Districting in discussion
Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct an issue with the explanation of the Founders' Plan.
Weston County’s pleas to the Wyoming Legislature to abide by the Wyoming Constitution’s directions for legislative representation will benefit from homefield advantage when a recently formed reapportionment subcommittee meeting is held in Newcastle this fall.
The meeting, scheduled tentatively for Sept. 26, was announced during the Joint Corporations, Elections & Political Subdivisions Committee meeting on Aug. 15 in Casper. Ryan Frost, with the Legislative Service Office, said the meeting is still tentative and a formal meeting notice and agenda are forthcoming.
As previously reported, the committee was given the go-ahead to create a subcommittee to examine the possibility of constitutional apportionment of legislative seats. This subcommittee was announced during the committee’s May 8 meeting in Lander.
The authority to create the subcommittee was provided through Senate File 174, a bill that directed formation of a committee to look into the conflict that exists between the state and federal constitutions when it comes to legislative representation in Wyoming.
The bill states that “the Legislature shall make a good faith effort to apportion itself as required by the 14th Amendment in conformance with the principle that the vote of any citizen is approximately equal in weight to that of any other citizen in the State” and that the Legislature “shall make a good faith effort to apportion itself as required by Article 3, Sections 3 and 48 of the Wyoming Constitution by providing for legislative districts that follow county lines and legislative districts that have at least one (1) representative and one (1) senator per county.”
Article 3, Section 3 of the Wyoming Constitution states that every county “shall constitute a senatorial and representative district.” Article 3, Section 48 states that “at the first budget session of the legislature following the federal census, the legislature shall reapportion its membership based upon that census.”
The committee, which was created to “study apportionment of the Legislature as provided by this act during the 2025 interim.”
Further, the committee will conduct meetings in communities across Wyoming to take input on apportionment options. The committee will be required to submit its findings to the Legislature no later than Dec. 1, 2025.
On May 8, Joint Corpor-ations, Elections & Political Subdivisions Committee Chairman Cale Case told the News Letter Journal that the subcommittee would hold up to three meetings across the state. During these meetings, the subcommittee will travel and hold hearings with Legislative Service Office staff to discuss the apportionment issue and potential solutions.
After these meetings, Case said, the subcommittee will work to establish its findings and conclusions and report back at the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivision committee’s last meeting of the interim. He said that he believes this meeting is in November.
During the announcement on Aug. 15, it was said that the upcoming meeting in Newcastle will be for subcommittee members and any other committee members that want to attend. It was also said that the meeting will consist of listening to proposals for apportionment and discussion with the public.
Members of the subcommittee are Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander; Rep. Christopher Knapp, R-Gillette; Sen. Brian Boner, R-Douglas; Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Torrington; Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Cheyenne; and Rep. Nina Webber, R-Cody.
At this time, the NLJ is aware of two different proposals that have been provided to the Legislature for consideration.
The first is the Founder’s Plan prepared by the Concerned Citizens of Weston County.
“Per (Secretary of State) Chuck (Gray) and (Wyoming House Speaker) Chip’s (Neiman) testimony during the Legislature, we believe this may be something they support, as they each questioned the judicial interpretation of the 14th Amendment,” Concerned Citizens member Patricia Baumann wrote in an email sent to the NLJ. “Our proposal is in compliance with the judicial interpretation of ‘one man, one vote’ just in case we have to go there.”
Key features of the plan are a hybrid method combining county integrity (“political subdivisions”) with population-based apportionment; formulas that ensure voting power deviations stay below 1.40% (House) and 3.80% (Senate), and that can be used regardless of any census results. Unlike the current system, however, it guarantees that each of Wyoming’s 23 counties has at least one representative and one senator.
In other words, the plan would utilize "sideboards" to add or remove seats in either the House or Senate if a county’s voting power on the floor “deviates too much from its population share."
According to the proposal, the objective of the plan is to “preserve county boundaries as legislative districts while minimizing population disparities, in compliance with the Wyoming Constitution and federal legal standards.”
As for why it matters, the proposal says it will avoid confusion and arguments during redistricting by using fixed county lines. Supporters profess that the plan also aligns with Wyoming’s geographic and demographic needs and legal precedents.
The other proposal, provided by former Weston County attorney William Curley, “outlines a population-adjusted voting system to apportion Wyoming’s Legislature in compliance with both Article 3, Section 3 of the Wyoming Constitution and federal Due Process Clause requirements of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
Key features of Curley’s plan also include county lines as district boundaries, guaranteed representation with each county retaining at least one representative and one senator (required by Art. 3 Sec. 3 Wyo. Const.) and votes weighted by population to ensure “one person, one vote” (required by 14th Amendment, Due Process Clause).