AUSTIN, TX – Wyoming Liberty Group attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief today on behalf of WyLiberty and the Center for Competitive Politics in Texas v. DeLay. The brief is the second filed on behalf of both organizations, discussing the free speech implications of a criminal case with origins over a decade old. "In 2002, Tom DeLay and sever...

Back in 2012, Governor Matt Mead announced that Microsoft would build a data center in Cheyenne at a cost to Microsoft of $112 million. Since then, Microsoft has announced two expansions. Supporters cheered that the data center would diversify the economy and, according to Gov. Mead's press release, "bring high-paying, technology jobs to the state....

On May 13, I gave short testimony about the problems with civil forfeiture in Wyoming at the Joint Judiciary Committee meeting in Rawlins. The Legislative Service Office is preparing two potential committee bills for the committee to consider at its next meeting in July in Newcastle. The first bill, if it is adopted by the committee and passes the ...

According to the Wyoming Department of Education, Wyoming will not be receiving a waiver renewal from the United States Department of Education for the 2014-2015 school year, and this is ultimately a good thing. This means the state will operate under the dictates of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a federal education mandate developed by President Bu...

According to the Wyoming Department of Education, Wyoming will not be receiving a waiver renewal from the United States Department of Education for the 2014-2015 school year, and this is ultimately a good thing. This means the state will operate under the dictates of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a federal education mandate developed by President Bu...

RAWLINS, WY – Wyoming Liberty Group provided information to the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee as it considered legislation that would regulate the use of unmanned aerial vehicles-commonly known as drones-by law enforcement agencies. "Drones are quickly becoming smaller, more efficient, cheaper and common," said Steve Klein, WyLiberty staff atto...

RAWLINS, WY – Wyoming Liberty Group staff attorney Steve Klein testified before the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee today to detail the potential for property rights abuse by police because of civil asset forfeiture in state law. "The Controlled Substances Act allows the government to take property without ever convicting the owner of a crime," s...

Time to add some drag to the line The Game and Fish (G&F) department provides us with a cautionary tale about what happens when an agency's mandate creeps from "the protection, propagation, preservation and distribution of Game animals, birds and fish of this State," to "conserving wildlife—serving people," which could mean pretty much anything...

Last week we filed a supplemental brief in Free Speech v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), a case that we brought on behalf of a small Wyoming grassroots group against the speech regulators in Washington, DC. We're hopeful that our case will be heard, because the issues we raised nearly two years ago when we filed suit have only become more press...

In 2010, the website PolitiFact called Republican claims that Obamacare is a "government takeover" of healthcare the "Lie of the Year." Last year, PolitiFact gave the title to President Obama's claim that under Obamacare "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it." Obviously, PolitiFact's authority over what constitutes a "lie" is question...

CHEYENNE – Wyoming Liberty Group attorneys filed a supplemental brief with the United States Supreme Court today in the case Free Speech v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), discussing recent events at the FEC and how they should impact the Court's review of Free Speech's case. "Since this case began nearly two years ago, the FEC has insisted that...

This year's parade of electoral horribles is out again. Every year that the Supreme Court hears a challenge to campaign finance laws a small band of self-titled reformers cry out in customary despair. These last two weeks have been no different following the Supreme Court's decision in McCutcheon v. FEC. McCutcheon asked whether the government coul...

If Wyoming needed a better reason to begin removing itself from the entanglement of federal education funds, here it is. In a recent article, Cato's Neal McCluskey points out what many Common Core critics already know about the federal government's involvement in Common Core - it's not going to be a one- time occurrence. Federal government meddling...

Next month (May 12 and 13) the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee will meet in Rawlins in the first of three meetings between the 2014 and 2015 legislative sessions. One of the topics they will address is drones, more technically known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or unmanned aerial systems (UAS). I appreciate the committee taking this up, sin...

CHEYENNE – Wyoming Liberty Group attorneys delivered a letter to the Wyoming Secretary of State and Attorney General today, asking them to immediately cease enforcement of a provision of the Wyoming Election Code that limits aggregate political contributions in state elections to $25,000. The letter follows a decision by the United States Supreme C...

More and more parents across the county who reject the national Common Core standards are stretching their resources and removing their children from public schools. In this powerful piece by Dr. Susan Berry, parents talk about why they are quitting jobs and tightening belts so they can provide an alternative to the debilitating Common Core curricu...

Now that marijuana is legal in Colorado under state law for not only medicinal but recreational use by people over 21, a new industry is taking off. As reported earlier this week by the Denver Post, "Commercial real estate tracker Xceligent Inc. estimates that marijuana cultivation and manufacturing facilities in [Denver] occupy about 4.5 million s...

Last Friday was the final day for first reading of bills in their house of origin in the 2014 Wyoming Budget Session. Due to the priority of budget amendments, even extended hours could not provide the time needed to consider first reading of every bill that survived introduction and came out of committee. This spelled death for dozens of bills. In...

Yesterday, the Cheyenne City Council voted to amend the Cheyenne Unified Development Code to conform to the preliminary injunction we secured against the city in our case Williams v. Cheyenne last week. What does that mean? The Wyoming Tribune Eagle sums it up nicely: As the story notes, the amendment to the UDC only passed by a 7-3 vote, and even ...

Rep. Kendell Kroeker, Linda Burt of the ACLU, and Steve Klein discuss civil asset forfeiture and potential reforms for the 2014 Budget Session.