Latest news with #JohnBear
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
New election laws going into effect in July
CHEYENNE – Regulating Wyoming's elections was arguably one of the top priorities for the state Legislature in this year's legislative session, with dozens of election-related bills filed for consideration. However, only a fraction of these bills made it to the governor's desk. One of them, House Bill 79, 'Bond elections-voter threshold requirement,' was vetoed by Gov. Mark Gordon. Another bill, HB 156, 'Proof of voter residency-registration qualification,' was allowed to become law without his signature. While Gordon agreed only U.S. citizens and Wyoming residents should be allowed to vote in the state's elections, he had significant legal concerns about the bill. 'Because I believe in adequate checks to ensure only qualified electors can vote, I am allowing this bill to become law, despite the likelihood that it will invite litigation,' Gordon said in a March 21 statement. Here is a breakdown of new election-related laws that will go into effect, starting July 1. Proof of residency, citizenship Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, former chairman of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, was the primary sponsor of HB 156. It sets a new residency requirement to vote in Wyoming, requiring a person to be a bona fide state resident for at least 30 days prior to Election Day. Voters must prove state residency and U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, and the bill is effective starting with the August 2026 primary election. It also gives the secretary of state rulemaking authority over which forms of identification to prove Wyoming residency and U.S. citizenship are accepted. Secretary of State Chuck Gray's office held a public comment period on the new voter registration rules from May 5 through June 20. His office held an in-person and virtual public comment event earlier this month at the state Capitol, where all attendees expressed support for the rules change. The Equality State Policy Center recently filed a lawsuit in United States District Court for the District of Wyoming challenging HB 156. The lawsuit claims HB 156 violates both state and federal law and threatens to deprive legitimate Wyoming voters of their right and freedom to vote. In response to the litigation, which names himself and all 23 of Wyoming's county clerks, Gray said it is a 'meritless attempt' by the far left 'to undermine the common-sense election integrity measures Wyomingites want.' Ban on ranked-choice voting Rep. Joe Webb, R-Lyman, was the primary sponsor of HB 165, 'Ranked choice voting-prohibition.' His bill prohibits ranked-choice voting in all Wyoming elections. This method of voting allows the electorate to rank candidates by order of preference. The cast ballots are tabulated in multiplied rounds, with the elimination of each candidate until a candidate with the most votes is declared a winner. Election funds Starting July 1, only public funds can be used to pay for the costs of elections. Gillette Republican Rep. Christopher Knapp's HB 228, 'Prohibition on private funds for conducting elections,' prohibits county clerks and other officials responsible for conducting elections from accepting 'any donation in the form of money, grants, property or personal services from an individual or nongovernmental entity' related to funding election processes. Federal funds used to conduct elections, donated meals to election workers and the use of private real property as a polling place are exempted under this bill. HB 337, 'Prohibiting foreign funding of ballot measures,' places restrictions on foreign national contributions to ballot measure campaigns. Wyoming is now the 10th state to put these restrictions in place, according to Ballotpedia. Any political action committee or group/organization pushing a statewide initiative or referendum is now required to file a statement 'related to funding from prohibited foreign sources,' under HB 337. Foreign nationals are considered a prohibited funding source under this bill. Other election laws In order to form a new political party, the deadline to file a petition with the secretary of state's office changed from June 1 to May 1 under Senate File 166, 'Political party formation-amendments.' The petition can be circulated no earlier than March 1, instead of April 1, of the year preceding the general election. Finally, Cheyenne Republican Rep. Ann Lucas' HB 318, 'Maintenance of voter lists,' creates specific maintenance requirements of voter lists in regard to driver's licenses and identification cards. There is already an agreement in current law between the secretary of state and Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) to match voter registration data with driver's licenses to verify voter registration. Lucas' bill requires using this information to determine a voter's citizenship, if the voter subsequently received a driver's license from another state or any other evidence that makes a person ineligible to vote. WYDOT is required to provide a monthly list of all people who have indicated a noncitizen state when obtaining their driver's license or ID card to the secretary of state. The secretary of state is allowed under the bill to utilize the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to verify the citizenship of registered voters in Wyoming. The bill also authorizes investigative powers to the secretary of state and county clerks to lawfully investigate if evidence shows the voter moved to another state and, based on results, mail notice of intent to cancel that person's voter registration in Wyoming.
E&E News
09-06-2025
- Business
- E&E News
Central US grid could face power deficit by summer 2027
The grid spanning the central U.S. should have adequate electric generation next summer, but the longer-term outlook is clouded with uncertainty, according to an analysis by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator and state regulators. The grid operator is facing a familiar challenge: Data centers and other large new sources of demand are making it harder to guarantee ample electricity generation as power companies close aging, centralized coal plants in favor of renewable resources and natural gas. The result is tightening supplies and rising reliability risks, especially during extreme weather events. MISO, which spans a corridor of the central U.S. from the Gulf Coast into Canada, projects to have a surplus of generating capacity of 1.4 gigawatts to 6.4 GW during the summer of 2026. But the region could face a 1.4 GW deficit as soon as a year later, according to the survey of generators by the grid operator and the Organization of MISO States, a group of state regulators. Advertisement 'The survey reinforces the importance of accelerating new resource additions and carefully managing retirements as demand continues to grow,' MISO CEO John Bear said in a statement.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Zoning protest bill flounders before conference committee deadline
CHEYENNE — There is little hope a measure to change zoning protest requirements at the state level will pass in the final hours of the current legislative session, after an amendment was added in the House of Representatives to restrict mitigation fees on development. 'It is going to be harder and harder for us to build necessary housing that our folks need, so I was really hopeful that the bill would pass,' Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins said. 'I am very disappointed this amendment ended up killing the bill.' Mayor Patrick Collins portrait Mayor Patrick Collins Senate File 40, 'Zoning protest petition-amendments,' passed in both the House and Senate, but stalled after a joint conference committee could not agree on the amended bill. As it left the House, SF 40 addressed the petition process for protesting local developments, and how such protests affect zoning changes in Wyoming cities and towns. The bill said that 33% of resident neighbors in an area near a planned development must sign a protest petition and demonstrate harm to a planned project to be considered by a local body. Zoning changes to allow for development would have to be approved by a simple majority of a local body like a city council. Current state law says that only 20% of owners in the area need to sign a protest petition, and that any changes must be approved by a supermajority vote. In Cheyenne, that means a vote of 8-2 by the City Council. In the House, Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, proposed an amendment to SF 40 that he originally proposed in the House Appropriations Committee, to prohibit governing bodies from imposing a monetary fee or non-monetary condition on residential or commercial development related to workforce housing. The House debated at length whether SF 40 was the correct place for that amendment, and ultimately voted in favor of it. Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette (2025) Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette The House and the Senate could not come to an agreement in a joint conference committee over the amendment, which officials have said largely targets a practice in Jackson. Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, said the members of his joint conference committee were willing to accept any other changes made in the House, except for the mitigation fees amendment, which 'significantly amended' the bill beyond its scope. Bear's amendment, which was adopted as a standing committee amendment on the House floor, 'had nothing to do with zoning protest petitions, (and was) totally not a part of the bill,' Gierau said. Passing the bill with the amendment, Gierau said, would subvert the public process because there was no time for public comment on it. Another piece of legislation related to mitigation fees failed in the House earlier in the session. House Bill 197, 'Limits on property development exaction and mitigation fees,' dealt with the exact issue addressed in the amendment to SF 40. The House Judiciary Committee voted against that bill 6-3 on Feb. 10. Majority Floor Leader Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, said the ability to pass SF 40 lies 'squarely in the House's hands.' 'They have the choice to allow that good piece of legislation that was worked through the interim, fully supported by all the stakeholders, to pass, if they remove that non-germane amendment,' she said. Sen. Bill Landen, R-Casper, said on the House floor that he went down the hall to the House to ask if an agreement could be made. 'There was no desire on the part of (the joint conference) committee to even sit down and talk about the language,' Landen said. 'The other side refused.' Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, ultimately ruled that the mitigation fees amendment was not germane, and the Senate did not concur on the bill. Collins said he is reluctant to criticize the city of Jackson for using mitigation fees to create affordable housing for its residents, but added that it was unfortunate a bill that was vetted through the Regulatory Reduction Task Force and the Appropriations Committee and received widespread public support would fail because of the amendment. 'I can't go against those folks. It is so difficult for us to understand the complexity of the (housing) issue they face,' Collins said. 'But I was disappointed that the amendment, which seems to be targeting one community of 10,000 in a state of 580,000, killed the bill for the rest of us.' SF 40 was just one in a long list of housing-related bills that did not pass this legislative session. Some were killed in committee, and others were never introduced by House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett. Renny McKay with the Wyoming Business Alliance said he is now part of a group recommending the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee take up housing as an interim topic. Collins said SF 40 had support from the task force, a Harvard working group focused on housing in Wyoming and developers, as well as others who spoke during the session. 'Everybody who studied housing has said that it is OK to have a protest process, but you can't make it so onerous that you can't get it through a governing body,' Collins said. 'In Cheyenne, if we get a protest, we have to get eight of our 10 members to vote yes — present and voting yes. That is a pretty high bar.' Collins said he's afraid that with a real need for housing in Cheyenne, more zoning protests will pop up, and without SF 40, a few vocal opponents may stall good projects. 'Hopefully we can come back next year, run the same bill and have a clean bill go through,' Collins said.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Noncitizen ID bill passes House, fails concurrence vote
CHEYENNE — A bill to include text denoting that someone is not a U.S. citizen on state identification cards has passed the Wyoming House of Representatives, but changes made in that chamber were rejected by the Senate. On Thursday, the House voted on third and final reading to pass Senate File 33, 'Noncitizen driver's license and ID card-revisions.' During committee of the whole debate on Tuesday, the House adopted an amendment to the bill that would change language from 'not a U.S.' to 'not a U.S. citizen,' as recommended by the House Transportation, Highways and Military Affairs Committee. Currently, Wyoming state IDs and driver's licenses for noncitizens say 'NR,' which stands for 'nonresident.' Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray has said that is a 'tenuous' description that could be unclear to election judges, who have to determine voter eligibility at the polls. The Wyoming Department of Transportation has testified in committee about the amount of space on the card, saying there wasn't room for an entire line of text reading 'not a U.S. citizen' on the state-issued ID card. After passing on third reading in the House Thursday morning, SF 33 failed a concurrence vote in the Senate, meaning it will be sent to a joint conference committee to reconcile differences. Sen. Stephan Pappas, R-Cheyenne, told his fellow senators that adding the word 'citizen' to the line of text on the identification cards would 'ignore the request of (WYDOT) to keep it short.' Sen. Stephan Pappas, R-Cheyenne (2025) Sen. Stephan Pappas, R-Cheyenne 'I have polled my committee, and we all agree we should honor the wishes of the department, so that down the line when we want to add another thing, we will have some real estate there,' Pappas said. Neither body has allocated any funding for the change. On Wednesday, Rep. Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie, proposed a second-reading amendment to allocate $67,000 to WYDOT for the cost of printing. 'In order to enact the changes that we are requesting the department to do, I thought allocating some fiscal resources would be a smart move,' Sherwood said, continuing that lawmakers often discuss tight budgets at WYDOT. Rep. Mike Yin, D-Laramie, added that WYDOT is in 'maintenance mode for all of our roads.' 'If it is $67,000 to pay for this bill, that means $67,000 that isn't going to take care of roads in your neck of the woods,' Yin said. However, Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, said he did not support any additional funding for WYDOT after the Legislature appropriated $69 million in general fund money for the agency. Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette (2025) Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette 'There is a new influx of funds, so these minor expenditures that come along should be well taken care of,' Bear said. Rep. Landon Brown, R-Cheyenne, pushed back, saying that he supported the appropriation. 'Unfunded mandates' are exactly why WYDOT is stretched so thin, he said. 'What we've been doing for the past 14 years is doing these unfunded mandates, placing another burden on them and saying, 'Well, you guys have money. Go figure it out'.' Sherwood's amendment failed.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Senate's 50% property tax bill passes on first reading in the House
CHEYENNE — A 50% property tax reduction bill that passed the Senate on three readings has passed for the first time in the House. Wednesday evening, the House used a voice vote to approve Senate File 69, 'Homeowner property tax exemption.' It must pass two more times in the House to advance. Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, explained that there are a few differences between two of the most prominent bills in the current session that remain alive and offer property tax relief: SF 69 and House Bill 169, 'Homeowner tax exemption-2025 and 2026.' Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette (2025) Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette Both apply a 50% exemption to a single-family home up to $1 million in value for two years only. However, SF 69 includes an exemption for associated land, while HB 169 does not. That means the reduction in revenue to all entities that receive revenue from property taxation would be reduced by about $525 million under SF 69, as compared to about $400 million under HB 169, Bear said. The other major difference between the bills is that the Senate file does not provide local entities with any backfill, or allocation from state savings to offset lost taxation revenue due to the exemption. 'We worked hard to attempt to put backfill in HB 169, but also we did good work on the budget, and put a backfill there, as well,' Bear said. Rep. Julie Jarvis, R-Casper, said she could not support SF 69 — and she did not vote for HB 169 — because it would have an outsized effect on all of Wyoming. The cuts, she said, will also draw the state's savings down to nothing. Rep. Julie Jarvis, R-Casper (2025) Rep. Julie Jarvis, R-Casper 'We are not in a financial crisis, but we are about to be in a really big one, and it was self-induced, self-created,' Jarvis said. Rep. Pam Thayer, R-Rawlins, said her constituents are asking for property tax relief, but also want continued local services. 'What if we did 25% relief and 25% backfill? Let's come with solutions for the people of Wyoming,' Thayer said. Although she did not propose an amendment, for a time, the tax cut under SF 69 was 25%, but by the time the bill left the Senate, it had been restored to its original 50%. Rep. Christopher Knapp, R-Gillette, said he was in favor of the full 50% cut, without specifying which bill he preferred. Knapp also said that many of the arguments he'd heard on the floor Wednesday against the cut were simply 'rhetoric.' Rep. Christopher Knapp, R-Gillette (2025) Rep. Christopher Knapp, R-Gillette 'Last session, we gave them small relief,' Knapp said. 'That bought us time, in my opinion, to come to this session and look for long-term property tax relief solutions.' All amendments fail on general file Rep. Rob Geringer, R-Cheyenne, brought an amendment to SF 69 that would have required the Department of Revenue to distribute to each county treasurer a 50% compensation for the reduction in tax revenues due to the exemption. Without that compensation, local services will struggle to meet the needs in their communities, he said. The Laramie County Sheriff's Office alone would be forced to cut school resource officer programs, the mental health pod in the county jail, mental health treatment court programs and other things property tax revenue pays for, Geringer said. Rep. Rob Geringer, R-Cheyenne (2025) Rep. Rob Geringer, R-Cheyenne 'Just to be specific about what those impacts are, those are the kinds of things that he's looking at to cut when he has to tighten the belt,' Geringer said of Sheriff Brian Kozak, who outlined the potential cuts in a news release earlier this week. Bear, however, urged the House to vote against Geringer's amendment, saying that it falls short on providing adequate backfill, as well as risks the governor's veto. Instead, Bear said he has brought a budget amendment to House Bill 1, 'General government appropriations-2,' to appropriate $72 million from the general fund to the Department of Revenue for payments to qualifying counties. 'It falls short, if you want to provide real backfill, but also because I don't think it is going to take this bill to the finish line,' Bear said. For nearly an hour, representatives debated the amendment, as well as the bill itself. Rep. Landon Brown, R-Cheyenne, said the bill — even with backfill — would disproportionately affect some counties more than others. 'Is this going to hurt counties without a backfill? You bet. Can some of these counties handle it? Probably a little bit. Are some of these counties going to be hit really hard and not be able to provide these services like EMT, like fire? You bet. Some of these counties can't even do it as it stands.' Rep. Bob Davis, R-Baggs, said he was against not only the amendment, but the bill as a whole. Property taxes across Wyoming have come up an average of 17.27% since 2015. 'In nine years, that is not much of an increase. That is not even keeping up with inflation,' Davis said. 'These bills that we've already enacted are doing something. … I am not on for the amendment, and I am not for the bill.' Geringer's amendment failed in a voice vote. Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, proposed three other amendments to the bill, each including an inflation adjustment to the amount of value exempted from property taxes beginning in 2027. Those amendments also included an increased additional sales tax of under 1%, with transfer of funding gathered to a 'property tax reduction and replacement account.' Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper (2025) Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper Bear urged the body not to vote for Harshman's amendments, although he said he supported them in concept. 'I think it is the wrong time. It needs to be vetted more,' he said. Harshman's first and third amendments failed, and he withdrew the second. SF 69 will face up to two more readings in the House, with the chance for amendments on both readings.
