Wyoming Senate Passes Bill To Limit Health Orders

The Wyoming Senate on Friday passed a bill that would place time limits on public health orders in Wyoming.

The House has already passed HB 127, but since the Senate made changes to the bill, it will now go back to the House for concurrence.

If the house votes to go along with the Senate version of the bill, it will go on to Governor Mark Gordon.

If it doesn't, the two bodies will appoint a conference committee to try to hammer out a version that both can agree to. The version of the bill approved by the House would limit local or state public health orders to no more than ten days unless they are extended. But the House bill would allow statewide orders to be extended by the governor, while the Senate changed the bill to give the ability to extend health orders to the legislature rather than the governor.

Although the Senate amended the bill to give that power to the legislature, support for that idea was not unanimous. One of the senior members of the Senate, Sen. Charles Scott [R-Natrona County] questioned whether having to call the legislature into session to deal with a public health order is a good idea.

Even so, the Amended version of HB 127 easily passed the Senate on Friday. Here is how Senators voted on the bill on the third and final reading:

Ayes: ANDERSON, BITEMAN, BOUCHARD, COOPER, DOCKSTADER, DRISKILL, ELLIS, FRENCH, FURPHY, HICKS, HUTCHINGS, JAMES, KINSKEY, KOLB, MCKEOWN, SALAZAR, SCHULER, STEINMETZ, WASSERBURGER
Nays: BALDWIN, CASE, GIERAU, KOST, LANDEN, NETHERCOTT, PAPPAS, PERKINS, ROTHFUSS, SCOTT

The legislature is taking Monday off for Easter and then is slated to reconvene on Tuesday and Wednesday. A special session of the legislature is widely expected to be called for later this year, but has not yet been formally announced.