CHEYENNE—The Wyoming Freedom Caucus delivered on a promise to pass a slate of bills targeting five priorities in the first 10 days of the 2025 general session.
The group of hard-line Republicans announced Thursday that its “Five and Dime Plan” has cleared all hurdles in the House two days ahead of its self-imposed deadline.
“And we did so with overwhelming support,” the caucus wrote on its Facebook page. “EVERY bill in our plan passed with a 2/3 majority or better.”
One of the five bills — which pertained to pulling money from certain investments — did undergo significant revisions before achieving success in the House.
As the caucus prepared to assume control of the House for the first time, it unveiled its plan in December to pass five “key bills” related to elections, immigration, education and other issues in the first 10 days of the session.
“In this last election, you spoke to us loud and clear,” Freedom Caucus Chairman Emeritus Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, said in a video posted on the caucus’ website.
“We heard you in town halls and on your doorsteps. What you gave us was a mandate to make some changes in the state of Wyoming,” Bear said.
The package includes legislation to restrict the voter registration process; invalidate driver licenses issued to unauthorized immigrants by other states; prohibit diversity, equity and inclusion programming in higher education; ban state investments in environment, social and governance funds; and bring back a property tax relief bill vetoed by Gov. Mark Gordon earlier this year.
Disagreement over amendments’ value
All those proposals advanced out of the House after lengthy floor debate, though very few amendments stuck to most of the bills.
Bear, the Freedom Caucus chairman emeritus, told reporters Friday that the long hours on the House floor equated to vetted bills. At the same time, he criticized non-Freedom Caucus members for attempting to refine the bills.
“I was disappointed because really what those amendments that were defeated were all about weakening or really trying to stifle what the people have asked for,” Bear said. “And so a lot of time was spent trying to drag them down, defeat them, trying to besmirch the purposes of the bills.”
The legislation now goes to the Senate, where its future remains unclear.
Senate Majority Floor Leader Sen. Tara Nethercott, a Cheyenne Republican, offered reporters a different point of view Monday about the role of amending legislation.
“Most bills actually should be amended and require debate in order to craft thoughtful, lawful legislation that does what it’s intended to do,” Nethercott said.
“An amended bill doesn’t mean anything is wrong. It means it’s being worked for a solution for the people,” she said.
When asked by WyoFile if the Senate had its work cut out for itself at crossover — when the two chambers swap legislation — Nethercott said “absolutely.”
The number of freshman House members — 23 to be exact — was a concern for Nethercott.
“Learning that skill set takes a little bit of time, and so since they’re new, they haven’t maybe developed a level of skill to amend bills and work them in the way that a more senior legislator would,” she said.
The official crossover period for the Legislature won’t come until mid-February when there’s a deadline for bills to pass third reading — or the final vote — in their original chamber.
Election integrity
The Freedom Caucus’ top pick involves legislation requiring proof of residency and U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.
“Our county clerks know a lot of the people who vote in our elections, and we don’t have any real significant proof of voter fraud,” Bear said on the House floor, but he pointed to a Campbell County case where a non-citizen had voted in 2020.
Bear, alongside other supporters of House Bill 156, “Proof of voter residency-registration qualifications,” say the legislation is needed to ensure that non-citizens cannot register to vote in Wyoming.
The bill goes hand in hand with House Bill 157, “Proof of voter citizenship,” which provides a list of documents to prove citizenship, ranging from a Wyoming driver’s license to a membership card for a federally recognized tribe to a birth certificate or certificate of naturalization.
A representative of the Wyoming County Clerks’ Association and others warned lawmakers that restricting the voter registration process could inadvertently prohibit legitimate voters from casting their ballots.
Neither bill was amended before the House voted to send both to the Senate.
To read more about House Bill 156 and House Bill 157 click here.
Driver’s licenses
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
That’s a problem, according to the Freedom Caucus, which is seeking to invalidate such driver’s licenses with House Bill 116, “Driver’s licenses-unauthorized alien restrictions.”
The bill’s main sponsor, Riverton Republican Rep. Pepper Ottman, says the legislation will address illegal immigration.
Opponents of the bill — which include the Wyoming Catholic Diocese and the American Civil Liberties Union — raised red flags to lawmakers about enforceability and the bill’s justness.
The bill isn’t completely new territory to lawmakers. Similar legislation passed the Wyoming Senate last year, but died in the House when it did not secure committee approval by deadline. It’s also one of several bills aimed at making Wyoming unwelcoming to undocumented immigrants.
The House voted 45-15 with two excused to send the bill to the Senate unamended.
To read more about House Bill 116, click here.
Diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education
After the Wyoming Legislature cut the University of Wyoming’s block grant by $1.7 million last year and forbade it from spending state funds on its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the Freedom Caucus is seeking further restrictions.
The third plank of its Five and Dime Plan is House Bill 147, “Prohibition of institutional discrimination.”
The legislation would prohibit UW and Wyoming’s community colleges from engaging in DEI programs and education, or hiring on that basis.
Gov. Mark Gordon struck similar language in the budget last year over concerns that it would endanger roughly $120 million in federal grants for Wyoming’s sole public four-year university.
“These grants are vital to research and other core purposes of the University, but with the condition that the recipients extend opportunities to participate to underrepresented and underserved populations, including veterans, people with disabilities, Native Americans, and others,” Gordon wrote in his veto letter.
The Freedom Caucus, meanwhile, says the legislation is needed to “codify additional protections against discrimination,” according to its website.
On a similar note, the Joint Appropriations Committee voted this week to add the language vetoed by Gordon into the supplemental budget.
To read more about House Bill 147, click here.
Anti-ESG
As its fourth priority, the Freedom Caucus pitched House Bill 80, “Stop ESG-State funds fiduciary duty act,” as a move to pull Wyoming’s money out of any investment funds designed to move the world past dependence on fossil fuel energy.
The bill ran into fierce opposition immediately, with the state’s investment leaders saying it was both financially risky and unnecessary because they had already adopted policies against “ESG” investing.
Broad language in the bill about what designated a company or fund as an ESG investment would have kept the state from backing almost all Fortune 500 companies, Chief Investment Officer Patrick Fleming said in committee testimony. The state’s investment staff would have quite en masse, State Treasurer Curt Meier said.
Most worrying for those officials was a clause that leveraged steep financial penalties against any contracted financier for violating the bill. The best investors in the industry would have declined to work with Wyoming’s funds because of the penalty, bill opponents warned, and the state’s returns would have tanked to the tune of billions of dollars.
The bill’s sponsor, Gillette Republican Rep. Christopher Knapp, worked with opponents to fix the bill step by step, though he stuck to his guns on the penalty clause. Retired public employees began to email lawmakers their concerns about hits to their pension funds. After days of criticism, the Freedom Caucus dropped that portion of the bill as well.
What they passed on to the Senate this week is a bill that codifies existing policies the State Land and Investment Board, made up of the state’s five elected officials, imposed in 2023. Meier and officials with the state retirement system have said their most pressing concerns had been amended out, though they remain wary of the bill.
Bear told reporters Friday morning the ESG bill was an example of the caucus’ willingness to compromise.
“We don’t believe that everything is perfect, brought from the Freedom Caucus,” Bear said. “We’re willing to listen to our colleagues. And obviously that was one bill that, you know, there was a, there was a need for some change.”
To read the latest about House Bill 80, click here.
Property taxes
For several sessions now, lawmakers have made various attempts at lowering residential property taxes.
Most recently, Gordon signed a package of property tax relief bills into law in 2024, but he vetoed a favorite of the Freedom Caucus.
That legislation would have applied a 25% exemption to the first $2 million of a home’s fair market value. The governor rejected the bill because it “would have only provided a temporary and very expensive tax exemption to all homeowners at the expense of other taxpayers in our energy industries, retail and manufacturing sectors,” Gordon wrote in his veto letter.
When the Freedom Caucus unveiled its Five and Dime plan, it said it would bring the bill back. But then offered slightly different legislation.
House Bill 169, “Homeowner tax exemption-2025 and 2026” would provide a 50% exemption to the first $1 million of a home’s fair market value. It also includes $125 million to reimburse local governments for the revenue loss since those entities depend on property taxes to fund local services, such as roads, hospitals and schools.
Bear said the Freedom Caucus switched gears in response to an initiative that recently secured enough signatures to land on the 2026 general election ballot. That initiative would cut property taxes in half for homeowners who have lived in Wyoming for at least one year.
To read more about House Bill 169, click here.
Mike Koshmrl contributed to this reporting.
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