•Wyoming Liberty Index rates legislative bills on liberty friendliness
•Index reveals liberty supporting and inhibiting legislators
CHEYENNE: The Wyoming Liberty Group released its ninth annual Wyoming Liberty Index today, which rates all final bills in the House and Senate from the 2011 General Session and shows whether they support or inhibit liberty.
“Many of these bills have a strong impact on personal liberty and the Index gives people a sense of how liberty friendly their legislators were during the 2011 session,” said Charles Curley, project lead of the Wyoming Liberty Index. “The Index will allow constituents to
either thank their legislators for their support of liberty or question legislators on their lack of support.”
Liberty Index citizen volunteers rated each bill on a scale of -3 (most hostile to liberty) to +3 (most favorable to liberty) to create a scorecard for each bill. The volunteers then matched up each bill to issues such as federalism, individual rights, limited government and taxation. Then, each legislator’s voting pattern was automatically calculated.
“The Index will help legislators see where they stand on issues important to citizens living in a free society and see where they can improve if they value liberty,” said Curley. “It also helps constituents in each district see how liberty-friendly their legislators are and adjust their votes accordingly.”
Legislators voted on 275 bills in the House and 162 bills in the Senate. Out of this total, the Liberty Index showed that 49 liberty-supporting bills passed and 67 failed. Additionally, 57 liberty-inhibiting bills passed while 88 failed.
The Index also showed the top liberty-friendly member in the House was Representative Lorraine Quarberg (R-Hot Springs), and in the Senate, Senator Cale Case (R-Fremont). The House representative most in need of improvement was Representative James Byrd (D-Laramie) and in the Senate, Senator John Hastert (D-Sweetwater).
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For complete details on these bills, and each legislator’s liberty score, please go to the Wyoming Liberty Index website.
For more information, please contact:
Charles Curley, Project Lead, Wyoming Liberty Index, 307-864-2723, charles.curley@wyliberty.org
Maureen Bader, Wyoming Liberty Group, 307-632-7020
