Dave Simpson: Imagine If The Wyoming Legislature Was Run Like Congress

Columnist Dave Simpson writes, "With 435 Representatives and 100 Senators, they'll be lucky to get anything passed by Memorial Day. That's because they work in Washington for three days, with Mondays and Fridays reserved for travel."

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Dave Simpson

February 03, 20254 min read

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(Cowboy State Daily Staff)

Imagine if we ran the Wyoming Legislature like that bunch in Washington runs Congress.

Right now, the big question for the new Republican leadership in Congress is whether they're going to jam everything they want into “one beautiful bill,” or two beautiful bills.

With 435 Representatives and 100 Senators in D.C. - most independent as pigs on ice - they'll be lucky to get anything passed by Memorial Day, or the Fourth of July.

That's because most weeks they only get down to business in Washington for three days, with Mondays and Fridays reserved for travel to and from their districts. And they take a lot of vacations.

So getting all those people to agree on everything from border security to ending taxes on tips, to extending tax cuts that “sunset” at the end of the year, to ending taxes on Social Security, to helping Los Angeles, to deporting illegal aliens – well, the stuff they need to do goes on and on.

So if they get their one beautiful bill, or two, it/they will be a typical Washington monstrosity, with so many thousands of pages that even speed reader Evelyn Wood couldn't get it read by Memorial  Day, or the Fourth of July. Or maybe Christmas.

Former Speaker of the House John Boehner said riding herd on the House majority was like “keeping 218 frogs in a wheelbarrow.”

To pass big bills, you need to have some holiday looming, to convince the frogs to get back in the wheelbarrow, or they won't make it home for the holiday. (Remember when one of the key elements of Obamacare was passed late on Christmas Eve? How'd that work out?)

It's tough to get Congress to get down to business. And sometimes they never do, which is why they don't pass budgets anymore, instead passing “Continuing Resolutions,” which the big spenders use, when they expire, to threaten us with government shutdowns. (I'd take government shutdowns over $36 trillion in debt any day of the week. And twice on Sundays.)

The people who want border security might have to swallow a huge appropriation for rebuilding Los Angeles, and a hundred other examples of that kind of horse trading, because the margins are slim, and the Democrats have the power to throw a wrench in the works. And a few Republican firebrands can torpedo anything.

Don't hold your breath for less spending.

What a nightmare.

I support President Donald Trump, and there will be plenty in the one or two beautiful bills that we need. Maybe he can get it done. But what a challenge he faces in Congress. It's like Ahab in pursuit of the Great White Whale.

But, here's the good news.

Here in Wyoming, as we all know, we only let the lawmakers make laws for 60 days every two years – 40 days in odd-number years, 20 days in even-number years.

And then they have to go home, make a living, and obey the laws they pass. Like the rest of us. We don't let them make a full-time job out of it, or pay them anywhere close to the $174,000 they make in Congress. (Legislators here make $15,000 to $20,000 a year.)

By the time the one or two beautiful bills pass in D.C. this summer, our state legislators will have been back home for months. It's a blessing.

A huge difference here in Wyoming is that Article 3 Section 24 of our Constitution says no bill can address more than one subject. So the session that's currently underway is taking up hundreds of bills individually, and they all have to be about just one subject. No Christmas tree bills with lots of different goodies under the tree (except, obviously, budget bills).

And, thankfully, a healthy skepticism of passing new laws still exists here in Wyoming. (“I'll toss 'em up,” a presiding officer in the Wyoming Senate is remembered for saying of the stack of bills on his desk, “and you shoot 'em down.”)

That, and not being able to spend money we don't have (what a concept) make all the difference here in Wyoming.

Let's stop for a moment and thank our stars.

Dave Simpson can be reached at: DaveSimpson145@hotmail.com

Authors

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Dave Simpson

Political, Wyoming Life Columnist

Dave has written a weekly column about a wide variety of topics for 39 years, winning top columnist awards in Wyoming, Colorado, Illinois and Nebraska.