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To Wyoming Citizens
No one in Wyoming cares about every bill that gets
filed in the Wyoming Legislature, or how a state legislator votes on each one.
Nor will everyone listen to hours and hours of recorded legislative debate.
But there is someone who cares about each vote and each debate, and there are
numerous votes and debates each session that attract a great deal of interest
and attention.
Yet year after year, bills to authorize purchase of
electronic voting equipment for the Legislature, to set standards for conflicts
of interest, to disclose lobbyists' expenses, to apply open meetings laws to
the Legislature - all of which would help ordinary citizens understand the workings
of the Legislature - have consistently failed.
The Wyoming LAP* Book, now in its seventh
edition, is unique in Wyoming's political history in providing the general public
with easily accessible information on legislative campaign contributions and
important votes.
However, this book is significant not only for the
information it provides, but also to call attention to the information it could
not provide - the many important but unrecorded votes in legislative committees
and on the floor, or expenditures made by lobbyists in their efforts to educate
and influence legislators.
In the following sections, we describe areas where
accountability improvements have occurred, and other areas where they are still
most needed.
The development of the Legislature's website represents a significant advance in citizen access to the legislative process. Until just a few years ago, the only way citizens could keep up with the Legislature was to be in Cheyenne, or to know someone at the Legislature who could relay information on a daily basis.
Copies of bills were sent to every county library in the state, but were immediately outdated by the fast pace of legislative action during Wyoming's short sessions. There was no way for citizens to find out in a timely manner how a particular bill was progressing, or when committee meetings or other events were scheduled.
Now, at least citizens with access to the internet may read bills, consult the daily bill status sheet, get notices of committee meetings, and view each chamber's daily calendar, all on the Legislative Service Office website. In addition to citizens in distant locations, those present at the session also rely on the legislative website for current information.
The website maintains information for the past several legislative sessions, as well as a current calendar and information on interim committee meetings and activities. It can be accessed at:
During the legislative session, citizens who don't have internet access may call a toll-free number (1-800-342-9570) to get the current status of a bill. Constituents also may call a voter hotline (1-866-996-VOTE) to recommend a vote for or against a particular piece of legislation.
The voter hotline cannot take messages other than a recommendation on how to vote, but constituents may call the Senate (1-307-777-7711) or House (1-307-777-7852) receptionists to leave messages or request a legislator to call back.
The recording of legislative debate also has substantially improved since The Wyoming LAP* Book first began publishing after the 1993-1994 legislative biennium.
At that time, there was no recorded legislative debate. Tape recording of certain segments of legislative proceedings began in the late 1990s, and a better microphone system was installed to improve recording quality.
The real advance, however, came in 2001, when the Legislature instituted live audio broadcasts over the internet. Citizens may listen in real time, or they may download a particular day's entire proceedings and listen to whatever they wish.
The audio records are archived on the Legislative Service Office's website, listed above.
In the 1998 session, Wyoming finally shed its notoriety as the only state in the nation without a law requiring lobbyists to file a public report on how much they spend to influence and educate legislators.
Unfortunately, the 1998 law is just a token effort requiring such minimal reporting that it sheds little light on lobbyists' activities. The law requires reporting of loans, gifts, gratuities, special discounts or hospitalities paid or given that exceed $50 in value, as well as the cost of special events, such as receptions for legislators or tickets to an athletic event.
Reporting only the cost of gifts and receptions does not present balanced picture of lobbyists' spending. A lobbyist can be present all day, every day, of the legislative session, as well as attend every single committee meeting, and legally not report a dime.
The Equality State Policy Center has long advocated full reporting by lobbyists and their employers. Full reporting would include salaries, fees, telephone, travel, printing, and any other costs associated with a lobbying effort. To protect sensitive information such as salaries, spending could be reported in ranges or aggregated totals.
Because Wyoming's legislators do not have personal staffs, they are particularly dependent on lobbyists for information. A major part of lobbying is building relationships. The ability to build relationships is based in large part on money - to travel, to maintain offices, and to pay enough to have the same person as the lobbyist year after year.
It's the presence of lobbyists - not the presents of lobbyists - that influences legislation.
Electing candidates and influencing legislation are essential parts of our democratic system. We value openness in our system - that's why our citizen legislators have to report the campaign contributions they receive and how they spend them. Why then should reporting decrease substantially once they're elected and actually making laws that affect Wyoming people?
It shouldn't. Wyomingites are entitled to full reporting - and want it. The vast majority of Wyomingites polled in late 1997 rated passage of a law requiring corporations and organizations to report their lobbying expenditures as "very important" or "somewhat important': only 17% responded "not very" or "not at all important."
The Equality State Policy Center consistently has reported all its lobbying expenditures, not just what the law requires. During the 2003 general session, the ESPC spent about $12,500 on lobbying, while lobbying expenses for the budget session in 2004 amounted to about $10,000. Under Wyoming's lobbyist reporting laws, the ESPC was not required to report any expenditures in either year.
If the gap between current lobbying reporting requirements and the reality of lobbyists' spending is thousands of dollars for a nonprofit organization, imagine the gap for the global energy corporations that dominate the lobbying scene at the Wyoming Legislature!
The Wyoming Constitution requires a recorded roll call vote on Third Reading (final passage) of a bill. But until that point, votes on amendments are rarely recorded by roll call. While many amendments are relatively insignificant, others are highly significant and of great public interest - for example, a salary package for UW/community college employees, a change in education funding, or changes in hunting license fees.
The original intent of a bill can be wholly changed and entire programs begun or ended without any recorded roll call vote. Legislators who request roll calls at the few junctures where recording is optional run the risk of punitive voting from their colleagues who will deliberately vote against the wishes of the legislator asking for the vote to deter future requests.
Legislators opposed to recording more votes claim that enough votes are recorded now, and more recording will only bog down the legislative process when they are already hard pressed to get the necessary business done in the short sessions. Legislators have also expressed concern about recorded votes being taken out of context and used against them in reelection campaigns.
Some legislators have argued that recording more votes would reduce access to the public because it would take more time. However, when they want to, legislators have figured out how to speed things up. For example, they have established a practice of putting bills without amendments together on a consent list for Third Reading to vote on all at once, and sometimes they vote to suspend legislative rules to move bills through faster.
Wyoming is one of only a handful of states without an electronic voting system for the House of Representatives. Installation of such a system, which would allow legislators to vote simultaneously, would save significant amounts of time over the current roll call system.
Various technological improvements over the past few years have fully computerized the House. Voting buttons on the members' desks and a display board are all that would be needed to complete an electronic voting system. However, the idea has been stiffly opposed.
In recent years, committee chairs have improved their efforts to notify the public of committee meetings and the bills to be considered, but these efforts are still only a matter of practice - not rule - and are entirely discretionary. Notice can range from a few hours to a few days. With Wyoming's short sessions, matters tend to move quickly, and even full-time lobbyists can have a hard time keeping up.
The problem is particularly acute for conference committees - the temporary committees appointed to resolve differences in bills passed by both houses. Conference committees meet in the waning days of the session when time is critical. The meetings are supposed to be public, but notice is rarely given, and the meetings are often held in areas inaccessible to the public (e.g., in a corner of the Senate or House chamber).
Because conference committee members may determine the final content of a bill, they need to be publicly accountable for their actions. There should be public notice for meetings, and they should be held in areas where the public can hear what is going on.
Equality State Policy Center
340 West B Street Suite 203
Casper WY 82601
307-472-5939
dneal@equalitystate.org
www.equalitystate.org