Senator Dan Dockstader called into the Weekday Wake-Up on the final day of the 2026 Wyoming Legislative Session to discuss Senate File 101, the Second Amendment Protection Act.

(0:00) Welcoming Dan Dockstader live over the phone today. Senator Dan Dockstader with a legislative report. (0:05) Senator, good morning.

Sounds like things are pretty well buttoned up with the session this (0:10) year. Is that correct? Good morning, Stu. Good morning, Lincoln County and Western Wyoming.

Yes, (0:15) things are. When you say legislative report, there’s not much to report. They sent us away (0:20) for two days, gave us a timeout, and said come back on Wednesday and we’ll decide what we do (0:26) in regards to the governor’s vetoes.

And I took an opportunity in my two days off to turn my (0:33) attention to Lower Valley Energy and headed out to the national co-ops meetings in Tennessee. (0:39) Interesting to hear what co-ops, or just a side note for you here, what co-ops are doing across (0:44) the nation, a lot of them getting into things beyond electric power. And I don’t know that (0:48) that’s wise.

I’m glad that we focus on two basic services, electric power and gas service. And (0:57) that allows us to be very successful at what we do with Star Valley and Jackson with power service. (1:03) And I listened to a lot of different meetings over the last two days and it seems like they get (1:08) caught up in sideband and extension of fiber optics here and there.

And what they really need (1:13) to do is make sure the lights are turned on and maybe some nice gas power to keep your homes warm (1:18) across the nation. And that’s just a side note. I made that trip on my own time and dime when (1:24) out there.

I thought if they’re going to give me two days off, I’m going to put it to productive (1:27) use. So hopped out of Denver, went over to Tennessee and back. And now we’re back on to (1:32) the forum, sitting in my room, looking at the Capitol now, getting ready to leave.

I didn’t (1:36) want to mess up this call. So I thought I’ll just stay put and talk to you straight out of my room (1:40) and head over to the Capitol. A couple of bills that we’re looking at that may or may not come up (1:49) for, I call it recall, reconsideration.

House Bill 120, public union transparency. (1:56) And House Bill 119, strategic investments. Those are not making a lot of news that we’re starting (2:02) to hear back, some phone calls and emails and so forth.

But the one that’s getting a lot of (2:07) attention, of course, is the one with concealed or not concealed carry, but the Second Amendment (2:13) rights, SAPA law. That’s getting a lot of attention. There are some concerns.

There (2:19) were two different bills. People don’t realize there are two different bills going through the (2:22) process, one a House Bill and one a Senate file. And actually, you can make that work productively (2:28) sometimes.

For example, we did that with our school facilities funding. We wanted to have (2:34) two different bills in the works to make sure that the schools and all their maintenance and all (2:38) their projects were completely funded and taken care of across the state. And we didn’t want it (2:43) to derail on either the House or the Senate.

The House has kind of taken some different (2:47) directions this year. So we put one in under my name to take care of the school facilities, (2:52) along with the committee bill, and we were able to get that all through the process. Now, (2:56) we have the same thing, kind of the same thing, with regards to Second Amendment rights, SAPA.

(3:03) Two different bills going through. The House version of it went through and went through (3:08) the Senate Revenue Committee, which was an interesting approach. And all of the law (3:14) enforcement officers from throughout all the agencies in the state had a representative in (3:18) that room.

It was packed. There were a lot of uniforms. And they spoke.

They spoke to their (3:22) concerns about it and said, essentially, they were saying, we are Second Amendment, but we want (3:29) to make sure that there’s no unintended consequences to that. So we amended it at the (3:34) House bill in the Senate, amended it, and moved it out to the Senate floor. Here’s where some of (3:40) the confusion goes.

People still are saying, is that bill there? It’s not. That bill is dead. (3:47) That was killed on the Senate floor.

Some of the amendments were moved in and out of the process. (3:52) It got confusing. So that bill simply was killed.

Now, the Senate version, (3:57) Senate File 101, would impose civil penalties of up to $50,000 on Wyoming law enforcement agencies (4:04) that assist with federal gun crime enforcement or that hired former federal agents who helped (4:11) the same. That’s a provision that has a lot of us concerned. We’re still, many of us, deciding.

(4:18) The governor was concerned. He vetoed it. And primarily, what I sensed his veto was centered on (4:26) the bill also allows interested parties not involved in the actual case.

Say you had an (4:32) actual case, shooting, all that involves law enforcement. It allows parties outside of that (4:39) case to come in and sue the law enforcement agency that was involved. That’s a concern.

(4:47) Essentially, any interested party can bring civil action, not limiting it to the people who are (4:53) directly impacted by the case. And that’s a concern. That’s a concern for me.

Why do we (5:00) want these other parties involved when it just shouldn’t be just the people involved in the case? (5:05) So I’m taking a closer look at it. We’ll make some decisions later today. These are the hard (5:08) decisions that we have to make.

And that’s what we have, as my wife calls, deficit spending for (5:18) two months of the winter to serve the people. So that’s where we’re at. And we’ll make a decision (5:25) today.

And those are the bills. Those are one of three that will come up as we do reconsideration. (5:32) It’s a very slow process.

If you open up the calendar on the legislative process today, (5:37) it’ll just say no bills, no nothing. It’s just we go and wait for those bills to be brought (5:42) onto the House and the Senate floor for a veto override. That’s what we all got called back (5:48) into town for today.

That’s Senator Dan Dockstader from Cheyenne this morning. Senator, thank you very (5:52) much. And of course, we’ll get a more in-depth summary and report from you in the coming weeks (5:57) and months.

Thank you very much. Thank you all. Best of room.