If you ask me – and once again I notice that you didn't – the Wyoming House of Representatives, and our friends in the Freedom Caucus, are off to crackerjack start this year.
Greased lightning.
It was reported last week that while House leadership hoped to get their “Five and Dime” agenda passed in their chamber in the first 10 days of the 40-day session, they actually got the job done in eight days.
Bingo.
The new leadership in the House – conservative Republicans from the Freedom Caucus side of the street – queried voters to learn what they wanted to see accomplished this year.
And they came up with five meat-and-potato accomplishments normal people like us would like to see. They are: measures requiring proof of American citizenship; invalidating driver's licenses from other states held by illegal aliens; prohibiting state agencies from participating in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) stipulations; prohibiting “woke” companies from state investing; and significant property tax relief.
You know, stuff folks like us care about. (And if these issues have been suggested to Wyoming's Freedom Caucus by dark Freedom Caucus denizens in Washington, D.C., well, good for the dark Freedom Caucus denizens in Washington, D.C. Common sense is common sense.)
I read a column in some Brand X Wyoming newspaper, by a longtime liberal columnist, that the term “Five and Dime” suggests the issues I care about are cheap and foolish. But I always liked Five and Dimes, where the merchandise was plentiful, useful and inexpensive.
(This guy also once wrote that anyone who didn't take the COVID-19 vaccine should be considered a “villain.” Glad I didn't listen, because the experimental vaccine never did keep you from getting COVID, or spreading it, as promised, and can have scary side effects.)
So now the House has easily passed the kind of measures voters sent them to Cheyenne to pass. And the fun moves over to the Senate, where the leadership has also taken on a decidedly more conservative bent, though the unmistakable scent of RINO can often still be detected throughout the Capitol.
One story I read last week said the Senate might not get around to taking up the Five and Dime measures until February 14, the deadline for House bills to arrive for consideration in the Senate.
One senator suggested that there are a bunch of freshman lawmakers in the House, and they don't really understand how things work around here. The obvious suggestion: they will be schooled by the more learned members of the upper chamber (who I think wear togas).
My hope, however, is that the wise and august state senators will heed the verdict of last August's primary (that's two “Augusts” in one sentence, which I think is quite an accomplishment) and get around to the stuff actual voters want without waiting for the February 14 deadline.
In the past, however, lawmakers have often done their business like a kid writing his term paper the night before it's due. Lots of stuff gets jammed up at the end, and sometimes (like last year) the chance of overriding a governor's veto during the regular session is lost.
And that's when you get the feeling that a powerful thumb somewhere has been placed upon the scale, like when bills disappear into leadership drawers, never to be seen again.
In those instances, you can be excused for smelling a rat.
(I was there the year in the 1980s when they went past midnight the last night of the session, to finish their work. The next morning Gov. Ed Herschler vetoed every bill passed after midnight, and called everyone back for a special session to approve the vetoed bills.)
So anyway, it's my hope that the wise and august state senators heed the tone of the electorate expressed last August, and proceed right away to the Five and Dime bills, so there's plenty of time to override pesky gubernatorial vetoes if need be, unlike last year.
It would be refreshing, like what we're seeing in Washington since Inauguration Day, to see our state lawmakers throw a bone to the meat and potatoes, common-sense folks who sent them to Cheyenne.
The House gets it.
Let's see what happens in the Senate.
Dave Simpson can be reached at: DaveSimpson145@hotmail.com
