Bills would add voter requirements, expand campaign donor reporting

CHEYENNE — Will potential voters be required to live in Wyoming for at least 30 days in order to vote? Do people need to register as a PAC if they spend more than $1000 in an election?

After some heavy deliberation Thursday, members of the Legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee advanced bill drafts that could create significant changes to existing Wyoming election laws.

30-day residency requirement

Legislators forwarded a bill to next year’s budget session that, as written, would add a 30-day residency requirement prior to Election Day. It was proposed by Secretary of State Chuck Gray during the committee’s previous meeting in May.

Rep. Sandy Newsome, R-Cody, said the duration requirement could inhibit voters who weren’t registered in their previous state and failed to meet the residency requirement. If a person was 17 and just moved from Idaho, for example, but didn’t turn 18 until right before the election, Newsome worried whether they’d be able to participate in the presidential election.

The bill was amended by lawmakers to allow new Wyoming voters to at least participate in the presidential race.

Gray said he was in favor of the proposed legislation, but believed there should be a longer residency duration requirement, as well as a strong definition of a “bona fide resident,” which is repeated throughout the bill. Lawmakers realized during the meeting there was no definition of a “bona fide resident” in current Wyoming statute.

Gail Symons, who runs a political blog focused on Wyoming politics, asked if there was a real difference between a resident and a bona fide resident.

“I would say that the statutes, Mr. Chairman, should either define ‘bona fide’ itself or remove the word,” Symons said.

Gray said removing the term from the bill “weakens the statute considerably.”

Committee co-Chairman Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, who opposed the bill, said too much voter regulation would discourage people from voting.

He and Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, were the only two votes against the bill.

Expanding campaign reporting 

Current Wyoming statute says that any organization that spends over $1,000 toward an election campaign must report the expenditure as a political action committee. In order to qualify as a PAC, however, the organization must have officer positions, including a treasurer to report the expenditure.

Case said this “torturous” process created a major loophole that allowed groups of two or more individuals to donate large amounts of money toward campaigns without registering. The goal of the bill, he said, was to catch all the groups that failed to report expenditures, whether because they were unaware they needed to register or due to lack of enforcement.

“We can just catch all with this bill that says, if you spend the money, you should file it,” he said.

Yin said he believed the loophole was a major point of concern.

“Can I, as the minority floor leader, go around and ask a bunch of rich people for money and take their money, and then make expenditures and not have to report any of that?” Yin said. “From my understanding of the definition of political action committee and the definition of organization, right now I think the answer is yes.”

A bill draft forwarded by committee members, as written, would expand the definition of an organization to include “any group of two (2) or more persons that ... pools or otherwise jointly expends funds totaling in aggregate more than ($1000).”

The proposed legislation would allow groups to report campaign expenditure or electioneering communication without registering as a PAC.

Gray pushed back on the bill and said it stirred major constitutional concern regarding political speech under the First Amendment.

“This bill...essentially opens the door to a wave of uncertainty and overbred reporting requirements for individuals engaging in political speech,” Gray said.

He agreed that the current PAC definition needed work but did not believe this was the right way to do it.

“If we want to address this issue, maybe we need to go into the definition of a PAC and address it that way,” Gray said.

Stephen Klein, an attorney for the Wyoming Liberty Group, said there were “many problems” with campaign finance laws in Wyoming, including the state’s current definition of PAC, which he considered unconstitutional.

“For the purposes of this bill, it is another unconstitutional addition,” Klein said.

Sen. Eric Barlow, R-Gillette, suggested changing the definition of PAC to include independent expenditures from individuals, an amendment that received report from committee co-Chairman Rep. Jared Olsen, R-Cheyenne.

“Sen. Barlow is probably right on the money with the solution,” Olsen said. “Because the solution is, how are we defining a PAC?”

This bill was forwarded without that amendment, however, along with three other bill drafts related to elections to be considered in the 2024 budget session.