Halfway Point: New Conservative Majority vs Old Guard Minority In 2025 Legislative Session

There haven’t been many surprises regarding how the 2025 Wyoming legislative session has played out. In fact, the sheer predictability about the session so far may be the most surprising part.

Nearly all of the new freshman lawmakers have voted as they were expected to vote, and the Wyoming Freedom Caucus has wielded its majority in the House vigorously, pushing through top priorities at an expedited pace. 

The Wyoming House has been incredibly consistent with its voting lines so far, with members of the Freedom Caucus, as well as freshmen lawmakers who share the same ideology voting in lockstep on almost every vote. Most amendments brought by the other House members outside of this group have been rejected by the Freedom Caucus group that holds the majority.

State Rep. Landon Brown, R-Cheyenne, believes Freedom Caucus members are still being told how to vote by their local leaders, which he believes they are making their top concern. 

“I think I am beyond frustrated (at a perspective) that every bill that comes out of the Freedom Caucus is perfect,” he said. “You can’t amend it, and the only way you’re going to amend it is if they are in control of that amendment.”

But Brown also admitted the voting dynamic wasn’t much different in recent years’ past with the roles simply reversed between Caucus members and more mainstream Republicans. 

Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, chairman emeritus of the Freedom Caucus, holds an opposite perspective than Brown, saying the new minority has shown it’s much more in lockstep than his Freedom Caucus colleagues.

“We’re going to continue to see the spread of those conservative votes,” he said. “The other group is much more lockstep.” 

New Guard

From 2023-2024, the Wyoming House was controlled by Republicans who took more of an establishment approach to running the state, prioritizing saving money over making direct spending cuts. 

This approach was targeted along the 2024 campaign trail, with many Freedom Caucus members and their aspiring associates arguing a populist approach. They told voters extra revenue should be used for property tax relief instead of putting money into a state budget they described as already bloated. 

Bear said he campaigned on slowing the growth of government, an approach he’s taken in negotiating the supplemental budget, pushing for cuts to Gov. Mark Gordon’s supplement budget request that doesn't constitute an emergency.

“I think that’s something that the voters can agree to and agree with,” he said.

Wyoming Caucus Refugees

The Wyoming Caucus was formed in the spring of 2023 as a bloc of House Republicans in opposition to the Freedom Caucus. Their membership ranks were somewhat hazy, and beyond a few leading members, it wasn’t always clear who was or wasn’t in the group.  

The group did not do well in the 2024 Republican primary, losing some key members who were beat out by Freedom Caucus candidates. By mid-fall the group had taken down their Facebook page and website. Former members Cowboy State Daily spoke with said the group has disbanded.

But they still have a number of former members in the Legislature like Brown and Rep. Cody Wylie, R-Rock Springs, who are now trying to find a new way forward despite often being in the minority vote. 

“I’m still representing my district and my constituents,” Wylie said. “I get up and I debate, I just lose more.”

Wylie said he has no illusions this dynamic will change over the next two years but still plans to keep working for the needs of his community.

“Do I think we’re going to have this kumbaya moment and we’re going to do something constructive? No,” Wylie said. “We’re debating and we’re having good discussions. That’s our process of government.”

Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland, was never an official member of the Wyoming Caucus and said she’s always been more interested in the needs of the people in her district than caucuses. 

Lawley had an upbeat perspective on what this session has been like and said there’s been more unity and less division in the House body, working with a number of Freedom Caucus members on bills.

“I hope we are moving to where there’s a little more place for that, and more connection, rather than focusing on the next election,” she said. “We all need to talk to some people to understand the issue better.”

A Mandate?

Bear believes his like-minded colleagues in the House are simply keeping the promises they made along the campaign trail to improve election security, cut property taxes, eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and “woke” investments in Wyoming state agencies. In short, a mass of social issue bills with great popularity in national conservative circles.

He told reporters last Friday he believes Wyoming voters have issued a mandate for the Freedom Caucus agenda based on the group taking over a majority of seats in the House. This agenda matches many of the executive orders issued by President Donald Trump’s new administration.

“It’s what the people want, and we’re just being responsive to the people,” Bear said. “Think about the overwhelming majority of this state vote for Trump, the road path has pretty well been laid out for us what we should do as representatives.”

Brown and Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, do not believe these issues represent the top concerns for Wyoming residents. 

“I think what it ultimately boils down to is these people are more focused on running political campaigns than they are worried about running the state,” Brown said. 

Inside House Speaker Chip Neiman’s office at the Capitol is a collection of around a dozen rocks, each given to him by a House member. Neiman, a Republican from Hulett, explained that the rocks represent a monument to God’s work that was described in a scene in the Bible.

"These ladies and gentlemen believe that what's happened here in this Wyoming Legislature, and their being elected, is a miracle," Neiman said. "They believe they have a responsibility to make sure that people know how they got here and what the implications are. And that's their tribune to the Lord." 

The Senate stayed roughly the same after the last election cycle, split down the middle between more traditional and Freedom Caucus-aligned Republicans. 

During a press conference on Tuesday, Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, criticized members of the House for chasing news headlines and being influenced by out-of-state interests, a sentiment Brown agrees with.

“I’m just calling out all the noise, all the grandstanding that’s been going on, and quite frankly, the attacks on my members and the Senate, and I don’t like it,” Biteman said. 

But there’s also been some posturing in the Senate as well and one could argue that Senate leadership was chasing a headline by hosting a press conference of their own. 

Further, last week, the Senate Agriculture Committee advanced a bill demanding that Congress dispose of all public lands except Yellowstone National Park to Wyoming.

“I think it’s hard for me to believe that someone would want us to ask the federal government to dispose of Grand Teton National Park, that seems unserious,” Yin said during a press conference for the Democratic caucus on Tuesday 

New Call Out

In a Monday press release, Bear, the new chair of the House Appropriations Committee, called out Gov. Mark Gordon and past Appropriations committees for allegedly breaking state law in their budgets.

In 2016, the Legislature passed a law stating that the governor can’t recommend any spending measure from the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account (LSRA), or rainy-day fund that exceeds 5% of the balance of that account in the fiscal year in which the recommendation is made, unless an alternative budget is made for it.

In 2019, Gordon recommended spending $105 million from this account, when the 5% total was $78 million. 

Five years later, last fall, Gordon recommended spending $105 million from the LSRA again, when the 5% cap sat at $93 million.

Bear said these violations weren’t disclosed to members of the public in both instances, with the governor’s recommendations passing into law in 2019. Nothing in the law prohibits the Legislature from exceeding the 5% cap.

“So long as I am chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, I will follow the statutes laid down by my predecessors and will expect that other legislators and executives do the same,” Bear said in the press release.

Bear told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday, at the very least, members of the Legislature should have been notified about the governor exceeding the cap.

Michael Pearlman, a spokesperson for the governor, said Gordon’s chief of staff Drew Perkins, a former Senate President who helped pass the 2016 law, responded to Bear’s concern on Friday and offered to work with the Appropriations Committee on the matter, as his staff has already been doing. Pearlman stood by the governor’s supplemental budget proposal, which he believes offers the state “substantial savings.”

“Perhaps Representative Bear should be more interested in helping the people of Wyoming recover from devastating wildfires than running his next campaign,” Pearlman said.

Priorities

Nearly 40 bills attempting to make Wyoming elections more secure have been introduced in this year’s Legislature. A significant majority have been introduced and advanced through House committees with Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s support.

Conversely, all four bills aiming to provide more housing in Wyoming died in the Speaker’s drawer, failing to make the deadline to be referred to a committee.

“I think that’s tragic that there was all this work done to focus on things like housing, where it died in the drawer,” Yin said.

Lawmakers on both sides of the issue have complained about the slow pace of the session so far in the House.  

A total of 95 bills had died in Neiman’s drawer as of Tuesday, 12 of which were committee-sponsored bills.

Neiman said he will accept stats like these if it means fewer bills advance but the ones that do are of higher quality, rather than the opposite.

Some have blamed this on the Freedom Caucus making bills that align with their campaign agenda a priority, while others like Rep. Scott Heiner, R-Green River, and Neiman say certain veteran lawmakers have been going up to speak on bills too much, with Neiman saying they’re getting “a little bit windy.”

“That slowing down is hurting the whole state at this point,” he said. “The history lessons and some of those things that we’re hearing, it’s slowing down progress with some good bills that need to be dealt with.” 

In a statement last Friday, Rep. Andrew Byron, R-Jackson, said it’s been a challenge getting bills heard “amidst a heavy influx of proposed legislation,” many of which, he says, is driven by out-of-state interests, such as a bill expanding public vouchers so that parents of all income levels can receive $7,000 per child to receive private education in Wyoming. 

"My colleagues continue to sponsor and support bills that Wyoming isn’t asking for,” Byron said. “As we approach critical deadlines, many pieces of legislation that could truly benefit Wyoming’s people won’t even have the chance to be heard.”

Byron said it’s difficult to tackle real issues facing Wyoming when too many are prioritizing national special interests over the needs of their own constituents.

Byron did say he was encouraged by some of the amendment discussions in the supplemental budget on Wednesday. This included a proposal brought by Rep. John Winter, R-Thermopolis, a Freedom Caucus member, for $35,000 to retrieve, develop and curate a display for a tree that was identified in an 1893 Yellowstone Forest Reserve survey, with an inscription now located in the Shoshone National Forest. 

“I think the good debate and the difficult questions being asked show that my colleagues are starting to think,” Byron told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday. “Some of the amendments show the lack of understanding from our body, which is discouraging. It’s a steep learning curve if you can’t independently think, you get left behind.”

Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.