Sen. Schuler provides update from Cheyenne

By Sen. Wendy Schuler, SD-15
Posted 1/30/25

By Sen. Wendy Schuler

SD-15, R-Evanston

 

The second week of the 68th Legislature promised to be interesting with the Senate passing 37 bills and the House 19 since the opening …

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Sen. Schuler provides update from Cheyenne

Posted

By Sen. Wendy Schuler

SD-15, R-Evanston

 

The second week of the 68th Legislature promised to be interesting with the Senate passing 37 bills and the House 19 since the opening week. Both chambers voted in their leadership teams with Sen. Biteman as senate president, Sen. Salazar as VP, and Sen. Nethercott as majority floor leader.  Each of them has encouraged the body to work on civility and teamwork.

The new Senate members are trying to get up to speed as are the new House members and there is always a steep learning curve but, in the Senate, we make the effort to try to help and encourage our “newbies” so that we can be successful as the upper body. I am hearing from many of you about some of the more controversial bills in the House, but we won’t see them for some time.

As the Senate Education Chair, we passed a variety of bills to the floor including: SF 13 Reading Assessment and Intervention Amendments, which focused on screening tools for K-3rd grade reading and would give parents information on reading results from those assessments and potential interventions; SF 34 School finance: routine and major maintenance calculations which would change the calculations for square footage and increase the percentage to calculate major maintenance payments to school districts; SF 90 Youth Organizations in Schools, which would allow only patriotic clubs specified in Title 36 to be allowed to present during school hours (not instructional hours); SF 72 Summer vacation preservation activities, which would allow the State Board of Education to approve alternative schedules from schools that request to begin before Labor Day and recess after Memorial Day and to operate for fewer days than originally approved without a decrease in teachers salaries as a result of this act;  and SF 44 Fairness in sports-intercollegiate athletics, which would ban transgender athletes from competing against biological female athletes at UW or any of our junior colleges.

All of these bills have passed the Senate and will move to the House for consideration.

We moved two other bills forward which failed:  SF14 Imagination Library and SF21 Ban on cell phone use in schools. We heard SF 62 Restrooms in publicly funded schools, which will be heard on Monday for introduction along with SF 98 School board trustees-party affiliation, and we will discuss SF 86 Alternative teaching certificates, SF 109 Open enrollment with Wyoming school districts, and SJ 03 Commemorating Nellie Tayloe Ross, if time permits. 

I also serve on the TRW committee, and we have passed out bills on State Park Peace Officers-definition and scope of authority, and two other bills that passed the committee on Weighted Bonus Points and Mule and Whitetail Deer separate hunting seasons, which have both been laid back for more debate.

As always, I try to research and listen to testimony and then read your emails, texts, and phone messages before voting. I remind myself to start in a neutral position and try to really understand both sides of an issue before I make the vote.

Sometimes, I think that a bill can be amended to make it better, but sometimes there are just bad bills that can’t be fixed.

I do appreciate hearing from our constituents, and I try to keep a list of all of the emails that come in  and, even though once the session begins it is hard to stay on top of them, I will try to get you a response as soon as possible.

Phone calls and text messages work well, too. Just leave a message at 307-679-6774.

Thanks for all the support and I hope you are all staying warm back home.