Equality State Policy Center's Projects
Mark Aronowitz
Lawyers and Advocates for Wyoming
Injured workers win improved benefits.
In our view, the biggest accomplishment of the recent General Session of the Wyoming Legislature was passage of the workers’ compensation reform bill (HB 54), making numerous changes to a system that was rife with injustice for workers injured on the job, particularly those with permanent partial or total disability.
Cheyenne attorney George Santini, right, has represented Richard Johnson, a worker injured more than 20 years ago. Johnson testified before the Senate Labor Committee to encourage adoption of a cost of living adjustment to permanent disability benefits.
The new law increases death and permanent impairment benefits, including benefits for surviving children; provides a minimum and extends the duration of temporary total disability benefits; provides an annual cost of living adjustment to permanent total disability benefits; extends the maximum duration of vocational rehabilitation benefits; extends the period over which death benefits are paid; limits the time for the Workers’ Compensation Division to recover overpayments; requires the state to pay a fair share of the costs of litigation when covered workers recover damages from third parties; and requires the division to reconsider claims if an injured worker’s failure to meet a procedural deadline is the fault of the worker’s attorney. The bill also appropriates $150,000 to the Office of Administrative Hearings to determine how to modernize office operations and it authorizes hiring one additional hearing officer.
Our thanks to all the injured workers, union leaders, and members of the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association who worked so hard to get this done. We need to single out work by Kim Floyd of the AFL-CIO and Marcia Shanor, George Santini, and Mark Aronowitz of the WTLA, but this truly was a cooperative effort by many people.
For more information, contact Dan Neal.
Citizen Lobbyist Training
The ESPC educates citizens about the legislative process in workshops held annually during each session of the Wyoming Legislature. The workshop provides training and mentoring for Wyoming citizens who seek to influence the Wyoming Legislature. This year’s workshop was held Jan. 14, the second day of the general session, starting at 8 a.m. at the Plains Hotel in Cheyenne.
Participants in the trainings learn how a bill becomes law. Experienced lobbyists who work for ESPC member organizations outline the attributes of an effective lobbyist and teach attendees how to testify before a legislative committee. Other presentations outline how citizens can get the attention of legislators and affect their policy deliberations from home. Sitting and former legislators offer their perspectives on lobbying and discuss approaches that worked – and didn’t work – with them.
Former Sweetwater County state Sen. Rae Lyn Job helped at this year’s training. Five sitting legislators participated including Sen. John Schiffer of Kaycee, and Reps. Bernadine Craft of Rock Springs, Tom Lubnau of Gillette, Jeb Steward of Encampment, and Mary Throne of Cheyenne.
The training attracts citizens from all walks of life, including students, representatives of nonprofit groups and people who simply want to learn more about lawmaking in Wyoming.For the 2009 Citizen Lobbyist Training, the ESPC for the first time offered scholarships to potential participants, thanks to a grant from the Wyoming Women’s Foundation. Karen Snyder, a reporter for K2 Radio in Casper attended this year’s training and reported on it for her station’s weekly news show, Report to Wyoming.
You can listen to her report here:
Report to Wyoming Lobbyist Training Part 1 (MP3 file)
Report to Wyoming Lobbyist Training Part 2 (MP3 file)
Report to Wyoming Lobbyist Training Part 3 (MP3 file)
Government Accountability and Civic Participation
The Equality State Policy Center’s first projects focused on making Wyoming state and local governments more accountable to the people they serve, and this area continues to be the ESPC’s top priority.
The Wyoming LAP* Book (*Legislative Accountability Project) provides Wyoming people with easily accessible information on Wyoming legislators’ voting records and the campaign contributions they received. The Wyoming LAP* Book has been published every two years since 1994, first in print and now online.
The ESPC also has provided analyses of campaign contributions in gubernatorial and other statewide races. We successfully worked for pre-election campaign contribution reporting, and continue to advocate for a comprehensive lobbyist reporting law.
The ESPC conducts an annual Citizen Lobbyist Training at the beginning of each legislative session, and a biennial Wyoming Campaign School, which teaches grassroots campaigning techniques for candidates and issue campaigns.
In election years, the ESPC also conducts voter education and mobilization drives to bring un- and under-represented constituencies into Wyoming politics.
Wyoming Working Families
The State of Working Wyoming is the ESPC’s latest project in its Wyoming Working Families program. The ESPC was the lead advocate for legislative authorization of a study on gender wage gap, A Study of the Disparity in Wages and Benefits Between Men and Women in Wyoming.The ESPC also participated in development of The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Wyoming, which shows the wages needed to cover basic expenses for families of various configurations (e.g., one parent with a preschooler and a school-age child).
We have advocated for increasing the minimum wage for tipped employees (currently $2.30/hour in Wyoming) and repeal of the law that allows employers to retain mandatory gratuities (tips) for large groups instead of passing them along to the servers. We worked with the Wyoming Children’s Action Alliance for passage of the Quality Child Care program and with several groups for expansion of the KidCare CHIP program (that provides subsidized health insurance coverage for children in working families) to include parents.
We continue to track trends affecting health insurance. On Oct. 10, 2008, we joined the Economic Policy Institute in an analysis of the decline in availability of employer-provided health insurance. Read the ESPC’s release here and the EPI’s release here.
The VOTE Project
The ESPC is a partner in the VOTE Project, a regional effort under the auspices of Western States Center, to educate and mobilize voters and potential voters. VOTE stands for Voter Organizing, Training and Empowerment Project.
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