Wendy Corr:
Well, hey there, folks, welcome to The Roundup. We are a Cowboy State Daily podcast, and we focus on interesting people in the Cowboy State. And I am so thrilled today to be able to focus on one of the interesting people that our audience hears from every day! It is rare to find a day where there is not a byline with Leo Wolfson on it. And so today, we get to talk to Leo about journalism.
We get to talk to him about telling Wyoming stories, but Leo's focus and Leo's beat, as we call it, is politics, and with the legislature just now wrapping up, we want to make sure that we get Leo's insight from an overview perspective. Now that the legislative session is over, we want to talk to Leo about what happened, kind of in a broader sense.
So Leo Wolfson, we're so glad to have you on the roundup today. Welcome, welcome.
Leo Wolfson:
Well, thank you. Wendy, longtime listener, first time caller, proud to be here on the show. I listen to every podcast you have, so yeah, it's great to be here. Thank you.
Wendy Corr:
Well, I tell you, you are one of the few - Leo will keep me honest. He'll say, Hey, I listened to that podcast about so and so. And I'm like, yeah, thank you. I'm so glad you're watching!
Well, Leo, you and I have known each other for years. Back when you were a reporter in Cody at the Cody Enterprise, and I was working at the Big Horn Radio Network, you and I would cross paths frequently, and I am just, I was so pleased when you came on board to Cowboy State Daily as one of our first full time reporters. And it's really been a joy to watch your work just continue to grow and continue to just get better and better, and you own your beat.
Tell us real quickly, I want to get into a bit of your background, but tell us quickly about your thoughts on covering the legislative session every year. This is this. Is this the third legislative session that you've covered for Cowboy State daily?
Leo Wolfson:
Yes, that's correct. This is the third.
Wendy Corr:
What are your thoughts?
Leo Wolfson:
Well, yeah, this year was certainly remarkable in some unique ways. I think what we saw this year in particular was a new dynamic. We had a whole new batch of legislators in and this was the first year that the Wyoming Freedom Caucus had a majority in the House. So we got to see what it would look like when they would govern.
They were really, previously the underdogs throughout their history, up until this session, more critical of the leadership, and now they are the leadership in the House, and they can see how, you could see how they were going to act upon those promises.
And I would say they did keep their promises as far as what their priorities were and things to that nature. As far as how effective they were, I think that's very debatable. I could see it from both sides. They had a press conference last Friday where they certainly trumpeted that there was a victory for their side.
For sure, they definitely did get some bills across, without a doubt. We still don't know how the final score is, so to say, the dust has not settled yet, because there's a lot of bills right now on the governor's desk.
He has about 15 days to act on any bill that came to him in the last three days of the legislature. So it's still a little early to say kind of what the final score is, but we do know they definitely did pass some of their priorities, as far as tightening election restrictions, putting more restrictions on abortion services in Wyoming, also going after some of those culture war issues, like banning dei and state government and things like that.
We know those things are definitely headed, headed down the pike, so to speak. So it was very interesting to watch that dynamic. But I think the big story at play, for sure, was the big division between the House and the Senate.
We just saw a huge procedural division, is how I would describe it, because these two sides are actually relatively similar on a lot of the issues at the end of the day, but how they're kind of pursuing them, and what they made a priority, and just how they went about it, that was kind of the big, the big split between the two parties.
Wendy Corr:
Leo, this is your third legislative session. How did this session differ from the previous two that you have covered so closely there in Cheyenne?
Leo Wolfson:
You know, it was basically like I said, the Freedom Caucus was an underdog. They were a minority. In the last two sessions that I covered, starting in 2023, and this was the real difference, where you got to see what it looks like when they wield power and when they actually pass the bills they want to pass.
And, you know, at the end of the day, some of their most far reaching stuff actually didn't pass. In my opinion, some of the stuff that was the most, I don't want to say extreme, but most significant changes, I guess. And there was still some moderation as far as what got through, but there were things that got through that I think would have had a tough chance of getting through.
The House in the past, now, a lot of these things, they got over to the Senate, and they were not given a high priority. I'd say probably more, more of the more than not, is what we saw with that. So it was kind of interesting to watch that dynamic.
I think the Senate was more representative of what I've seen from the legislature in the past, being a little bit more measured in their approach, is what I saw to them. The three leadership members of the Senate are all veteran lawmakers that have all been in there for a number of years, as opposed to the House side, where the entire leadership is relatively new.
Not one member of the leadership has been in there longer than Since 2021 so there's a difference there. And the way they approach things, and just kind of their knowledge of the rules is a little bit different.
So I think it was an interesting dynamic, because in the past, what I saw is the House and the Senate were much more lockstep than they were this year. For sure, this way, I had never seen as big of a difference, kind of between the two parties.
And like I said, it wasn't necessarily even political. In a lot of examples, it was more just about what they made a priority, what they didn't, and how they went about their day to day business. The house basically started openly criticizing the Senate pretty, pretty openly.
We saw the Freedom Caucus try to direct some of their followers through text messages and emails to pressure senators. We hadn't, definitely not seen that in the past. So I just hadn't seen this kind of this adversarial relationship, if you want to call it that, the way it was this year.
You know, the leadership, at least on the House side, will kind of deny that it's adversarial. And maybe that's a little too strong of a word, but at the end of the day, I think the Senate felt it was and that's kind of how they felt, like they were on the receiving end of a lot of criticism, and they felt that they became the targets of the house, for what it's worth, and they shot back at them.
I mean, to be fair, once that started happening, the Senate definitely raised up its cannons as well. That definitely happened. So it became kind of a back and forth between the two. And it, at least on the on the surface level, on the public level, never really seen me like they truly came together.
By the end of the session, Speaker Neiman and Senate President Bo Biteman, they did release a joint statement on the very last day that seemed like some some bridge and maybe even coalesced. But I never, I never really saw that big kumbaya moment where the two sides really, really came together at the end.
Wendy Corr:
And you have seen that before, in the other sessions that you've covered? You've not seen this level of animosity. What do you think about the national sentiments? You talked a bit about culture wars - how much do you think kind of national sentiment and national ideology trickled into this rift between the House and the Senate.
Leo Wolfson:
Oh, it absolutely did. I mean, there's no denying it, especially with the legislation that the House passed. The house was particularly interested in nationally based legislation, kind of taking piecemeal, or some, some examples, almost copied and pasted from other states.
And a lot of these lawmakers would defend it and say, Look, these are the same things that our constituents are asking for. The Freedom Caucus did polling over the summer that they basically used as justification for all of its bills or all of its priorities, I should say. They used that polling to say, Hey, this is what the voters wanted. We're strictly acting on what they want.
And they made a point also to say that some of the people polled were supporters of Governor Mark Gordon, who made that very clear in the polling, and the group has definitely been at odds with the governor quite a bit in the last few years. So they made a point to say that, hey, this is kind of our broad reach that we went to for the poll, and we're just acting upon the will of the people.
But even Senate leadership criticized some of the legislation they saw coming out of the house as being nationally focused and being really kind of not necessarily written for Wyoming laws, or the kind of Wyoming specific situation. We saw that in a number of examples.
One bill that was kind of criticized by some for this was the Educational Savings Accounts bill. This basically created universal school vouchers in Wyoming, and established income based vouchers for the pre K level.
And there was absolutely outside national groups that played a role in writing that legislation, that's a fact. And so there was that factor. However, Governor Mark Gordon also said that he felt like that bill was improved and that it was actually more Wyoming crafted, more Wyoming focused, than it was in the past.
So it was kind of a mixed bag in that regard. But I would definitely say, especially a lot of the bills coming in the house definitely checked that box.
Wendy Corr:
So what were some of your biggest surprises when it came down to the very, very end of everything, when you look back at the entire - was it 37 day session? Is that what it was? You look back on the entire 37 day session, what were the things that stood out to you as like, Wow, I can't believe that passed, because in the past that never would have.
Leo Wolfson:
What we really more so saw, to a certain extent, was maybe a change in the governor's perspective on some of these bills. One example was the regulation of surgical abortions bill. This is a bill that regulates abortion clinics, surgical abortion clinics as surgical ambulatory centers. It's kind of a pretty significant change that basically treats them almost in the same status as regular hospitals.
So Gordon vetoed a version of this bill last year in 2024 and then this year, the same bill basically came to his desk and he signed it. He didn't even, you know, let it pass into law without his signature. So that was a pretty significant shift.
Another example, though, more on the legislature changing, was a version of the bill to require women to get ultrasounds before receiving a abortion pill in Wyoming. That bill didn't even go anywhere in the 2024 legislature, didn't make any progress this year. It passed both chambers and went to the governor's desk, where he vetoed it.
Then, as a result of that veto, the legislature overrode it, that was what we saw in the last week of the session. They got that two thirds majority that was necessary to override the veto. So there was definitely some shifts, both from the governor on certain bills, but also, of course, the legislature.
So either way, there's a changing dynamic there. They're putting pressure on the governor, and he shifted on at least one of those two bills. And I think it just kind of just shows that the Freedom Caucus does have some real power.
I mean, it's undeniable they have a majority in the House, and they are definitely trying to get these bills through. And they got Senate, Senate support in a lot of ways, too, on the override, the override passed, it got past the two thirds majority that you need for an override. So to be honest, I saw more of it, almost, though, in the bills that I saw just given the time of day, rather than the bills that actually passed into law.
One example of that would be a runoff election bill that speaker Nieman brought. This is a hugely drastic bill. It would create separate elections in Wyoming for the governor's race and the other top four statewide electeds.
And it was really just very significant in the fact that if there was no majority in the first primary, then it would advance to a second election. Just really substantial stuff. And that bill made it pretty far. That bill made it all the way over to the Senate side before it kind of expired.
So just to see a bill like that - a ban on ballot drop boxes, the exact same thing it passed through the house. It did not get very far in the past. So it's just kind of amazing to see some of those bills necessarily even pass the law, but just kind of get the time of day and make some real progress through the legislative process.
Wendy Corr:
Now, you mentioned the overrides. That is something that was significant this year. The number of veto overrides this is kind of unprecedented, the number of times that the entire body said, no, no, even though the Governor vetoed this, we are together going to say this is important for us and we want it to pass. And so talk a little bit about that.
Leo Wolfson:
Yeah, I think it was by far the most veto overrides we've seen during Governor Gordon's tenure. To be honest, he hadn't issued too many vetoes during his entire time as governor, until last year. Last year was when we kind of finally saw a noticeable uptick in these vetoes. I believe he issued around five last year.
And what happened was the legislature had already adjourned so they couldn't attempt to override most of those vetoes. So then what happened this year is they made it a particular priority to get these bills to his desk early enough where they could override his vetoes, and that's exactly what they've done.
They've overridden five of the seven vetoes he's issued so far, I believe, and that will be it as far as the overrides, because they've already adjourned. But I think that's just a pretty a substantial statement in itself.
I spoke to one former governor who said that he definitely did not experience that many overrides in his entire time as governor, although he did have a few, he said, and just to have that one single year is absolutely a statement that the legislature is definitely not in lockstep with the governor.
Wendy Corr:
That's the truth. Now, one of the things that did pass that was huge, and that we've been talking about for years, is property taxes, and that 25% property tax cut - tell us about what that's going to mean now for us, everyday people, what are your thoughts on on this? This is now passed. What's this going to look like for us?
Leo Wolfson:
Yeah, for the everyday Wyoming homeowner, this is a big deal. You're going to definitely notice this on your property taxes, no matter what. I don't know how you can’t notice, it is a 25% cut. What it's going to do, and as long as you're not a second homeowner, it's permanent.
What happens in the second year is that you have to live in your home for at least eight months of the year to get the 25% cut. So it'll be a substantial majority of Wyoming residents who experience that. And like I said, there's no expiration date on this.
So it might be, you know, forever for the foreseeable future. We just don't know. I think what's going to happen is the legislature is going to look at the decreased revenues that the government receives as a result of this, and then they're going to kind of move forward based off that.
And then another thing that should be pointed out is last year, there was already a 4% cap put on year to year tax increases. So not only will there be a 25% cut, but people, because of what passed last year, can already expect to really not ever see substantial increases in their property taxes for the foreseeable future.
So it's very interesting. It makes property taxes a lot more predictable what they're going to be on a year to year basis. In Wyoming, all this was in response to the year to year increases, the huge increases that we're seeing after the COVID 19 pandemic. We saw increases that were as high as 20% in some instances, 30% in certain parts of the state.
But it's going to require a hard look for the legislature to see what the effects of this are moving forward. I mean, there's going to be local governments and schools that definitely will feel the effects of this, special districts, EMS services.
There was never any backfill put in any legislation to cover for these groups, which one could argue is what helped it pass into law, as governor Gordon said he doesn't support that kind of approach anyway. But regardless, it's going to be something that's noticed throughout Wyoming, and I think cuts will most certainly be made.
Yeah, so that is, that's one of the things I think, that most people were watching going into this, is where our property tax is going to happen.
Wendy Corr:
But like you mentioned, this could have a drastic effect on school districts, on special districts, things like that. At what point do we start seeing the effects of this, Leo, from your experience?
Leo Wolfson:
Well, they'll start seeing the effects immediately, because this goes into effect immediately. So it'll be property tax year 2025, this year is when this is going into effect. And I think they'll start putting this into their budgets by the next fiscal year at the very latest, if not even this year, because counties do their fiscal budgets every June. So I think they'll start factoring that in.
You know, to be honest, some of the wealthier counties are not going to get that huge of a hit from this now. You need to remember, that it's 25% of the revenue they usually get from that specific source of revenue. It's not like their entire budgets are being cut by 25%, and it's important to really stress that it's not nearly that substantial.
But it's still a big money for some of these poorer counties, like Niobrara County - it's definitely some big money in the grand scheme of things, to some of these counties. They were trying to look at an approach that would have covered the eight poorest counties with some backfill funding around 75% and that never, that didn't pass, that didn't pass.
So it's going to be some hard decisions for some of these less endowed counties that you're going to definitely be seeing out there. But then, like I said, counties like Campbell County, Teton County and Park County, they're going to probably be okay as far as being able to cover what they need to cover.
Wendy Corr:
Very good! One of the other things that was, other issues and topics that were closely watched, were election related bills, and this was something that Secretary of State Chuck Gray, of course, championed.
And a number of those bills did pass, but a number of high profile ones did not. In particular, I'd like to take this from the angle that we have heard from the county clerks - and you have done such a good job, an excellent job of talking to both sides of of the the coin on this.
County clerks say there are no election integrity issues, and yet, Secretary of State Chuck gray and some of the other legislators have made it their mission to ensure election integrity. Is this a situation where it's a solution in search of a problem?
Leo Wolfson:
Yeah, it's a dynamic, for sure. I think it's some ways, how you look at it, your perspective on the exact same problem, and just the way you look at it. Perspective is everything in life. I think the way the county clerks look at it is, they feel that, they won't argue that the elections are perfect and that they're flawless.
But they will argue that they are very secure, and that Wyoming does a very good job with its elections, and there is essentially no fraud, or extremely minimal fraud, is what they would argue. And I don't know that Secretary Gray would necessarily even agree with some of those facts.
I think you would be hard pressed to argue that there is a lot of fraud in Wyoming's elections, but his whole argument, his whole spiel, is that you should be getting ahead of problems before they start. You should still close loopholes where they exist. And if there's something that has a potential for fraud, then it should be stamped out, even if it's not necessarily happening every day in the live and flesh.
So I think we see that dynamic play out. But unfortunately, for what it's worth, you see a lot of things cast out between the two parties. Accusations get made. The clerks definitely feel at times like they're under attack, and then vice versa.
I think Secretary Gray feels like he's kind of being attacked for trying to just make Wyoming's elections more what he sees is more secure. So I think there are two sides to that coin, but at the end of the day, there has been very minimal fraud found in Wyoming's elections.
And I think a lot of people worry that these election security bills are going to reduce turnout. I don't necessarily know if it's necessarily a result of these bills or anything like that, but the fact remains, we had extremely low turnout in the August 2024 primary, whatever that's worth. I've never really gotten a definitive answer or strong theory why that really occurred, but that's a fact. The numbers showed that it was a very low turnout.
And I think some people worried that some of these efforts to really tighten regulations, and maybe reduce the forms of ID that can be shown in order to vote, will result in less people being able to vote, and ultimately, the worst of all, people who should be legally allowed to vote being stopped out of a confusion or something happening where they don't have the exact right form of ID.
I think that's a big concern for some of these voting rights groups, and it's debatable whether we've seen some of those concerns alleviated at all.
Wendy Corr:
Very good. Yeah. Great answer. Thank you so much. I want to look ahead now, because this legislative session is over, but the work's not done. There are going to be a lot of committee meetings and things like that between now and the next legislative session. Tell us what sort of things do you think we can be looking for and looking towards this summer and fall, when we've got these sessions happening in between?
Leo Wolfson:
Very good question, Wendy. We're going to have two main topics that I'm at least looking at. There'll be plenty more. But I think some of the two things that I find most interesting that are going to come up is that property tax reform is really going to be a big thing that comes up during the interim session.
So a lot of lawmakers, they'll look at what already passed as property tax relief, so just kind of a little more of a short term approach, just providing some immediate kind of band aids, if you will, or a cast to what they see as unfair property tax increases occurring over the last few years, hence the cut. But what you're going to see really more so into the immediate future is more drastic, significant changes to the way property taxes are assessed in Wyoming.
So one of the big ones you're going to definitely see come back again is acquisition value. This is the concept of basic property taxes off the purchase price of one's home. It's a very complicated thing. And I think what we saw during this legislature is that it's not something that can just be done as a quick fix, and it's very complicated for the assessors to try to implement this.
And it's even debatable how much savings it really provides. I think in the long term, it probably does, but in the short term, it's not clear that for all people, it actually even would provide any property tax relief. I think there's some small type, you know, a smaller number of situations where actually it would increase some homeowners taxes.
So that's something they have to look at, and like I said, it's just a hugely complicated proposal to try to get forth. California has had it since the 1970s so it certainly can work for sure in certain situations, but it's just something that they're going to have to spend a lot of time looking at and studying and scrutinizing.
And then there's also the assessment rate in Wyoming for property taxes. That was this 9.5%, and that got pretty close to changing in this year’s legislature. It got down to the last day there, where they were still discussing this bill. But at the kind of the last, literally, the last morning of the last day of the legislature, the bill just kind of died, just because I think the legislators just kind of realized it's just not there yet, and they just didn't have the time to try to resolve it, for what it's worth.
But I could definitely see that being lowered down to 8.3%, which would have about a 12% not nine to 12% effects additionally on the property tax cut. So that's an interesting one.
And then a totally different topic. I think a lot of these election bills are absolutely going to be returning for a comeback, if you will, a spin off special. I think Secretary of State Chuck Gray was bringing that up in his press conference on Monday, talking about that.
It's going to definitely be a big focus of his in the interim session, banning ballot drop boxes. He still hasn't got that across the finish line, and I think he definitely wants to still accomplish that. It's definitely going to be harder now that he's going into a budget session in the same year as an election year. It’s going to be pretty tough to get that across, but certainly not impossible.
So we're going to see that discussed quite a bit. He brought up today as well that one's going to be coming up a bit. And really anything that the Governor vetoes at this point, he has about five election bills on his desk right now waiting to take action on. And if he vetoes any of those, I would fully expect those to be coming back next year.
Wendy Corr:
Very good. I have to kind of switch gears here. We're getting towards the end of our time. We've covered so much information. But Leo, on a personal note, you came out west. You're a Minnesota guy. You came out west, went to CU Boulder, got your journalism degree.
You have learned so much outside of college, and you are truly our expert on Wyoming politics at this point. Is this a direction that you saw yourself going when you were coming out here, and saying, I want to be a journalist? Tell me about politics, if that's something that was in your wheelhouse.
Wendy Corr:
Yeah, it's a really good question, Wendy. So I was a double major in college. I was political science and journalism, so I went to CU Boulder down in Colorado. I was really into skiing growing up, still am, to be honest, but that was absolutely what drew me to go out west. And I just wanted to experience the lifestyle and everything that involved.
So I went to school there, and after college, I got into journalism. And I knew, about halfway through college, this is definitely what I wanted to pursue. And yeah, I think political journalism was certainly something that was always on my radar, but I was never, like, adamant about doing that, and that alone.
And when I first got into journalism, I was not just focusing on that at all. I was doing more just general news, and I would touch some political news here and there, for sure, but it was certainly not a focus of mine.
And then, after living in Colorado for a little while, after I graduated, I had a coworker who I worked with in Brighton, Colorado, who became an editor at The Cody Enterprise up in Cody. And I was at a really good crossroads point in my life where I was looking for a change, but I was still looking to stay in the West. I kind of wanted to get out of Colorado, do something different.
And he had good things to say about it, and they had a reporter opening there, so I applied for it, and I got it, and then that was the beginning of my Wyoming journalism and Wyoming experience. And I had three and a half good years there at the Enterprise. And I did cover political topics when I was there, but like I said, it was just never like the sole focus, or anything like that.
I do follow politics, just in a general interest as a hobby in my personal time, I've always been very interested in it. I've even worked in it at very small, small doses in the past, but I was reached out to by Cowboy State Daily in the spring of 2022 and I guess you could say the rest is history.
But you know, it just goes to show, you only know what you know. And I think, you know, it amazes me how much I've learned on this job compared to when I started. You know, I thought I was pretty confident in my abilities right from the get go, but then I look back at some of the things, the lack of knowledge I had there in the first couple of months there, and I realized, whoa, I didn't know nearly as much as I thought I knew.
And it makes me, you know, you're always learning something new almost every day, so it's just part of the experience. Politics is certainly an interesting thing these days, and it's an interesting place to watch it as well. And I think this year’s legislature kind of put that on full display.
Wendy Corr:
Well, again, you have been our resident expert, and the knowledge that you've been able to impart to us through your stories and through our newscasts and kind of behind the scenes interviews have really, I think, made things so much clearer and so helpful for our viewers, for our readers - and for me, and for the rest of of our news team here at Cowboy State Daily, you've been able to interpret these things for us and say, This is important, or, yeah, this isn't that important.
Do you feel like you have kind of found your niche? Obviously, if you were, if you were a poli-sci double major, then this is something that you feel like, Yes, this is, this is the direction, this is where I'm meant to be here.
Leo Wolfson:
Yeah, it feels like a good fit. Thank you. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. I mean, the goal of any story I write is to try to make it understandable for every reader. It's hard sometimes for certain topics, and I wouldn't try to claim I've achieved and been successful in everything I've done that with, but I've tried to dumb it, not dumb it down, but try to simplify it.
There's always kind of a phrase, I think I learned when I was in J school that, like, you should explain this the way you'd explain to your grandma or your best friend, you know, someone that's not necessarily like having the same knowledge that you have about this certain topic.
And I try to do that with every story, to varying degrees of success. Some of these topics get pretty complicated, but I do think that that is so significant to be able to do to my readers, is to be able to at least help them understand what's going on.
If they didn't like my reporting, that's you know, it is what it is, but I want them to at least understand what I'm writing about and learn something from everything I write, and not just feel like it was just a complete waste of time, of gobbledygook or something like that.
Yeah, and I do think it's particularly with politics, it is extremely critical that people know what's going on with their government and stay engaged and stay involved. And, you know, have as many people as possible voting legally and have as much participation.
I think I want to see people reacting to my stories, even if it makes them mad, sad or happy, we want those reactions, because I think that's really what matters most. I think we need to get more people involved in politics, particularly young people, but just all people in general, I think we'll have a better society and better government for it.
Wendy Corr:
Leo, you wrapped it up perfectly. That was great. I couldn't have asked for a better closing statement on that. Leo Wolfson, thank you for what you are giving to the readers. Thank you for what you're bringing to Cowboy State Daily and and now, do you feel like you can breathe because the legislative session is over?
Leo Wolfson:
Yes, yes, now I can actually get a full night's rest and not work 14 hours a day. No, down to 12 hours a day.
Wendy Corr:
Down to 12 hours a day. That works! Leo, thanks so much for being the guest on the roundup this week. We're so we're so glad that you're with us.
Leo Wolfson:
Thank you, Wendy. I appreciate everything you do.
Wendy Corr:
Well, thank you - and thank you folks for tuning in today. I hope you got as much out of this conversation with Leo Wolfson as I did. What a great look behind the scenes, and yet also an overview of this year's legislative session.
Thank you, Leo, and thank you folks for tuning in! Next week. Don't miss out. We've got a fantastic guest next week, I promise. We've got all sorts of guests. If you have an idea for a guest that we should have here on the Roundup, please let us know - we want to reach out to them, because we want to bring the stories that matter to you. Thanks, folks. Have a great week.
