Dan Dockstader, Senator for District 16 reports from Cheyenne –

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The biennium budgeting process continues in Cheyenne with a series of amendments that were brought to the budget during the first reading process. Budget amendments that included new spending in the Senate failed. Meanwhile, in the House, proposals to cut the budgets in various state agencies, such as audit and revenue, also failed.

The House will try to work through 66 different pieces of legislation on first reading today. A sampling of the bills in front of the House on that first reading list include municipal jurisdiction, stand your ground, physician non-compete clause, purchase of water rights, speeding fines, expungement of juvenile records, lottery revenues, sale of wildlife information, equal pay penalties, and the state fair endowment. The third reading list includes alternative school accountability, and omnibus water bill-construction. The House Judiciary, Appropriations, Education and Agriculture-water recourses committees are meeting today.

In the Senate, 32 files are up for first reading with topics ranging from disposition of state school land revenue, crimes against critical infrastructure, severance tax exemption, promoting individual choice in health care and public school financing. The third and final reading list includes organ donation, opioid addiction task force and Medicare discrimination.

The Appropriations, Education, and Agriculture-water resources committee are meeting in the Senate today.

This week, the days have been starting with committee meetings at 7:30 in the morning and floor work continuing until 9 or 10 each night. This is the ninth day of the 2018 Wyoming State Legislature.