Legislation – Wyoming Values https://wyomingvalues.com Information and commentary on issues of interest and concern to Wyoming citizens. Sun, 17 Feb 2019 02:50:08 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 https://i0.wp.com/wyomingvalues.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cropped-WV_site_icon.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Legislation – Wyoming Values https://wyomingvalues.com 32 32 157889110 Legislature, after rough start, supports transparency https://wyomingvalues.com/legislature-after-rough-start-supports-transparency/ Sun, 17 Feb 2019 02:50:08 +0000 https://wyomingvalues.com/?p=167 When this year’s session of the Wyoming Legislature began, a slate of bills that contradicted the rhetoric of transparency gave many across the state pause. Many of the new legislators — and other statewide elected officials — had just campaigned on making the state’s government more accessible and open to its citizens.

Then, a number of bills flew in the face of those promises.

While the start was counterproductive, the result included ardent discussions about the need for more transparency — not less — in government and at least one bill that, if passed, will move the state in the right direction.

Senate File 57, a bill that legislators and lobbyists had worked on for months during the interim, aimed to tighten timelines for public records requests and established penalties for public officials who do not meet those requirements. Amendments also created an ombudsmen position appointed by the governor’s office to whom public records complaints would be filed. A budget line item was added to cover the cost of the position. 

SF57 passed unanimously out of the Senate Corporations and Appropriations committees and 28-2 in the Senate as a whole, with all of our local senators voting in favor. In the House, it passed out of that body’s Corporations Committee unanimously, referred to the Appropriations Committee where it passed 6-1 and placed on the general file Feb. 13. With a few more amendments — primarily tightening up language in the bill — the bill has passed the House Committee of the Whole on second reading. 

Assuming the bill continues to move forward, Wyoming citizens should rejoice that legislators took a step forward to help keep constituents better informed and better able to participate in the workings of government.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2019
Credit: The Sheridan Press

]]> 167 TRANSPARENCY ALERT https://wyomingvalues.com/transparency-alert/ Fri, 15 Feb 2019 23:29:21 +0000 https://wyomingvalues.com/?p=144 Fellow Wyomingites,

We had a small victory in the WY House today as a pro-transparency amendment was added to SF57! The amendment would allow citizens to be awarded attorney fees in the event that you have to sue a government entity for public records if the entity refused to comply with public records law following an appeals process. 41 other states have similar attorney fee provisions in their public records laws.

However, now the plethora of taxpayer-funded government lobbyists (municipalities, special districts, etc.) are trying to kill this amendment on second reading tomorrow because they do not want to be held accountable if they fail to comply with the law. 

YOUR REPRESENTATIVES NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU! Please write and ask them to support Senate File 57 AS AMENDED and to oppose the Lindholm 2nd reading amendment. Their emails can be found at https://wyoleg.gov/Legislators/2019/H

It is time to have real #Transparency in the state of Wyoming. 

#TransparencyRevolution #Accountability #OpenTheBooks

Thanks,

Parker Jackson
Lyman, WY

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