There is less than a week left until the 2024 Wyoming General Assembly session.
Lawmakers are scheduled to convene for a budget session in Cheyenne on Monday, February 12th.
As of Tuesday morning, February 6, a total of 190 bills and four joint resolutions have been introduced this session.After the deadline for submitting the bill to the Legislative Services Authority has passed. [Feb. 14] We’re still over a week away, but that list could grow significantly.
Since this is a budget session, a two-thirds majority vote is required to introduce non-budgetary items. Even so, in recent years there has been a tendency for items other than the budget to be submitted to the Budget Assembly.
A number of non-budget bills have already been introduced in the upcoming session.
They include:
House Bill 50: “What is a Woman?” Act. Require separate accommodations, including toilets, for men and women.
Under the bill, gender is defined as:
“Female” means a person whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce eggs and/or exhibits XX chromosomes and no Y chromosomes.
“Male” means a person whose biological reproductive system has developed to fertilize a woman’s eggs and/or who exhibits XY or Y chromosomes.
Applies to “”.Stadiums, prisons or other detention facilities, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, locker rooms, restrooms, and other areas where safety or privacy is a concern and separate accommodations are required. ”
The bill’s main sponsor is Rep. Janet Ward. [R-Natrona County]. Co-sponsored by Representatives Allemand, Angelos, Baer, Haroldson, Hornock, Jennings, Locke, Neiman, Ottman, Pendergraft, Penn, Rodriguez-Williams, Slagle, Smith, and Strzok.
Sen. French, Ide, and Steinmetz.
House Bill 63: Bans gender reassignment procedures for minors, except for certain medical exemptions.The bill’s primary sponsor is Congressman Lloyd Larsen. [R-Fremont County]. Co-sponsors include Congressman Stith, Senator Baldwin, Dockstadter, and Schuler.
House Bill 78: Creates penalties for “sexual content in a patently offensive manner,” particularly online depictions of rape and sexual abuse. This carries penalties of up to $1,000 per day in fines and one year in prison. If the content is accessible to children, there will be an additional fine of up to $6,000 per day if the content is viewed by a minor, among other penalties.
It will also require age verification for websites where more than one-third of the content is “harmful to minors.” Such content includes nudity and sex based on specified criteria.
Sponsored by Congresswoman Sarah Penn [R-Fremont County]. Co-sponsored by Representatives Angelos, Haroldson, Hornock, Knapp, Neiman, Rodriguez-Williams, Strzok, Stiver, Trujillo, Ward, and Senators Hutchings, Laursen, D.
A long list of other budget and non-budget bills are also being introduced in the upcoming session.
All bills introduced so far can be found here.
Glendo Skydiver’s Moonwalk
Gallery credit: Glenn Woods
