There were 503 individual bills considered by the legislature in the recently completed session (326 House Bills and 177 Senate Files). Of these, 214 (43 percent) made it through both the House and the Senate and became enrolled acts. Seventy-eight of the successful bills were sponsored by standing committees and 136 were sponsored by individual representatives or senators. The Governor has since vetoed a handful of these bills.

I was a co-sponsor on several bills and worked hard to promote some others. I was the primary sponsor of two bills, both of which made it through the legislative process and have been signed by the Governor. While neither of these bills will have major impacts on state government and did not garner news report headlines, I believe they were good bills.

The first, H.B. 175 – “Wyoming Insurance Guarantee Association Revisions” – was brought to me by the state insurance department and the insurance industry. This bill just changed some of the language in Chapter 28 of the Wyoming insurance code. Many of the changes made by this bill are to update the language to be consistent with current model language adopted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). Other than these minor language changes, the bill only made two significant changes to the insurance statute.

Two years ago, a bill was passed to increase the fee for driver’s licenses renewals to $30. The intent of H.B. 243 is to lessen the cost and time burden of renewing a driver’s license by spreading that inconvenience over five years instead of four.

The five-year renewal provision will take effect for drivers licenses renewed after July 1, 2019.