Take advantage of the opportunities to stay informed during the legislative session

In a few days, legislators will convene in Cheyenne for the 2025 legislative session.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already here. It doesn’t feel that long ago that the last session ended and people were mad at the governor for exercising his veto power.

Already, a couple hundred bills have been put forward, and there are still three weeks left for legislators to submit their own bills.

The fun thing about it being a general session, as opposed to a budget session, is you’ll get to see way more bills. And when I say “fun,” I mean it’s fun as an observer. I’m sure I would not find it fun if I was the one having to read through every single one.

As of Thursday night, 244 bills had been filed. About 11% of them, or 28 bills, have to do with taxes in one way or another. That number will surely grow in the next few weeks.

By the time the filing period comes to an end, there will probably be 400 to 500 bills.

There are some bills that practically need a translator in order for the average person to understand. But there are others where the name makes it very clear what it’s all about, such as “Make Carbon Dioxide Great Again,” or “Fireworks on the 4th of July.”

Thanks to technology, it’s easier now than ever to keep up to speed with what the legislature is doing.

If you visit wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2025, you can see all of the bills that have been filed. For each bill, you can read what’s in it, what’s being added or removed if it’s an amendment to existing law, where it stands in the process of becoming a law, how lawmakers have voted and the fiscal impact (if there is one) to the state.

If you want to know what “prostitution amendments” are being proposed, or just what the “Summer Vacation Preservation Act” will do, you can find out easily enough.

Schedules and agendas and documents for meetings are there on the website, as well, along with contact information for every legislator.

And the legislative session will be live-streamed and archived on YouTube, on the Wyoming Legislature’s official YouTube page. It is literally right there at your fingertips.

The information, and the means to access it, is there for our consumption. It’s right there on the plate. So grab that fork and dig right in.