Wyoming Vote Tracker

Yup, it’s been almost a month since I’ve blogged here. I figured if Congress could take  a recess when there is much to do, I’d see what it’s like. I haven’t stopped paying attention to issues, I just recessed from blogging here on WVT for a season. It was really weird, and it’s good to back. 

In my effort to catch up, I’m starting with a recent event. There was a town meeting hosted by the Cody Branch  of the Park County Library last night. Speaking were three of our local state legislators, Sen. Hank Coe (R-SD 18), and Reps. Colin Simpson (R-HD 24) and Pat Childers (R-HD 50). Though not “well attended” (around 20 including library staff and newspaper reporters), it was a good event.

Rep. Childers, has, along with the rest of the local Cheyenne delegation, appeared regularly on Speak Your Piece. One of his big issues is constituents (us, the voters) contacting their elected officials. He often mentions going onto the State Legislature website and following the sessions to keep up with the process and to easily contact your legislators. Having said all that, he did a presentation on the State Legislature website.

He did a very good job covering what all you can do through the site. Even I did not know some of the things about the site that he pointed out. The site is pretty basic, so navigation is not that hard. Rep. Childers noted the user-friendliness of the site, with the exception of the Locate Your Legislator page. It used to have maps of the district divisions, but now it just has a link that takes you to a listing of the County Clerks offices to utilize the local level to find out who your legislators are.

If you think that your legislators don’t do anything outside of the  legislative sessions, check out the events and schedules page and the interim committee activities page. They do quite a bit when out of session, which is why it is important to keep in touch with them before, during, and after the session.

The big highlight for me was the explanation of the archive page that allows you to go back to 2001 and find out the issues that were brought forward and voted on and how the legislature voted. Will surely be making use of that in the months to come.

Sen. Coe spoke next.  He talked about the committes he is currently serving on and his two current concerns: library endowment fund and energy. He recently took a trip to China as chair of the Energy Council. Wyoming has good opportunities ahead in the energy industry provided we go for the right kind.

Rep. Simpson spoke on some of the issues facing the legislature in the upcoming session. There are of course energy issues with regard to carbon capture and sequestration. Another big issue that struck a chord with some of the citizens in attendance was the Governor’s proposal to give property tax relief to the elderly. Because of the the state constitution, this would have to be approved by the legislature and then passed onto the people to vote on. The three delegates expressed concern about the measure targeting one portion of the population. A possible alternative that would not require amending the constitution, would be to drop the property taxes across the board rather than just focusing on the elderly.

Another issue on the burner is funding for cities/towns/and counties. The Governor has proposed $300 million go back to the local level. One problem Sen. Simpson sees is that there is no formula proposed with it. He called it “a beautiful political move,” throwing a huge number out there to get people excited, but then it makes the Republican-led legislature look mean when they don’t follow along because there’s no formula.

One citizen inquired about the legislators planned bills to present.

Rep. Childers  plans to bring his NEPA lawsuit before the legislature as well as legislation that would require subdivisions to have an association that is self-governing.

Sen. Coe is polishing a library endowment and legislation to get all 23 Wyoming counties supporting the seven community colleges.

Rep. Simpson wants to address Doctor shopping with regards to prescription drug abuse, clean coal technology, AML funding that we are waiting for, and he has some ideas for City/town/county funding and property tax relief.

Oh, and if you don’t want your legislators to be sucked into the global warming hysteria of recent Nobel Peace Fear-mongering Prize recipient Al Gore, contact them! They are now proud owners of the sleep-inducing hit, An Inconvenient Truth. They were asked if they had seen it, and none of them had, so the inquiring citizen, almost rather rudely, presented them each a copy of the DVD, noting that it was better than a lump of coal. I think I would have rather received the coal. It’s a lot easier to burn than a DVD. After looking over the DVD case, Sen. Coe noted Al Gore’s recent trip on a private jet to Norway to get his award. Hopefully, he’s just as speculative after watching the DVD (if he so dares to watch it).

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