Dear Casper,
The Wyoming Constitution serves as the state’s fundamental legal document and supreme law. Wyoming legislators must take an oath to support, obey, and defend the State Constitution when they first take office. So, why are so many of them choosing to ignore their oath of office?
A court recently ruled that legislators violated the state constitution by failing to adequately fund public schools.
In another case, a district court judge issued an injunction halting the Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act and school vouchers, agreeing with the argument that the State Constitution forbids public funds from being used to support private or religious educational institutions.
More than one piece of legislation has been successfully challenged for violating the Wyoming Constitution’s provision allowing competent adults to make their own health-care decisions.
The legislative session, which begins in February 2026, will be charged with passing an appropriations, or budget, bill. The constitutional requirements for this legislation are clear.
The bill that authorizes funding “shall embrace nothing but appropriation for the ordinary expenses of the [state government], interest on the public debt, and for public schools.” All other bills may only contain one subject, which must be clearly stated in the bill’s title.
The appropriations/budget bill should therefore consist solely of line items and numbers. In recent years, however, our legislators have chosen to ignore these constitutional requirements by incorporating substantive changes to state laws into the budget bill.
What could be their excuse for violating the Constitution? Is it too much to do in a budget session to consider each bill individually? Is it because they’ve been doing it this way for years? Do they want to hide their work from public scrutiny? Or do they simply not care about the oath they took?
At a recent Freedom Caucus event, a panel of nine legislators was asked if they would follow their oath of office during the upcoming budget session and vote against any appropriations bill that contained non-appropriations items. Only one legislator, Scott Heiner, R-Lincoln, Sweetwater, Uinta, agreed. None of the remaining eight legislators responded to the question.
I believe it is time to hold our legislators accountable for their oath to support, obey, and defend the Wyoming Constitution. If they refuse to do so, it is time to find legislators who will.
Writing in Solidarity for a Better Wyoming Future,
Debra L. Cheatham
Casper
