least at the moment — but recent nadirs in the cycle hit all-time lows in most western states, according to the BLM’s final EIS. Rangewide, sage grouse populations declined nearly 80% from 1966 to 2021. There are few bright spots in the modern era: Since 2002, sage grouse have continued declining on 87% of their range.

Grouse groups trade takes

Some environmental groups say BLM’s final environmental impact statement doesn’t go far enough to stem the declines. Western Watersheds Project, American Bird Conservancy, the Center for Biological Diversity and Advocates for the West maintain the plans will exacerbate the sage grouse “extinction spiral.”  

“Letting anti-conservation states and extractive interests get their way above all else is something we expect to have to fight in the next administration, and it’s disappointing that this is what the Biden Administration is leaving us with as well,” Western Watersheds Project Deputy Director Greta Anderson said in a statement. “What a squandered opportunity.”

In 2019, Western Watersheds Project and a consortium of other groups successfully challenged BLM’s re-write of its West-wide sage grouse conservation strategy. That re-write was spurred by the energy dominance agenda of the first Trump administration. 

The plans being finalized now are intended to address the court’s concerns: that BLM’s 2019 revisions lacked a range of alternatives, did not take a hard look at environmental impacts, and improperly analyzed cumulative effects and required habitat replacement, known as compensatory mitigation.

Other conservation groups felt that the BLM mostly hit the mark in its 2024 revisions. 

A coalition including Audubon Rockies, The Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Natural Resources Defense Council and Pew Charitable Trusts signaled they’re “optimistic” about the final plans. 

“With grouse populations on the precipice, now is the time for action,” Natural Resources Defense Council staffer Bobby McEnaney said in a statement. “By issuing these land management plans, the Bureau of Land Management has identified science-based approaches to manage the habitat that the iconic sage-grouse need for survival.”

Lee Davis of The Nature Conservancy’s Sagebrush Sea Program said in a statement that it’s “crucial” to implement a “balanced, pragmatic and durable” plan that “not only halts habitat loss but also averts the risk of an [Endangered Species Act] listing.”

“Without collaboration and compromise,” Davis said, “we all stand to lose.”

Wyoming gripes

In Wyoming’s comments submitted in response to the BLM’s draft plans in June, state officials sought adjustment to “10 areas” of the federal agency’s proposal. Gov. Mark Gordon, who signed the state’s letter, wrote that he would not support any designations of extra-protective “areas of critical environmental concern” for sage grouse in Wyoming. 

“One-fourth of our state is currently designated as ‘Core’ habitat for the species, and we have imposed significant restrictions on development, and dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to habitat improvement in those areas at great economic cost,” the governor wrote at the time. “There is simply no need to add more designations, restrictions and possible confusion on those landscapes.” 

Gordon’s request was mostly not reflected in the final version. Five months later, BLM’s final plans included 636,352 acres of potential ACECs for sage grouse in Wyoming — down from 839,225 acres in the draft plans. 

The reduction by more than 200,000 acres came in an area known as the “Golden Triangle,” which the BLM described as a “large expanse of intact sagebrush that supports portions of the densest population of [sage grouse] across its entire range.” Even though it was slashed in size, the final plans still included a 272,557-acre ACEC in the Golden Triangle. 

Budd reiterated the belief that the extra layer of safeguards for sage grouse isn’t necessary. 

“The Golden Triangle is already in a core area, it’s in a migration corridor,” he said. “It has tons of protections already there.” 

Another big sticking point, he said, concerned how the BLM addressed “adaptive management.” 

“We have a process in Wyoming to deal with incidents, like the fires we recently had,” Budd said. “They came in with their version of how adaptive management would be done, down to the level of what metric or what model might be used.” 

The BLM is accepting protests of its final EIS through Dec. 9. Gordon and other western governors will also lead a “Consistency Review” process designed to ensure that the policies align with those of the states. That review won’t wrap up until Jan. 7 — two weeks before the change in presidential administrations.

“I am hopeful that as we move into a new Trump Administration that we can shape a functional Record of Decision in the New Year,” Gordon said in a statement. 

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