Wyoming’s legislative branch of government had its ass handed to it by Wyoming’s judicial branch recently, when a state district court found that the Legislature’s system for funding public schools is unconstitutional.
The case in point, Wyoming Education Association (WEA) vs. Wyoming, concluded with a court order that the Legislature fix the problem pronto. The decision also stipulated that the First District Court in Cheyenne will retain jurisdiction over the case until the legislature does its job and follows the Wyoming Constitution.
The ultimate authority in Wyoming’s government is our Constitution. It authorizes the legislative branch to pass laws, and grants authority to the judicial branch to decide on the constitutionality of those laws. Everything circles back to our Constitution.
In Article 7, the Wyoming Constitution charged the legislature with sole responsibility for creating and funding an equal and high-quality system of public education in the Cowboy State. That mandate is clear and unambiguous.
Around 1980 Washakie County, which had missed out on revenue from the energy boom, sued the state to equalize funding across all counties. The Wyoming Supreme Court eventually ruled that the systemic disparity in school funding was unconstitutional and ordered remedies.
Then fifteen years later, Campbell County sued the state on the grounds that the legislative formula for funding capital construction was unequal and unconstitutional. Again, the state lost the case before its Supreme Court. The court drew from the 1980 precedent and mandated remedies.
When the First District Court ruled against the state Wednesday in the WEA case, the Wyoming Legislature struck out yet againin the courtroom. But this time the court retained jurisdiction over the case, unlike in the past. The First District Court found a consistent failure to fund the schools adequately and equally. Even the state’s own experts had testified at trial against some of the state's key points.
The ball wasn’t just tossed back to the Legislature, the court is still in the game and will watch every legislative move until its conditions are met. This is where separation of powers gets interesting.
It is an interesting hypothetical to contemplate that, if the Legislature fails to fix the problem under the court order, the court can respond by holding the Legislature in contempt until it does.
Legislative immunity aside, when a journalist is cited for contempt of court for failing to name a source, that journalist can be jailed and fined until she or he reveals a source. This is not hypothetical: it has happened numerous times.
Another response to legislative foot-dragging happened in Kansas in the recent past. Because the Kansas Legislature failed to satisfy a school-funding court order, the Kansas Supreme Court stepped in and did the Legislature’s job itself.
If memory serves, a sort of Special Master was appointed by the court to modify the school funding formula until it satisfied the court order, then the process was returned to the Legislature. That is the power of checks and balances in our system.
In Wyoming, there remains a possibility that Gov. Mark Gordon could appeal the WEA decision to the Wyoming Supreme Court, the same court that has slapped the state’s wrist twice in the past on the same issue. He would be a fool to do so, even if it scored him a few points with the populist right wing of his party. He would lose that appeal.
So it appears that lawmakers are painted into a small corner in the classroom, behind the teacher’s desk. And to free themselves, they have to placate the court, the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and they have a year or so to do it.
Absent the immediate writing and passage of an amendment to the Wyoming Constitution that says the Legislature can do what it damn well pleases with school funding, our citizen legislature has its work cut out for it. And it all circles back to our constitution.
