Wyoming Freedom Caucus Unveils ‘War On Woke’ Plan for Legislative Session

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a group of Republican lawmakers focused on social issues and cutting government funding, has unveiled its top five priorities ahead of the legislative session that begins Jan. 14 in Cheyenne.

They call the agenda the five cent plan, as it consists of five proposed bills the Wyoming House of Representatives hopes to pass in the first 10 days of the session. The Freedom Caucus took control of the House in this year’s election.

The five proposed laws aim to:

• Tighten up Wyoming’s election registration rules.

• Invalidate driver’s licenses issued by other states to illegal immigrants.

• Ban University of Wyoming from factoring “immutable features” — such as race — in its hiring and training processes.

• Prohibit the state from investing in funds that prioritize environmental, social or governance (ESG) standards..

• PIt provides a 25% property tax rebate to residential property owners, with a top-up for local governments.

The agenda was circulated earlier this month, and a video detailing it verbatim was released Thursday, Freedom Caucus member Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, told the Cowboy State Daily.

Wyoming address, US citizenship

Requiring proof of Wyoming residency and U.S. citizenship for people registering to vote is the first priority the plan lists on the Wyoming Freedom Caucus website.

The group proposes “creating clear statutory authority for Wyoming Ssecretary of Sstate to enact rules requiring voters to prove residency in WY and ensure that non-citizens cannot register to vote in WY.”

It refers to Governor Mark Gordon’s rejection in April of the electoral rules Secretary of State Chuck Gray proposed in this regard.

Gordon said the rules overrode Gray’s statutory authority and separation of powers, and that local officials run state elections.

In response, Gray argued that Gordon “allowed (President Joe) Biden and the most radical leftists in America who are trying to help illegal immigrants vote in our elections.”

Bear told Cowboy State Daily on Friday that the bill would not only hand regulatory authority to the secretary of state, but would also codify into law requirements for voters to prove residency and citizenship.

The part that would be discretionary for the secretary of state, Bear said, is how to enforce the law and manage it with evolving technology.

Gray, who currently holds that executive position, is aligned with the Freedom Caucus.

US Customs and Border Patrol has registered more than 10.8 million illegal immigrants since the start of fiscal year 2021.

Invalidating driver’s licenses issued by other states to illegal immigrants is the second priority listed. A the previous bill with that mission died in the House Committee on Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions in March.

“Woke” stuff.

Two of the five priorities declare war on “woke” or social-liberal causes.

The third priority would prohibit UW and Wyoming community colleges “from engaging in discriminatory hiring or continuing education requirements that place moral, historical or other blame on a person or group of people based on immutable characteristics,” it says Wyoming Freedom Caucus web page. .

The Wyoming Legislature pulled $1.7 million from the university this year in an effort to cut funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs. This budget provision also tried to ban programming altogether, but Gordon rejected that part.

The governor said banning DEI outright would have jeopardized millions of dollars in federal grants to the university; grants that go toward research and other core purposes, but require recipients to provide opportunities for participation to “underrepresented and underserved populations.”

Sen. Charlie Scott, R-Casper, told Cowboy State Daily at the time that the governor’s concession “invites abuse” by letting the UW rename its DEI programs and continue them.

The other item on the “anti-awakening” agenda is Wyoming’s ban on investing in funds with ESG priorities, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus website says.

Previous attempts to do so have failed amid concernSfrom detractors that Wyoming should renegotiate contracts, some with multiple fund managers, and scare companies away from doing business with the state.

“So many companies have some sort of proclaimed social agenda,” Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, he said during a debate on the bill in 2023.

Refusing to do business with companies based on their support for one political position or another would effectively do what the bill seeks to oppose, Rothfuss said.

He also pointed out that the bills contain language regarding actions that would be considered furthering a policy objective, such as access to abortion, sex or gender reassignment or transgender surgery.

“We will economically boycott any company that economically boycotts other companies,” Rothfuss said. “Looks like we’re taking sides if someone’s taking sides.”

Although often at odds with the Freedom Caucus, Gordon it joined 10 other states last month in suing massive energy investors who expressed an ESG focus. Plaintiffs allege that Blackrock Inc.State Street Corp. and Vanguard Group Inc., have all stalled the coal industry by demanding decarbonization goals in their own businesses and from their fellow investors.

Property tax rebates

The Freedom Caucus’ fifth priority is to revive a bill that would give a 25 percent property tax break to residential property owners on the first $2 million of their home’s value.

The year 2024 invoice with this emphasis said that if local governments don’t get enough money under it Fiscal structure, the Wyoming Department of Revenue should transfer up to $100 million from the state’s savings account during the budget biennium to meet local needs.

Gordon rejected that bill in March, calling it a “socialist type of wealth transfer” that would have hurt the state’s energy industry, retail and manufacturing sectors.

It was a “feel-good policy that trumps common sense,” Gordon wrote at the time. “A sober assessment of what is in Wyoming’s overall best interest is needed, one that recognizes that future generations should never pay for our own indulgence.”

Sex, masks, vaccines

While not listed in the top five priorities, the Freedom Caucus’ promotional video on its agenda page touts other goals, such as giving more individual autonomy over decisions about masking and administering vaccines and stopping the government from exposing children to “porn “.

Bear emphasized that the group’s goal is to prevent government employees in public and school libraries from providing sexually explicit material to children. His wife, Campbell County library board member Sage Bear, has been working for months on obscenity and other definitions around sexually explicit material.

Bear told Cowboy State Daily that the Freedom Caucus will hold a press conference on Jan. 7 in Cheyenne with several lawmakers in attendance so people can ask questions about its goals.

It is unclear whether the Wyoming Senate will approve the Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ Five and Dime plan.

The structure of the upper house since January is similar to that of the last two years, but the leadership dynamics have changed.

Fewer Freedom Caucus-aligned senators will chair the committees, but one Freedom-Cacus senator, Bo Biteman of Ranchester, is ready to become president of the Senate.

Biteman did not immediately respond to a Cowboy State Daily request for comment Friday.

Clair McFarland can be contacted at [email protected].