It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, November 19th. I’m Mac Watson. This newscast is “Brought to you by the University of Wyoming Center on Aging. Did you know that 1 in 3 Wyoming adults have pre-diabetes, and most don’t realize it? Are you tough enough to know your numbers? Take the quiz at: Find Out WY dot org."
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Secretary of State Chuck Gray claims Gov. Mark Gordon isn't including money to advertise a property tax ballot initiative in his biennial budget. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Governor Gordon says the Secretary managed to fulfill his publication requirements before without extra money.
“Secretary Gray, within like 19 hours of Gordon's proposed budget plan, was lamenting why? You know, I'm sure this a scheme against the law-mandated notifications I have to do about the ballot initiative we have coming up, which is to reduce property taxes yet again. And so he has this whole idea, like the governor is curbing the notifications I have to do for this. And the governor fired back in his own comment…’you didn't have problems with the notifications you were required to do in 2024. You didn't have an extra request at that time.’ So the governor was like, ‘I'm just kind of letting you lead and going with what you've managed before.’”
Gray’s office is budgeted in 2025-26 for 9-and-a-half million. The secretary asked for almost $10-and-a-half million for the upcoming biennium.
Gordon is proposing Gray’s office receive $200,000 less than requested.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming is bucking a national trend by growing its horse racing industry. But as Renee Jeans reports, legislators want more control of the gaming terminals that support its big purses amid complaints the state is looking too much like Montana.
“People feel like there are too many of these gaming terminals across the state. And now that is not just historic horse racing terminals, but they're also talking about those terminals like cowboy skill games, they all look like slot machines, right? They're completely different, but they look the same pretty much to the average person. And so one of the things that's been happening is cowboy skill games have been popping up in grocery stores…those kind of things have people kind of second guessing the horse racing setup in Wyoming. The other key point, I think a lot of these communities feel like they don't have enough control. Like Cheyenne has 10 gaming facilities, and not one of them was approved by the local city cancel.”
Nationwide, the horse racing industry has been in a steady decline. But not in Wyoming. The newly merged joint venture between Wyoming Downs and 307 Horse Racing nearly doubled attendance at their Evanston track this year to 1,700 people per day on average.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming lawmakers advanced five bills Tuesday to tighten control over slot-machine-like gaming, citing its explosive growth. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that industry leaders defended the machines as vital to funding live horse racing and rural economic activity, but the management council wants to pump the brakes.
“The management council is the legislature's administrative arm. So they sent out this task force to really look at the gaming statutes and what can be improved. And the task force came back like we got to tighten, we got to tighten our definitions of criminal gambling. We gotta give local governments a potential kill switch to where they can shut some of these down if they feel they're hurting their people, and we gotta keep the skill based Amusement Games out of packaged liquor stores.”
If the current drafts become law in the legislative session that opens Feb. 9th, the bills would provide prosecutors more power to charge gambling crimes and strengthen penalties against money laundering while also giving local governments more authority to oversee simulcasting and horse-racing terminals.
Read the full story HERE.
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Campbell County commissioners passed a resolution Tuesday banning the storage of high-level nuclear waste in the county. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the commissioners say it’s a message that as Wyoming’s nuclear industry grows, Campbell County has no intentions of becoming a nuclear waste dump.
“There are few towns and communities as pro-energy, as Campbell County and Gillette, Wyoming, but even as pro-industry, pro-energy as that community is, the commissioners have heard a lot from community members to the point where they've crafted, and today passed a no nuclear waste resolution for the community. And basically, after two months of discussion, what this is, is the community saying, hey, look, we've we're watching, we know that a piece of the nuclear industry is waste disposal, and we do not want to become some default dumping ground. And I think Commissioner Bob Jordan put it best that the resolution ‘is kind of planting a flag saying we're aware of what's going on down the road. You can't accuse us of not paying attention. We are stating our position.’”
The resolution underwent substantial changes from its initial form in September, when Commissioner Jerry Means proposed placing the nuclear waste storage issue on the 2026 General Election ballot.
Read the full story HERE
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I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily, after this….
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The U.S. House was one vote shy of unanimously voting to require President Trump release the Epstein files Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily’s Sean Barry reports from DC that included a “yes” vote from Wyoming’s Harriet Hageman, and Senators Lummis and Barrasso are on board with releasing the files.
“There's so much politics back and forth here that no one can definitively say what this means, because Mike Johnson, the leader of the US House said, ‘I insist that the Senate amend the bill that I am now voting on’…We're not sure whether John Barrasso and the Republicans are going to take it up in the Senate. And if they do, will they amend it, as Speaker Johnson wants them to do? And if speaker Johnson wants the bill amended, well, why did he vote for it in the first place, along with all the Republicans in the House? So there's question after question after question here.”
Representative Harriet Hageman tells Cowboy State Daily that the reason she voted to release the files was that “Americans deserve full transparency.”
Read the full story HERE.
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It could take months to pinpoint what caused two high-voltage lines to trip near Medicine Bow last week. Cowboy State Daily’s Scott Schwebke reports the reason for the unprecedented blackout for about 100,000 customers won’t be known for a while.
“Rocky Mountain Power today told me that it's going to take maybe up to several months to really determine the cause of this. They have to analyze a lot of a lot of data regarding of you know, how much power was in the lines of the time and things like that, but they have filed reports with the state and with the federal government, as required by law…some state officials or some emergency management coordinators are not really pleased with Rocky Mountain Power. They say they're being left in the dark about what might have happened, and they're not communicating with them, so they're kind of frustrated about that.”
The blackout affected customers in Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota.
Read the full story HERE.
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Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who grew up in Casper, will be laid to rest Thursday at the National Cathedral in Washington. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that the private funeral will draw many, including one Wyoming politician.
“We do know that one of the notable politicians who will be there from Wyoming is Kale Case…he got to know Dick Cheney while he was in college, he remembers Cheney coming to University of Wyoming and visiting his fraternity house, and just he remembers how impressed he was by this politician and the name, and then he really he got to know the family, and some run ins with Cheney two or three times over the years, and just said, it is a tremendous honor to be invited to this funeral.”
Cheney passed away on November 3rd due to complications from pneumonia coupled with cardiac and vascular disease. He was 84.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wildlife experts say a man was foolish and inconsiderate to press within a few yards of a group of juvenile wolves in Yellowstone. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz says that in the video, onlookers say that, "This could end really badly for that guy."
“It's a guy in Yellowstone just doing very stereotypical, ignorant, I guess you could say tourist, you know, stuff, and getting way too close to some wolves…What it was is the adults of the pack had gone out hunting. So these were like the kids, like the juveniles, or the teenagers that were left behind, and this guy started approaching, and they were like, ‘What the heck is that?’
So they went to check it out.”
Yellowstone National Park authorities advise that vistors should always stay at least 100 yards away from wolves as well as bears.
Read the full story HERE.
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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.
