In mid-November, Wyoming Attorney General Peter Michael joined an amicus (friend-of-the-court) brief filed in a Maryland case that will soon be heard in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The case, Kolbe v. O'Malley, challenges a law recently enacted in Maryland that bans numerous semi-automatic rifles in the state and limit...

Our introductory blog on this topic focused on the premises of graduate criminal justice fellow Brice Hamack's recent article in the Wyoming Law Review. It is important to clarify that while Mr. Hamack's general concerns are well founded, Wyoming's juvenile justice system has uniquely entrenched problems unique from and, in many ways, worse than th...

For Wyoming parents wondering what really happens behind the scenes to push the direction of statewide education policy, they need look no further. A stunning video released this past week by the parent-led group, Wyoming Citizens Opposing Common Core, revealed minutes from an October meeting convened by an education bureaucracy-led group called th...

As I recently explained, about two thirds of state government spending in Wyoming is dedicated to core welfare-state programs within education, health care and human services (broadly known as "welfare"). With a likely revenue crisis on the horizon, and with the causes of that revenue crisis being structural, it is necessary for the Wyoming state l...

The most important – and most challenging – part of public policy research is to create convincing pathways toward more economic freedom. Compared to the efforts going toward criticizing "big government", the reform issue receives only minor attention. That is not to say there are no proposals out there. On the contrary, in some policy areas it is ...

Last week I discussed the potential consequences of the latest CREG report's long-term spending outlook. I pointed to the risk for a structural budget deficit, in other words a deficit that does not go away with an improving business cycle. Part of the reason is the role that minerals-based taxes – primarily severance taxes – play in the Wyoming st...

The latest CREG report predicts that General Fund revenue will grow at a crawling 2.1 percent per year on average from 2016 through 2020. Worse, as Figure 1 shows, the trend for most revenue sources is downward: The Wyoming state government has weathered tough times before, which is one reason why the state has, basically, two years of spending sta...

CHEYENNE – Wyoming Liberty Group attorneys Benjamin Barr and Steve Klein filed an amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) brief in the Texas Fifth Court of Appeals at Dallas, arguing that a political contributor's convictions for organized crime, bribery and money laundering for campaign finance violations unconstitutionally abridge his First Amendment...

In the two years that Republic Free Choice has been investigating Wyoming's juvenile justice system we have uncovered appalling details within the Wyoming system which juvenile justice advocates and even Wyoming legislators' admit is failed and broken. Even the basic necessity of education for juvenile offenders during incarceration is a frequently...

Is Wyoming in need of a tax reform? Recent economic news indicates that this may be a question worth considering in a not too distant future. The latest CREG report on state government tax revenue presents an improved forecast of General Fund revenue by four percent over January. While the first reaction appears to be a rush to the spending binges,...