CHEYENNE — The fallout from the Republican primary election already is influencing how legislative committees work through their assigned interim studies.
The prospect of a House leadership controlled by the far right Freedom Caucus (FC) has thrown a big wet blanket over the important interim committee process.
This is because the Freedom Caucus has openly stated its status as anti-government, anti-tax, anti-spending and other antis as well.
All these antis can have a paralyzing influence on legislative business.
During two legislative interim committee meetings recently, members voiced their concern that drafting legislation with dollars involved may be fruitless because the bill will be killed immediately in the house by members of the Freedom Caucus. (FC)
They did not identify the FC but that’s what they meant; there was mention of the primary election results and what voters want.
Apparently the voters, or the paltry number who voted, want the Freedom Caucus group in charge, to run the show.
If the FC collects a couple more house seats in the general election, it will control all the leadership positions and the committees.
Remember, all bills that appropriate state money must start in the House.
So the question is whether the committee members should waste their time and effort and that of the of the Legislative Service Office staff to draft a doomed bill or bills, particularly those that carry appropriations.
That message was first aired during a recent meeting of the Select Committee on School Facilities.
The question was whether the new Legislature would approve a bill allocating $43 million for maintenance of K-12 public schools.
The answer is no, or maybe, after cuts. The judges may be watching this one.
Remember the Campbell decisions on school finance by the Wyoming Supreme Court that spells out the Legislature’s heavy responsibility to finance the K-12 public school system.
The FC loves charter schools, particularly religious ones; public schools not so much.
The Legislature meanwhile, got an initial taste of the FC’s strict anti-spending goal in the budget session last winter.
About half of the Joint Appropriation’s Committee’s bills were killed on introduction vote. Other committee bills didn’t do much better.
That was a new record and an unfortunate one.
Committee work is the engine that drives the entire legislative process.
Without it you have chaos.
That is where the vetting of bills takes place, the reading, the discussions, the endless amendments, the arguments. Then comes the public hearings, more of same.
Finally the committee votes to pass or defeat the bill.
Whether it gets a hearing on the floor then is up to the leadership. In the House the deciders are the House speaker and the House majority leader.
The interim studies are assigned work in preparation for the session They cost thousands dollars of legislative and LSO pay, time and effort.
We are now at that time of the year when the interim studies begin to pick up speed.
The question about the futility of drafting some bills also came up during a meeting last week the interim Joint Education Committee.
The issue was the continuing need for quality early childhood education in Wyoming.
The two Democrats on the committee Sen. Chris Rothfuss and Rep. Karlee Provenza, both of Laramie, argued for a proposal that would set up endowment for a quality early childhood program funded like the Hathaway scholarship program, thus insuring a stable funding source.
Rep. Landon Brown, R-Cheyenne, noted that the committee had just voted to kill another bill which had involved many hours of research by the Legislative Service Office staff.
He questioned whether the committee wanted to invest more time and effort in drafting Rothfuss’ early childhood education bill given the gloomy prospects of its future with the new leadership.
The bill failed.
Anyway, this may or may not be a trend that could have dire implications for the entire legislative system.
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Contact Joan Barron at 307-632-2534 or jmbarron@bresnan.net
