Bills needing a closer look in this year’s legislature

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his year’s legislative session is unlike any we have seen before. After spending a few days meeting in person early this year to deal with some committee and urgent COVID related bills, the legislature pushed the rest of its session out until now to give time for COVID rates to decline. With over 440 bills and resolutions filed (and counting), there are going to be some good bills and some bad bills. Most will not be enacted into law, if for no other reason than that there is not enough time in the session to consider that volume of bills.  Nevertheless, there a few bills that I want to highlight.
First, there are many good bills this session, dealing with many important issues.  Everything from COVID relief to amendments to criminal statutes to addressing government form and function is included in the many good bills. Rather than list the good bills that will likely pass with little opposition, I want to focus on a few other bills that are worth a closer look.
On the bad bill side, few are worse than House Bill 202, which seeks to suspend without pay any state employee making above a certain amount while a public health emergency is in effect.  Presumably, the sponsors of this bill are trying to make a point about the ongoing COVID crisis. What that point is, though, is hard to see. Do they want the state health officer to ignore a legitimate health crisis to keep state government functioning?  Do they think the state health officer can magically make a health crisis go away simply by declaring it to be so?  Do they simply want Wyoming to suffer more during a health crisis by ensuring that even more Wyoming people are out of work and that our state government is functioning worse?  Whatever the point, it is not well taken.  
Several other bills that I believed were generally well-intended but otherwise flawed have already been either amended or defeated. For example, House Bill 99, which would have limited property tax increases to only 3% per year was amended to a higher number that is more reasonable.  Had the bill passed as initially introduced, it would have risked placing an artificial incentive against home sales on properties with active real estate markets. That is one of the problems that California saw with its real estate market and a problem we do not need to introduce here.  The bill as amended is much more reasonable. Similarly, a resolution was filed to require any new tax to be submitted to a full public vote, similar to a constitutional amendment.  Again, while well intentioned, the logistics of such a requirement and the lack of a holistic view of government among the general population made this an idea that sounds better than it actually is. The reason we live in a republic, as opposed to a direct democracy, is that we recognize that many of the decisions in government require nuance and a more wide-ranging understanding of government processes than can typically be expected of the voter on the street. We therefore elect representatives to take on the burden of analyzing and understanding the issues facing us so they can make a wise decision.  This bill would have run contrary to the idea behind and reasons for a republic.  States with high levels of direct democracy provisions are almost never the best run.  California again is the most prominent example of a state with many ballot initiatives, which tend to result in worse – not better –
government. 
Lastly, it is worth noting that we are beginning to see bills filed that direct address the issues with our state budget.  At least one bill has been filed so far to raise a new stream of revenue.  House Bill 138 provides for a tax on unearned income – primarily meaning income other than salaries, wages, tips, or business income – over $200,000.  This would obviously not apply to the vast majority of Wyoming voters, but would provide some additional income from those receiving large amounts of capital gains income and other certain classes of income.  It is worth noting that some other states without statewide income taxes do have similar types of taxes on their books.  While I doubt this tax will pass this session, it is possible that this is one of the areas where future tax changes may be seriously considered.
The legislator will be hard at work in the coming month to wade through the many bills before it. Let’s all hope they make wise decisions.