Anti-SLAP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) legislation provides legal mechanisms to quickly dismiss frivolous lawsuits filed to silence public participation, typically through defamation, invasion of privacy, or nuisance claims. The Uniform Public Expression Protection Act (UPEPA), developed by the Uniform Law Commission and adopted by 16 states, establishes a three-phase process: (1) defendants can file anti-SLAP motions within 60 days of filing, creating an automatic discovery stay; (2) courts evaluate whether the lawsuit stems from protected First Amendment activities; (3) if the plaintiff cannot establish a prima facie case, the motion is granted with attorney's fees awarded to the defendant. This legislation balances protecting free speech rights while preserving legitimate legal claims, addressing concerns about 'lawfare' that chills public discourse.
Joint Judiciary Committee, May 12, 2026 - AMAñadido:
All right, we will call this meeting to order. Welcome to the first meeting of the joint judiciary committee for this interim. Um just a few opening remarks.
I think everybody um here on the committee is familiar with the rules um of decorum.
the public looking out seeing all of your bright smiling faces knowing most of you have attended committee meetings you're also familiar with the rules but if you have any questions I believe there are hard hard copies by the uh agenda is that right so if you have any questions you can consult those rules obviously we want to run an efficient meeting and a respectable meeting so please keep that in mind um as you do testify today we are set uh we have a pretty good agenda if we stay on task committee, we'll get out early today and if we stay on task tomorrow, we'll get out even earlier. So, um, just bear that in mind. We've got some flex time. So, you can have some fun with these topics or you can be efficient. It's up to you.
Or you can have be fun and efficient. I suppose that's an option, too. All right, we'll go ahead and call roll.
>> Mr. Chairman, this is for the joint judiciary committee for May 12th.
Senator KGO.
>> Senator Crumb.
>> Senator Crumb.
>> Senator here.
>> Senator Hicks.
>> Excused.
>> Senator Cole >> present.
>> Representative Brady >> here.
>> Representative Bratton >> here.
>> Representative Testic >> here.
>> Representative Filer >> here. Representative Kelly >> here.
>> Representative Lean >> here.
>> Representative Singh >> here.
>> Representative Webb >> here.
>> Co-chairman Washett.
>> Chairman Olsson >> here.
>> You have a quorum, Mr. Chairman.
>> Excellent.
Mr. Cochairman, do you have any opening remarks before we get started?
>> Thank you, Mr. Cochairman. I'd just like to welcome everybody. I think we have some interesting things to discuss over this interim. Uh, I really appreciate the work of the LSO in putting together our uh, package for this meeting. A lot of work went into that and I very much appreciate the the staff support. And with that, let's get rolling.
>> All right, with that committee, we will dive into our first topic, which is strategic lawsuits against public participation.
Um, I will note Mr. Meyer, you are the only person on this topic in person.
Everybody else chose to appear by Zoom.
So, if you choose to leave and appear by Zoom, it won't be unusual. Just [laughter] >> Okay. Very good. All right. With that, we do have a legislative service office memo. Let's go through. Let's start with that.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman, co-chairman, and members of the committee. and Tamara Kola with the legislative service office. We've prepared a topic summary um on the topic of strategic lawsuits against public participation also called SLAPS and anti-SLAP legislation. We have were asked to focus on specifically the topic of the model or uniform act um for the consideration of the committee. So, I'll just dive into a brief overview of what that model legislation does, how it works, and then I would like to touch on briefly some legislation that has been passed by surrounding states and uh highlight some differences that they've chosen and how those differences play out um in practice.
As we've already seen, uh SLAP stands for strategic lawsuits against public participation. Slaps often come in the form of defamation, invasion of privacy, nuisance, or similar lawsuits sounding in tort. They arise out of many legal arenas, but most likely to arise in issues or that are controversial or of great public concern. Slaps are often involve large corporations or interest groups who use the judicial process to tie up their political opponents in expensive litigation for months or years at a time that are meant to discourage participation. The purpose of anti-SLAP legislation is to prevent or quickly dispose of those types of malicious or frivolous lawsuits. Anti-SLAP laws vary in detail. Um the legislators can do a lot of different uh details, but generally they do four things. Number one, allow for the expeditious dismissal of claims prior to full adjudication on the merits. Number two, they create an automatic stay of pre-trial procedures including discovery and sometimes other pre-trial hearings or motions. Um, so in interrogatories, requests for production of documents, subpoenas, all of those are frozen while the court determines the anti-slap motion. The third thing that these laws do is allow for the recovery of costs and attorneys fees incurred by the defendant or the person who is bringing the anti-slap motion.
And number four, they allow, excuse me, [clears throat] for the immediate interlocatory appeal of an order denying an anti-slap motion. Some states have also provided for statutory impunitive damages or also called exemplary damages to be awarded to a successful movement.
And that's of course to deter further actions of similar nature. As of April 2026, 39 states um have enacted anti-slap laws and uh you can see in the materials that have been provided all of the a list of all of those laws and where you can find them. Two states, Washington and Minnesota, have had their original anti-slab legislation held uncon unconstitutional by their own state supreme courts. And I will touch briefly on the reason why those were ruled unconstitutional. Um so moving into the uniform or the model law which is called the uniform public expression protection act or the upkeep. Again, you've been provided uh committee the national conference of commissioners on uniform state laws. um materials which go into great detail as to exactly why it was crafted the way it was and can give you some guidance as to [clears throat] what would be most appropriate in Wyoming if you're considering adopting a similar law.
And you can see on the screen um right now we've got a flowchart that's was provided in those materials which is helpful for figuring out exactly what these phases of the anti-slap motion are are. So generally it's considered that they're in three phases. The first phase is after a lawsuit is filed, the the slap law, the slap lawsuit, that the defendant or the person who's being sued, and a note about the language there, it gets rather confusing rather quickly because any party to a lawsuit can actually bring an anti-slabotion. If you are the defendant and you have filed a counter claim against the plaintiff when you answered, then you raised you could raise potentially a slap counter claim, which would be then subject to an anti-slap motion filed by the plaintiff.
For the ease of trying to understand the flow of the motion, we've just called it the defendant and the plaintiff throughout here. But you'll notice on the spread or on the flowchart behind me that it talks about the movement and the non-movement. The movement is the person who brought the motion. It could be the defendant. It could be the plaintiff. It gets a little confusing. Again, I'll try and try and keep it as clear as I can.
So, once filed um the lawsuit, the the defendant or the person who's had the claim filed against them has 60 days.
And again, these details can be changed.
Uh 60 days is the general that I that I've seen most jurisdictions go with and that's because they want to keep it towards the beginning of the lawsuit.
The part of the point is the expeditious process. So within 60 days they can file their anti-slap motion. It's a motion to dismiss, to quash, or to strike. In Wyoming, it would likely be a motion to dismiss. Uh the the anti-slap motion then creates an automatic stay or freeze of the discovery as we discussed. and the court um will move to excuse me the defendant then has the burden um so the person who filed the anti-slap motion has the burden of proving that the anti-slab statute applies and the way that you determine whether the anti-slab statute applies is there's a list of categories that the the defendant says I was engaging in my protected rights free speech petitioning the government for participating in public activity. And this lawsuit is a direct result of my participation in these protected rights.
And once they establish that, then the burden again shifts from the defendant to the plaintiff. And the plaintiff has an opportunity to say, "Oh, but I I'm in one of the exceptions to the act." The except the exceptions to the act include if it's being if you're suing the government, if the government is suing you, [laughter] or if it's just commercial goods. So the the first example is, you know, if the if you're suing the government for violating your rights for defamation or whatever, the government can't turn around and say, "No, we have the right to do that." So that that's strictly out. The second one is if the government is enforcing a law or something in the benefit of the public. Um and that's another exception that the anti-SLAP motion will be denied.
The third one is commercial speech broadly is not protected by the government. So, if there's an instance where, for example, um, somebody sues a company for false advertisement and they're trying to sell their goods or services, that company can't turn around and say, "I was just protecting. I was just, you know, doing my free speech."
They don't have a free speech right to commercial speech um, or to false advertisement. So, this anti-SLAP legislation would not apply in that situation.
So, if the defendant or sorry, excuse me, if the plaintiff or the non-movement um is able to show that one of those exceptions applies, then the anti-slap motion is um denied and the person who brought the motion, the defendant has an a right to immediately appeal that to a higher court.
If not, then the if they decide not to, then the case will proceed as normal.
The discovery stay is lifted. It goes on to the next phase. Excuse me. Um I'm I'm sorry. I'm trying not to get confused in myself and anybody else. I apologize.
The court concludes if the court concludes the defendant didn't meet its burden, the court denies the anti-slap motion and the defendant can't appeal.
If the court concludes that the defendant did meet the initial burden, um, as I said, they can show that there there's an exception. If the plaintiff fails to meet that that burden, so they can't show that there there's an exception, the court proceeds to the second phase of the analysis. So the second phase of the analysis, um, the court considers whether the plaintiff can make a primmaaccia case for the lawsuit, the original lawsuit by establishing an initial showing of every element of the cause of action. So, for example, if the lawsuit is for defamation, the plaintiff will need to set forth facts and allegations that if true would prove the defendant established statements to a third party or sorry, published statements to a third party, that the statements were false that the statements injured the plaintiff's reputation and that the plaintiff suffered damages. So if they can set forth facts that survive that primaascia um evaluation, the court will then if they can't do that, the court will then determine that the the plaintiff has not met all of its burdens and the anti-slap motion is granted. The case or the cause of action is dismissed and it's dismissed with prejudice which means they cannot refile it. the defendant then the person who brought the motion, the anti-slap motion, is entitled to recover attorney's fees um and costs.
And this is one of those uh areas where there's room for uh unique application.
Some some states have made it so that the defendant can is entitled to recover their costs just for bringing the anti-slat motion. Some have said that they can recover their cost attorney's fees for everything that they had to do to appear and defend um against the lawsuit. So, and sometimes when there's many claims and multiple parties, that can get a lot more complicated and a lot higher costs. If the court determines that the plaintiff has met the burden um and has shown that they've got a primmaaccia case for the original cause of action, we go to the next phase. Next phase of the uniform act is that the burden of proof shifts again back to the defendant or the party who filed the anti-slap motion to show that the plaintiff does not have a legally viable case. The defendant can do this by showing that the plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted or that there are no genuine issues of material fact and the defendant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. And uh I'm sure all the lawyers are familiar with those terms.
The first one is the standard for dismissal under the rules of civil procedure 12B6. And the second is the standard for summary judgement under rule 56. So presumably the courts would use similar reasoning to evaluate those claims and determine whether uh the case that the lawsuit should be dismissed under those terms. So the defendant can still succeed even if the plaintiff shows that they've got a primmaaccia case. If they can deter show that even if all of the facts that the plaintiff presents are true, then they still don't have a case. They still can't win. So if that's if they're successful again, the the case is dismissed without prejudice. And if the defendant does, sorry, the defendant meets the burden, the cause of action is dismissed, the defendant is entitled to recover cost and attorney's fees and the plaintiff can appeal at the conclusion of the case. So again, if that takes care of all of the causes of action that that plaintiff has against that defendant, then they can appeal immediately. If not, they have to wait until the rest of the case is concluded to defi to appeal this decision. If the defendant fails to carry the burden, the anti-slap motion is denied and the defendant is entitled to immediate interlocatory appeal of that decision. So, the defendant or the person who made the anti-slap motion does not have to wait until the case is finally adjudicated. They can go ahead and appeal immediately.
Um, under the the upipa, the attorney's fees, costs, and expenses related to filing the anti-slap motion must be awarded to the defendant if the motion is granted. On the other hand, the plaintiff is only entitled to recover attorney's fees, costs, and expenses if the court finds that the motion was frivolous or filed solely with the intent to delay the proceedings.
My review of uh the the the state laws that we've looked at for the purposes of this topic summary found that that that's pretty uniform that that kind slightly unequal in the terms of who gets attorney's fees, but it seems to be pretty well established that that's how everybody's done it.
All right. Um, and I guess I can stop there for a second and if you have any questions about the this UPIPA process in particular, >> Representative Chester, go ahead.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the summary. Um, excellent summary.
I'm just a little confused about the phase three. Um because [clears throat] as I understand it when uh a motion is filed discovery this is filed very early in the case before any discovery really has started and the discovery is is stopped. Um but then in phase three uh we have the summary judgment standard which usually happens after discovery has occurred and you know you go to the court and say well with all this discovery we can now say there is no genuine issue material fact. How can you make that showing that early in the case before any discovery has happened?
>> Thank you Mr. Chairman. Representative Testic, that's an excellent question and in fact some of the courts have struggled with that very question themselves. There there is a problem and in Wyoming we do have case law that's well established that summary judgement is often inappropriate before uh discovery is completed. And the way that the the commissioners have have talked about it in in the model materials is they make it clear that even though it it may seem like what they're asking the the court to do is to weigh the evidence, they're not in fact doing that. Some states have also allowed um for the parties to request additional discovery or if it's just discovery related to the anti-slap motion itself and the court has discretion to allow limited discovery which somewhat gets around it. But I I do think that it's something of concern um that a lot of courts have struggled with in determining whether it's appropriate to actually rule on summary judgement or that summary judgement standard of no genuine issues without h giving the parties an opportunity to fully flush out the the facts and discovery. So, and a lot of a lot of times I think that we've seen attempts by other state legislators to add language that, you know, defines whether they should be reasonably likely to succeed. And that's even run into more trouble, which I'll talk about a little bit more on some of these other cases. But I think that's something that the legislators have struggled with and the courts more have tried to find the balance where what is our what how are we going to do this? So I think that there are some guidance that you can see in here that [clears throat] would help uh courts if you can word it in such a way that you're directing the courts to either allow some some limited discovery on this issue if there's anything specific um or to you know maybe at that point it would just have to be a denial of uh the anti-slab motion because if they're if they don't have the facts yet then they can't meet that burden of summary. judgement.
I hope that answers the question.
>> Senator Cole.
>> Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, I'm going to try to phrase this because I'm not an attorney, so pardon me if I don't get it quite right, but the issue about equity in fees between the both parties, why does it slightly favor one party over the other? And if that's the case, what is the justification? How could that I I guess as a person who always looks at balance, how could it be correct to favor one party over the other instead of treating them equally?
So, is there an explanation on I guess what other states have done and why they've done it? Has it stood up to the test of uh the courts? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>> Tamara, >> thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Cole. I that's another excellent question. I think that the difference lies in the the issues of who what behavior is being deterred or prevented versus um also a determination of whether the lawsuit itself is frivolous versus whether the anti-slap motion was frivolous. I think that the balance shifting or the cost shifting is is played out in the fact that well [sighs] I'll start let me back up just a little bit. Some states have um made it mandatory that the the person who brings an anti-slap motion who is successful is entitled to must be granted attorneys fees and costs. And some states have left it more discretionary. that is always an option to allow the court discretion to determine whether the facts of each specific case justify an award of attorneys fees or costs um depending on how egregious the the lawsuit was. If it's all on its face, you know, there was no there was no cause of action here, then the court can say, "Well, that was frivolous and we're going to award attorney's fees." Or they could say, "We we think that it doesn't justify attorneys fees in this instance." So, that is it. It really is a matter of what the legislators have determined u what kind of behavior or what kind of lawsuits they want to deter um or prevent and so that the cost of attorney's fees is an added deterrence in those cases. Does that answer your question, >> Senator Cole?
>> Yeah, thank you Mr. Chairman. Well, not really in in a scenario where um I'll just put it this way. You have a person filing an anti-SLAP lawsuit who's frivolous and then the other party has to then represent themselves and defend themselves against that slap lawsuit that indeed was frivolous.
Why wouldn't the other party be in and maybe I'm not reading this right wouldn't be entitled to all legal fees associated with defending themselves against an frivolous anti-SLAP lawsuit.
That's really my question. or or is that already in envisioned in this uh bill build bill draft or your information?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>> Tamara, >> thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Cole.
That um I think that there there's a little confusion. It just does get so confusing when we talk about the different uh move motions and lawsuits.
The anti-slap is a motion that is filed inside of another lawsuit. It's not it's a separate lawsuit. So when somebody files a defamation CA case, for example, that's the slap lawsuit. That's the one that's frivolous. And so then the anti-slap motion is filed by the person, by the defendant who says, "This is a frivolous lawsuit. I shouldn't have to pay for this." And that is why the the most of the laws allow that once the defendant files that motion and says, "This is a this is a slap lawsuit and and it's frivolous and here's why." and then the court says, "Yes, it's a it's a frivolous lawsuit. We're going to dismiss it." Then the defendant is entitled to recover all of their attorneys fees for having to bring that motion. It's only if the anti-slap motion itself was also frivolous. So, if it was a legitimate defamation claim, they legitimately defamed somebody and then the defendant brought an anti-slap motion, but then the court said, "No, your anti-slap motion is the frivolous one." Then under those circumstances, the plaintiff can recover just the attorney's fees and costs that they incurred in defending against that motion.
I hope that cleared it up a little.
>> Representative Lee.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, I kind of want to jump back to page two where it says establish a mechanism in civil procedure at the bottom. Um, could you walk me through what does Wyoming have now for our citizens who are being challenged in any number of claims that would be covered under an anti-slap laws statute since we do not have anti-slap?
>> Mr. Chairman, Representative Lean, uh, we do have already um in the rules of civil procedure in Wyoming, which are pretty much mirror of the federal rules of civil procedure, we have mechanisms for motions to dismiss. um already rules of civil procedure uh 12b6 allows for a similar um analysis which is that if the plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted which means even if all of the facts that they allege in their complaint are true there's just not a cause of action there's nothing the court can do about it and so that will be dismissed already and those are brought generally speaking a motion to dismiss needs to be brought by the defendant before or at the same time that they file their answer. So that's very early on in the case. And in in my practice, I I think that if litigants in or if let litigators in Wyoming had anti-SLAP available to them, um they would be more likely to add it to their all their motion to dismiss that they were already going to file in the case anyways. And then again um towards the l later as we were discussing earlier with representative chestic there's an opportunity for litigants to file a motion for summary judgement after discovery and a motion for summary judgement says we know all the facts we're we there's no genuine dispute about what happened and one side or the other is entitled to judgment just because that's what the law declares it to be in this case. There are other several other um types of motions to dismiss. The the 12B6 failure to state a claim is the most common one.
>> All right. Any other questions?
Committee, you want to follow up.
Representative Lane, go ahead.
[clears throat] >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, shifting gears, I want to talk about the uniform protection expression, the uniform public expression protection act that you were speaking about. And I would like to know, um, could you just remind me, you talked about its protections. Is it all five of your of your first amendment rights that it protects?
>> Mr. Chairman, Representative Vle, that's uh, totally up to the legislature. you could legislature you can determine um some states have only protected petitioning the government. Um some have opened it up to all your first amendment rights and some have just expressed you know a few of them. The most common are freedom of expression and speech, freedom of association and freedom the right to petition the government for redress. So, those are the three main areas where you'll see it. But I I've heard um talk of of you know perhaps whether freedom of religion might come into these at some point. I'm I haven't seen any cases that myself I haven't looked for them either, but I haven't seen any cases that address that specific one. But generally speaking, we're talking about freedom of expression and the right to u be participate in the political process.
All right. In the interest of time, I don't I'm going to have you I don't want you to go through the state byst state bystate comparison, but I think it's important that we address the constitutionality issues with Washington and Minnesota. Um I think we're very much interested in the uniform law.
That's why um I think that's important because if I understood you correctly, those states then went to the uniform law after they after their their state statutes were found unconstitutional.
So, if you could just walk us through that part of your memo, that'd be great.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um that is exactly correct. Um I'll start with Washington. Uh the state of Washington enacted their um strategic lawsuit against public participation um act in 2010 originally and they had based theirs on they copied California's a little bit but they notably changed some of the the language which required plaintiffs who had filed the original lawsuit to when they were responding to anti-slap motion that they had to prove by clearing and convincing evidence that their lawsuit was uh probable to result in a favorable decision for them, which the Washington Supreme Court in Davis versus Cox uh I believe that was in 2015 or 2017 uh held that the the structure of their um their scheme for that that that law effectively put the burden of determining what the facts of the case were on the judge, excuse me, rather than the jury. And in the usual course of things, lawsuits, especially those where people have a right to a jury trial, it's the jury that is the finder of fact. And so it's not the judge determines what the law is and it's 100% the judge's decision to say what the law means and interpret the law for that case. But the jury is the is the determiner of what happened. And so if they have to weigh the evidence and determine which party is right, that's the jury's job, not the judges.
Uh in the general course of things, so this law by saying that the the plaintiff in defending against an anti-slack motion had to establish by clear and convincing evidence a probability of prevailing on the claim.
The court said this is different than a summary judgement because in a summary judgement the court isn't deciding what the facts of the case were. The court is just saying you guys aren't arguing about the facts so we can we can decide the matter. And so the that anti-SLAP legislation was basically taking the factf finding rule and putting it in the court and that the Supreme Court said you that's not constitutional. It violates their right to jury trial. it violates violates their right to due process as well in many instances. So it that was uh struck down and then in 2021 Washington enacted a version of the UPIPA and also Minnesota is very similar. They had very similar uh language in their legislation that required the [clears throat] excuse me, the court to weigh the evidence essentially and determine whether there was a probability or clear and convincing evidence um that the responding party would be likely to win in the end. And that of course exceed it goes beyond the the point of the anti-slap motion is to not decide this on the merits because it's a frivolous lawsuit. If you have to go all the way to deciding the merits, it kind of defeats the purpose and it more importantly runs a foul of the constitutional right to a jury. And so that would be the the difference between the upipa is that it doesn't ask the court to weigh the evidence. It asks just to decide in a summary manner what the law is and whether the law applies to uh the situation rather than whether the facts decide it >> that I have thank you. The uniform act has been adopted in 16 states. Correct.
>> Yes.
>> And has the uniform act ever been challenged in a in the Supreme Court?
Was that in your memo?
Um I there if there have been challenges they have not been successful. I I noted at least one challenge to um Arizona's um which is similar in many ways. The upipa has a lot of similar uh the the phases and the way that it functions um but the court that had received the challenge uh was the United States District Court for Arizona and they have a long-standing law that they don't decide the constitutionality of state statutes unless they absolutely have to. So they've declined to do that in that case. So there is some buzz out there that there might be portions of some of these acts that are um that could be challenged, but I haven't seen any successful challenges yet.
>> Great. I see that in your memo on page why don't I see page numbers? Page page six is up at the top. So page six has the legal challenge to the Arizona law.
Thank you. Any other questions, committee?
All right. Well, we appreciate all your research on it. We're not done yet. I think as we progress on this topic, we're definitely going to be leaning on you for for your expertise that you have so far in developed in this. Um, it's definitely there's a lot to it. Um, it's definitely a complicated procedural matter, I think, for us to wrap our brains around, especially for I I think so for lawyers, but definitely for non- lawyers. There's quite a bit here. So, thank you.
All right, with that, I think we will jump into testimony from our Uniform Law Commission. So, Mr. Meyer, let's let Allison in and then um I know that you introduced Brian Lenny is Lany to us, but we'll bring him in separately. Let's just I want to start with just the commission first.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. Scott Meyer on behalf of the Uniform Laws Commission was one of Wyoming's commissioners.
I really can't give a whole lot more than what the excellent work that LSO did and I think applaud them for for the uh the work that they did do.
I think one of the things, you know, we we talk about the pros and cons of of of of anti-SLAP legislation in general, but I think one of the biggest cons out there against this stuff is the fact that it's it's it's inconsistent application across different across state lines. So on behalf of the uniform laws commission, we would encourage the legislature and this committee to look at specifically the uniform act and I think has been mentioned it's already been adopted by several other states. Uh has been su has been challenged once not successfully but I think that it addresses a lot of those issues that I think that we talk about in in within within the cons especially when it comes to procedural complexity. I think it has a much straightforward layout of how it works. Um, but I think that one of the things that is different than I think even the proposed bill that was last year is that and this is probably more for you, Mr. Chairman, and and Senator KGO and Representative Chestig, but this is focuses more on on motion practice, which I think is more important, at least in the state of Wyoming, on how this works. Um, I I I look at this and say, how can we make this as simple as we can and yet still protect all the interests that we have out there.
I would uh I would try to address any of your questions, but I will tell you right off the bat as I looked through this stuff, I know that there was some questions especially for Mr. Chestnik, Representative Chestnik, regarding um discovery. And I think that um at least under the Uniform Act under 4D, they talk about that the judiciary has the discretion. And I think that's the important part of this thing is to say, look, yes, we don't want to go gung-ho wild with discovery, but at the same time, we want to make sure that we have enough out there to make sure we can make an informed decision. And I think that that in itself is is probably really going to be burdensome a little bit on the judiciary to make sure that they get this right because you're going to see a lot of people arguing about that I think at some point in time. Um, and I will say also that as I look through this thing, um, I think, uh, Senator Colby had a question, your question regarding fees, and it is designed to make sure that the fees for the one that's that that's saying I've got I'm getting sued wrongly, uh, to have a chance to collect those fees. But it also has an opportunity to say, wait, time out. If we look at this and everything is right, that maybe you don't get all those fees. But it is trying to side on probably on the little guy most the guy that's trying to have to defend himself. Um and with that members of the committee I'd certainly stand for any questions. I'm no expert on slap or this act. I mean I've read through it and under and read it and understand it but um the little nuances I think that'll be more borne out as we go through and and we see a proposed bill.
Mr. Meer, the thing about the Uniform Act that is very inviting to me is the fact, well, one that it's been enacted in 16 states, but more importantly is the lack of challenge that it's had in the court system. Seeing that two other states reversed course and went to the uniform law after their states were challenged, that was my biggest concern when this legislation was introduced to us two years ago was um the that it could be challenged. Um and it was it was there's a world of un there's a lot of unknown when you get into crafting this legislation on your own. Um, so I think the the fact that the uniform law is basically tested in 16 states is makes me feel a lot more comfortable.
>> I think Mr. Chairman, you're exactly right. And when you look at the the process and you know I'm just finishing up a third year of being a commissioner but watching the process of how this goes and it's not just something that's done over months but usually over years and the amount of of of input that they receive not only from the commissioners but from legislators from judiciary from academia all that stuff to been there I think that you're right Mr. chairman that it really does make it a much better bill and it is not near as easily challenged successfully.
>> Representative Chesterik.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Meyer, thank you for being here. Um, and I I have to say I also share the the the chair's preference for the Uniform Act. The way we did the House actually passed the bill last year. I voted for it, but I like this bill better to be honest. I'll be very frank. Um, one of the things about the prior bill that that confused me, I voted for it anyway, but I was still uncertain about it was the concept in the prior bill was that uh number one, you need a new lawsuit.
But number two, it was that that the concept was of immunity that rather than having a motion, you were um the new statute granted immunity from suit. Uh, which is a weird concept in this context. And the explanation I got when I asked that question in this committee u earlier this year was that the immunity was designed to establish this as a substantive right under Wyoming law that would apply in federal court as well as state court. Um and u therefore it was trying trying to protect the the anti-slap rights even if somebody's in federal court where because otherwise it's a procedural matter and the and the federal rules would apply in federal court. So this is an attempt to get around that that issue. What is your reaction? Do you do you agree with that or what is your reaction to that um idea of using the concept of immunity to cement um state rights in federal court?
>> Mr. Mayor.
>> Yeah, Mr. Chairman, uh Representative Chestic, I first I'll tell you I I agree with you on on um the whole term of immunity. It just seems foreign to me because it really doesn't apply to something like this. And I think that's why it's important with the motion practice that we we have motions to dismiss. And maybe it's with prejudice or without prejudice. In this case, it would be with prejudice. But I think that those are the issues uh that I think we're most likely to deal with. I think from a federal standpoint, I have uh yet to be even if it's federal rules of civil procedure, but if we had an anti-slap statute, I I I would fail to see that the federal judiciary would not look at that and say, "Well, this is in Wyoming and we're going to apply Wyoming law." We may not file Wyoming procedures. We have our federal procedures, but because this is a statute, I think they would definitely look at it.
>> Please go ahead. Representative Chistik, >> would it matter whether the basis for federal jurisdiction is federal question or diversity?
>> Uh, Mr. Chairman, Representative Chestic, I'm not sure that it would.
Yeah.
>> Representative Lean.
>> Thank [snorts] you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for joining us today. Mr. Meyer, my question is about inconsistent application of the law. Could you give us an example where anti-SLAP has been inconsistently applied? Mr. >> Mr. Chairman, Representative Lean, I'm not sure I can um because I have not I haven't done nearly as much comparison stuff as LSO has done. But I will tell you that it just seems that every time we get into one of these things that that we just try to do on our own in every other state, there just we're not sure what's going to happen if across the lines into Colorado or if if plaintiff comes from Utah or whatever, how that applies. And so I can't give you any specific examples, Representative. I just know that in my practice over the last 35 years has been that it just seems like um that there's always these inconsistencies that cause a lot of questions on how we do it.
>> Yeah.
>> All right. Does your partner Allison have anything that she wants to bring to the table?
>> Mr. Chairman, I'm hoping she bails me out here.
>> She might bail you out.
>> She might help me, too.
>> Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Uh I hope to be both entertaining and efficient. as you stated, uh Allison Gee, a commissioner for the Uniform Law Commission on behalf of the state of Wyoming. I had a couple of comments I wanted to make. First, uh the I think it's helpful to start with the purpose of bills like these. So uh I found some uh comments out of Texas which doesn't have the uniform law but I think uh captures the essence of what uh this body is trying to achieve that the purpose is to encourage and safeguard the constitutional rights of persons to petition, speak freely, associate freely and otherwise participate in government to the maximum extent permitted by law and at the same time protect the rights of a person to file meritorious ious or good lawsuits for demonstrable injury.
And so what what the uniform law has attempted to do is to balance those interests so that we're protecting people who have good litigation that they want to file while protecting others against being harassed by wasteful litigation. Uh and hopefully that's helpful to our court system as well.
One of the items that I found most helpful is the limitation on discovery in this proposed act. And while has been represented or pointed out by representatives this morning, it could be problematic. I believe that our judges in application of this law would do a good job of balancing the interest of the litigants because they are subject to appeal if they don't provide sufficient access to discovery to determine whether the litigation should proceed or not. So I actually see that as a strength of this law. Those were the two points I wanted to address.
>> Any questions for Miss G? Yes, Representative Lean. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Miss Gee, for joining us today. I didn't hear you mention religious freedom in your statement, and I was curious to know if you could cite any harm that could potentially come from leaving the the fifth right out of uh uniform law protection.
>> Thank you, Representative Lean. Mr. Chairman, uh I have not, as uh uh my colleague, Mr. Meyer stated, we did not participate in uh studying and uh approving this act. It came before the Uniform Law Commission before we were on the commission. I don't know if there was testimony on that point, Representative Lean, and uh I don't have a position one way or the other on it. I do note that it is the only one of the five uh as you stated on the first amendment that was left out of that list. Perhaps it's that there hasn't been any litigation on that point. I'm I'm unsure. Thank you, >> Mr. Mayor.
>> Yes, Mr. Chairman. Representative >> Whoops.
Representative Lean, I want to remind I guess the the committee though, but if you look back at at like the adoption of of the Uniform Act for for limited liability companies or we looked at the model act for the corporations, Wyoming is very famous for doing its own home cooking. So there's just because it's not in the uniform act doesn't mean that that this committee can't decide that this is what we want to add.
Any other questions for our uniform law commission?
All right committee. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Meyer. Thank you Allison.
>> Thank you. Let's bring in Senator Brian Lenny Len.
Mr. determined if the senator could accept my request to promote him, then we can get him to join the meeting.
>> All right, there we go.
>> Welcome, Senator.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh just for for the record, uh Brian Lenny, state senator for uh district 13 in Idaho. Uh happy to speak on this been it's been interesting listening to the to the test uh testimony so far this morning. Um because it's what we went through for the last two years, all the same questions and everything like that. So um I just wanted to talk briefly on our experience. you know, I spearheaded um Idaho's effort to get this done. We started last year my bill uh anti-slap bill and essentially the same bill, the uniform law commission bill. I don't I I for the record, I don't like all uniform uh law commission bills, but some of them are good and some of them are I'm not a fan of, but this one I'm a big fan of. And uh we tried it last year. It died on the Senate floor. That was great. My mom was in the gallery and everything watching and uh died for political purposes.
We'll just say that. And then we came back this year with the same exact bill.
And out of 105 legislators in Idaho, it only got one no vote. So, we passed it this year and it became the essentially the same act you're studying became law in Idaho. Uh signed into law last year and it became effective January 1st of this year. So, it's been it's it's been law in Idaho effectively for about five months now. Um, [clears throat] I wanted to get in just again I don't want to take up ton tons of your time and but I did want to get into more of the why I pursued this and and who the bill protects and obviously I can answer questions on what the bill does or any kind of but I I think I think this might connect some dots for you. So, I learned about uh anti-SLAP in 2021.
I had no idea the actual term itself. I had no idea what that was. Um I was actually speaking to someone at the Institute for Free Speech and uh about something entirely different and he said uh hey, you know, Idaho Idaho is one of the only there's at the time I I know it's the number has changed, but he said Idaho is one of the only states that doesn't have a uh anti-slap provision.
And I said, "What what is an anti? I don't even know what that means.
Anti-SLAP."
And I think in layman's terms, it's helpful to just look at it because this is what it is. It's just a bogus lawsuit, a sham lawsuit, like a a lawsuit that can't stand on its own two legs. Um, and a slap lawsuit is something where the goal isn't necessarily the person bringing that lawsuit, the goal isn't necessarily to win the case, but to punish someone for for for exercising their first amendment rights. Um, so this does not get this was a big a big problem we ran into in Idaho. um as far in committees and stuff uh people said so wait if we pass this are we then are people allowed to commit slander and defamation and the answer is no. Um this this is not about slander or defamation. It's about bogus lawsuits that clearly on their face are just ridiculous. Um, actually one of the biggest anti-SLAP lawsuits we see brought, and I'm going to give you an example of this here shortly in Idaho, like a a real example of a a suit going on right now is uh public forums. I don't like something you said at the town hall meeting, therefore I'm going to sue you. That type of thing. Um, so like I said, we got it done with bipartisan support. Um, obviously if if we only had one no vote in both the Senate and the House. And something that appealed to me initially on this when I started looking into it in 2021 2022 is this at least the the uniform law bill has massive support from everyone from the ACLU all the way to we have groups on the left right and center and I think that's because no matter where you're at on the political spectrum you know free speech obviously matters to everybody and the first amendment is something that we all hold dear so this is one of those rare bills bills that didn't really have any formal opposition in Idaho. Uh so that's kind of why I got into it. I I just said, you know, hey, I I think Idaho should have something in place. I mean, at the time it was only 18 states didn't have that. So, um briefly, and and some of this has already been mentioned briefly, who the bill protects, it's just everyday people. You know, we see these slap lawsuits. the bo I I'll just I like to call them bogus lawsuits because it it kind of makes more sense but we see them brought by individuals and organizations. So just think um powerful people with andor or organizations with a lot of money and time and resources who are trying to intimidate people or silence silence critics for example. Um, and like I said, the these lawsuits aren't nec some of these people in in studying these when you really go down the rabbit hole as you guys are on, you know, with this committee, some of these lawsuits aren't meant to to uh not meant to win. They're they're meant to make it expensive and or time consuming for the person enduring it, the defendant on the other end. And some people will bring the lawsuits knowing they're going to lose because the punishment or the process is the punishment. So they said, "Hey, we're going to lose in the end maybe, but not before we run run this run the bill up for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and drag this person through court for a year and a half." So again, these are the types of of of situations that an anti-SLAP is meant to stop. And uh Mr. Mr. Chair, with uh permission here, I I did want to read an email I got from a doctor in my area, if that's okay, who who I think this directly will uh maybe help the committee understand kind of what type of case that we're dealing with here.
Is that all right if I read that, Mr. Chair?
>> Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
>> Okay. So, I [clears throat] I weirdly received this email last week and then the next day um or two days later I got I got invited to come speak to the committee here. So, timing wise was perfect. But this is a this is an email from a gentleman uh a few districts south of me. I did change the name of I did change his name, city he lives in, and business name, but everything else is is original to the email. I just I didn't want to, you know, put his name out there like that. So, I got this email last week. Senator Lenny, I wanted to take a moment to write you a personal note of gratitude. My name is Dr. John Doe. I'm a doctor in town name and the owner of Acme Supply, a 20 year or I'm sorry, excuse me, a 20 acre commercial property. I also run the uh a 110year-old family practice now in its fourth generation. Earlier this year, a developer received conditional approval from the city for a 96 unit housing project directly adjacent to my property. The approval process contained procedural deficiencies. The city did not follow its own statutes and my company was never notified of the hearing as required by Idaho code. We were denied the opportunity to participate. I did what any property owner should be able to do. I filed a request for reconsideration through the proper legal channels exercising my constitutional right to petition the government for redress of grievances. In response, the developers attorney sent a letter threatening a torturous interference law uh interference lawsuit explicitly condition on the withdrawal of our administrative filing. The message was clear. Stop participating or face litigation. Senator, that is the exact scenario your legislation was designed to address. Again, this this our bill went into effect January 1st of this year. Senate Bill 100001, the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, gave my family and our attorney the confidence to stand firm knowing that Idaho law now provides expedited dismissal and automatic discovery stay and mandatory fee shifting for meritless suits aimed at silencing public participation changed the calculus entirely. Your legislation turned a threat into a liability for the party making it. I wanted you to hear that that directly from a constituent whose rights your work is actively protecting.
Legislation legislation like this matters most when it reaches the people it was written for and it has reached us. If there's ever an opportunity to ever an opportunity to share this experience in support of the acts continued application or if I can be of service to you in any way, I'd welcome that conversation. Sincerely, Dr. John Doe.
And I've gotten several messages like that similar to that just just this year from people saying hey and and weirdly one of them was from a lawyer saying am I understanding this correctly. So I think another thing that would be important for the committee to um to do which which was very helpful for me. I worked directly with the state supreme court with the administrative office of the supreme court and I came to them very early on and I said hey here's what we're thinking about doing. how will this affect your the operations of your court? And they they just had little tiny tweaks that didn't change the substance of the bill, but I I didn't want to just, you know, if the bill passed, I didn't just want to come and say, "Hey, here's a new thing. Figure it out." So, as the bill passed and during committee, um, when it passed, when the governor signed it into law last year, they were fully aware of it, fully ready, and they did ask for 6 months for the law to take effect because, as you can imagine, putting something like this in place, you have to train the judges, the court staff, uh, things like that. So, you know, we did we did make that effective January 1st instead of what we usually do, which is July 1st. And I'm almost done here, Mr. chairman, I appreciate your listening to me. Um, but uh, you know, there's there's more I could say.
I think it's already been been said, though. Um, this bill, the Uniform Act, basically does four things. Like I said, it protects people's first amendment rights. um where they can engage in first amendment rights, speak out at town halls, publish. I had one review someone I had one person getting sued because a business didn't like their Yelp review. Um so this just it this protects people's rights um to express themselves publicly without uh you know retaliation, things like that. One thing I think is helpful for everybody to know is uh there's something this is a new term I learned also. I'm not a lawyer at all, but um in the process of this, I learned there's something called litigation tourism where people might want to have a bogus lawsuit or a sham lawsuit and they'll say, "Well, we don't want to do it in Idaho because they have an anti-slap provision, but maybe we could win over here or over here because they have no anti-slap protection." So, this kind of puts up puts up the guardrail saying, "Hey, if you're going to bring that kind of lawsuit, don't bring it to our state." Um, obviously it minimizes, everybody's discussed that this morning, minimizes litigation costs um, early on. And I I like to think of it if if you look at a bogus lawsuit, and these things can last years. It's not they can be hundreds of thousands into the millions. You know, it's depending on the case. But if you look at a bogus lawsuit as a long highway, the anti-slap uh, this bill just provides an off-ramp early on. So before all the costs get racked up, before we spend months and months and hundreds of thousands in court, again as a non-awyer, um the way I look at it is this this bill just says, "Hey, let's hit pause. Let's early on in the case, let's hit pause." And then the judge gets to decide, hey, is this does this case even have any two legs to stand on? just on its face, if it's clearly absurd or ridiculous or bogus on its face, the judge is, again, layman's terms, the judge can say, "We're not this isn't even a thing. This isn't even a case. We're not going to waste time and money, and by the way, person who brought the bogus lawsuit, you now have to pay for the couple of days or weeks or whatever we did waste." So, it just um it doesn't take away the the job of the court. It doesn't take away the job of the lawyers. It does not take away the discretion of the judge as as was already discussed. It's up to the judge with with the uniform act if they can pursue some some sort of limited discovery. That came up in Idaho, too.
Uh and we said no, there there if the judge decides maybe there's some limited discovery, this bill allows for that.
But um at the end of the day, it's just another tool. We're just giving our judges and our lawyers another tool for their tool belt. They can use it. they can choose not to use it. It doesn't take away anybody's job. It just I think makes it easier in some cases. So, uh that was a lot uh Mr. Chair and and thank you for for hearing me and I'll I'll hang out for questions if if you want to do that. If not, um you know, I can uh log off here.
>> Yeah. Thank you, Senator Lenny. It was a lot. Apparently, they don't have anti-filibuster laws in Idaho.
[laughter] >> You're very good at the filibuster.
>> Yes. Thank you. questions for the senator.
All right. Well, thank you. We appreciate you zooming in and do appreciate your comments.
>> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>> All right. With that, I think we're at a place where we can move into public comment.
So, I've got a list of people on Zoom who want to comment, but let's see if we have any agencies wishing to comment.
No agencies. All right.
>> Representative Ottman, do you want to make any comments? Okay, come on up.
We'll start with you.
>> Welcome.
>> Thank you, Mr. Co-chairman's and committee. Uh it's good to be here this morning and to approach this very uh important subject for the state and we can see um a year ago there was only 10 states that didn't have anti-SLAP or did have and now there's 39. So we can see that it's a concern across our nation.
Um, I'm so glad to be here this morning to witness the work that will be and is being put forth for protection for those who have experience possible lawfare.
Where procedural errors have set criminals free, where law teams are hired at great expense to win a case.
where elections may curb an important decision and to join other states that acknowledge how our legal system is being used to expose um the attacks on our citizenry. The work that you are doing today and throughout this interim is paramount in developing and providing law that will stand up for those where anger, greed, desire to shut someone up, to break them, to take away competition, to make an example of, to destroy credibility, to discourage the weaponization of suing, to obtain out of court settlements, often for large sums of money. The list is great as is your task. The making of law is a great responsibility especially considering that the cases we are speaking of are being presented and fought for by people in the field of law. Mr. Co-chairman, both of you, my concern over this trend was brought a couple sessions ago. In an interim topic meeting, I was asked what topic I might bring. I said fraudulent lawsuits. It was not chosen at that time, but I was able to work with some skilled people and present bills to the body. This topic shows bipartisan support and support between both the House and the Senate. I am thankful for the opportunity to speak today and I'm hopeful that the weaponization of our precious first amendment constitutional rights is not a trend, dangerous trend.
I also hope that input will continue and our court system will also be blessed with a tool to eliminate some of the backlog and time spent.
Um, I wrote this today as I have so much to say and we'll just recognize that you are all sincere in your handling of this importance and will have discernment and wisdom as you go forth. Thank you and I'll stand for any questions.
>> Yes, questions for Representative Oman.
Co-chairman Wet.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative, glad you're with us today. Drove all the way down for this. Appreciate that.
>> Can you give us any Wyoming examples where somebody in Wyoming was sued in a frivolous manner in order to deter their public participation? Do we have any actual cases here in Wyoming?
Representative Otman, >> there there has been a case um recently, but it was dropped um the um let me see the plaintiffs dropped it. And also um and I don't have a list of of the names but over the last two years there has been many uh people that have called or commented on um just arguments over fence lines and people that have taken their neighbor to court and then they have both found out that this is not the best way to handle this.
when we look at 39 other states and um I ran another bill this last year um first amendment protections for medical professionals because in that particular case we do have uh people that have been either um taken off of committees taken off of >> [clears throat] >> um responsible positions um of importance and leadership um places where um research was not heard and we do have those cases. So while there is and especially going into this election there's already um evidence of many many things that are going on and bills like this can control some of that. It is my hope that not only are our first uh first amendment protections and not just to um to to say we need another law, but to say your your um weaponry of using First Amendment against people, being able to defame, being able to do all these things and call it a first amend amendment, right? Um if that can be seen quickly, I believe it will help um in the court system as well to shorten up all the cases, but also the time spent.
As the senator from um Idaho said, we're talking years of cases. The one that that was just um closed was was over a year. And so all of the time and effort spent, and we're always talking about the shortage of of judges and court system, just the organization and the um um stream I I hate to use the word streamlining, but to help that out, I believe, would be advantageous. I believe that your work is going to be very very important and very good because it affects not only individuals but companies but elections but uh businesses professionals and our health care profession of which we are really looking to bring health care providers into the state. So there's lots of reasons lots of things.
>> Any other questions? Yes. Representative Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We've heard some positive appraisals of the uniform law, uh, particularly its ability to withstand judicial scrutiny. Are you aware of any deficiencies in it that the Wyoming legislature should address?
>> Representative Ottman.
>> Thank you, Mr. uh, co-chairman and Representative Kelly. The only thing that I would say um that as I was listening this morning is that um I hope that we're careful and I wrote this down. Let me see. Um, I hope that we're careful that um we make sure we screen the cases that um where speech is a matter of public concern and that we make sure that we hear the cases. Um there a lot of this is new to me just reading the materials last night and this morning. But what I'll say is that I believe that looking for um a voice at the beginning of this to say whether or not there's merit or whether there isn't will be very very advantageous to both parties. Um I believe it will keep both of them from experiencing things that could could be very detrimental. And so I will continue to look at it and to um ask those questions. Uh we didn't um well we did talk to the attorney general's office and the supreme court.
So this is this has been supported by both the house and the senate. It has been supported by both um by both Democrats, Republicans and independents.
So, it is a concern and I believe worth following through. So, I said all that to say I'm not really sure about a lot of it, but um I know I'm getting an education. I will continue to do that and I know that this committee will as well.
>> Any other questions? Representative Lean.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for joining us today. Representative Oman, um, if memory serves me correctly, in the 26th session in the anti-SLAP legislation that you brought, there was a religious protection. Could you speak to that for just a moment?
>> Representative Botman.
>> Thank you, Mr. Co-Chairman and Representative Lean. Um I honestly I have the bill at my at my seat, but what I will say is that those protections um went primarily um in response to and this goes um to representative co-chairman as well. Those go towards people that may have stood on a sidewalk um outside of a clinic, may have written um a brochure that says that they're pro-life, maybe a candidate that says that they're pro-life, maybe at a town hall where those kind of things are um brought out for life. But as far as religion, um so many times we hear religion should not be a part of this.
Well, I would venture to say that 95% of us us 95% of us all have a religion whether it be to say we have no religion or whether we have different um different religions and that is a right that is protected and should be protected at all costs. Um, it also can bring out uh religions that we may not be pleased with, but nevertheless, that is our right as um citizens.
>> Any follow-up questions or additional questions for Representative Oman?
>> All right. Thank you.
Moving to general public comment on this. Or I guess we'll go to the governor's office.
I guess we can hear from the governor's office.
Welcome.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. Good morning.
Um, thanks for having me.
Uh first I just want to say that I thank you for stepping back from this session uh this last session and putting this forward as an interim topic. This really gives ex more opportunity for extensive public comment and it gives us the time to provide the thought and examination that this fairly complex bill I think requires and deserves. Um the governor uh supports this legislation. We do like it a lot better than than the bill last year. It is very important that we protect people's rights of free speech and um we want to make sure that they are not harassed exercising that free speech through lawsuits. Um, but as I believe uh, Miss G said, this is a balancing act and you don't want the pendulum to swing too far the other way because there are some valid defamation actions and some valid claims. Um, and so I think this we we like this act because it really seems to put that balance right in perspective and protects really both sides. So the way the act is right now, um, governor's office really doesn't have any concerns, but we understand that we always want to consider particularly Wyoming issues.
And I just want to address kind of two things that have been brought up today.
And there are the two things that gave pause to the governor's office and and one was the concept of immunity. Um, and I've had a chance to think about that a little bit since last year. And my understanding is, as you said, Representative Chesc, that the hope would this would mean that federal courts would actually apply the state's anti-slap law. Um, there is a difference in in federal courts. Some some circuits have and some circuits have not. And it is the eerie doctrine which says that in diversity cases that the federal court will apply state substantive law but apply federal procedural law. I don't know the answer to the federal question you you asked represent chestic but that's the one and so my my question there and I would start with this is very complex and I think research if this is a concept you want to include in this bill I would look to LSO and say you need to do some research. I don't know. I I did very minimal research, but I couldn't find a federal case that that considered immunity in connection with anti-slap laws. And I don't know that another state has that concept. But my first thought would be this immunity is is a procedural right. And so if the federal court's not going to consider states procedural law, I I don't know what it gets you. Um sovereign immunity is a substantive right, but that's not what we're talking about here. Sovereign immunity is for governmental entities.
And so I I have a concern about that.
Um, and then I I look at it and I I think of immunities as as applying to a particular type or group of people. You have spouses who have immunity from testifying at trial. You have you as legislators who have immunity for your actions you take. You have judges. You have diplomatic immunity. But that's all the character that they they get that because of who they are and not what they did. If you apply immunity in this case, you're you're giving people immunity for what they did, which is the subject of the lawsuit. And I think that's very awkward. Um, not to say you can't try to apply that. And then the last comment there is, I just don't know the unintended consequences of of giving this immunity. What are some other rights and privileges? And does it change this balance that the act establishes? So, those are my concerns with the immunity concept. I think this legislation works pretty well the way it is and I don't I just don't have any indication that it would would help us at the federal court level.
I think we over 30 um almost 40 states have passed this. I think the the best thing would be to go to Congress and say let's have a federal anti-slap legislation. That's that's what we need.
So and then the second issue you brought up was the freedom of religion and that's the other part that gave pause.
Uh the the bill is really related toward communications, free speech, free spe you're you're communicating something.
It's not based off of acts or decisions.
And I worry that freedom of religion brings in the concepts of acts or relig or or decisions. And so that's not how the bill was created. So that that's my concern there. it certainly if you have a communication about religion it would come under this act because it's a communication and you have free speech with regards to your religion um so to the to uh representative's concerns about you know flyers or posters or I mean those would all be free speech so I feel like those would be covered so those are the two things that gave us pause um those are and that's and we feel like this bill um addresses those concerns and really creat creates a very nice balance. But my my con I will say on both of those issues if you really think you want to put those concepts in I would I would say more research would be necessary because I I really did a very high level look into that. And so um with that I am happy to stand for any questions.
>> Any questions committee?
>> Yes. Representative Kelly.
>> Thank you Mr. Chairman. Just to clarify then there's it's redundant to have an added provision for religion because religious speech would be included under all speech. Is that what you're saying?
>> Mr. Chairman, Representative Kelly, freedom of speech, yes, would include any speech concerning religion. What I what I'm trying what I was saying is that freedom of religion allows you to conduct certain acts and make certain decisions. And I don't feel like that's what the act was this uniform act was meant to address.
Whether it maybe it could, I'm not saying it couldn't. I just think that that's not what they were thinking about when they were putting this together.
>> Representative Kelly.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could you then please specify maybe some examples of such religious acts we'd be concerned that would get caught up in a religious um amendment or provision in a bill?
Um, Mr. Chairman, um, Representative Kelly, I I'm thinking of something and I'm I'm not sure that I have all the facts of this case, right?
But I guess that if someone was to say, "No, I'm not going to provide you a service.
I'm not going to make a cake for you because my religion says that what you're, you know, you don't abide by what I feel like are the terms of my religion. So that's an act. I've denied a service to somebody. That's not a communication. And so that would be the situation that I I would have to think through to see if that really would work that take that through from from the act to the lawsuit to the antislap motion and and feel like if that would really work under this. I haven't take done that exercise but that was my concern.
>> All right. Any other questions committee?
Thank you. Now we'll move into general public comment.
Welcome.
>> My name is Park J. I'm a staff attorney uh with the Goldwater Institute. The Goldwater Institute is a nonprofit uh public policy and public interest litigation organization. And so we practice all over the country on free speech type issues. Um limited government, public records, um things of that nature that that are designed to to benefit the public. Um I I really appreciate the the discussion we've had so far this morning. I think this is a a critically important topic. I think we're kind of all getting to that realization here. Um I I appreciate the comments um that have been made about the purpose um of this effort. Um, some of you may remember from during the legislative session that um that I testified alongside um a Wyoming mom by the name of Kari Cochran who she was um uh the subject of of two frivolous lawsuits um that were designed to curtail her speech. Um and um I I regret to inform you that she's actually been the subject of a third matter um that was unrelated from the first two, but that still implicated her her speech. So that this continues to be um an ongoing issue even just since the end of the legislative session. There's there's been developments um that demonstrate the need for this. Um the Uniform Act, as has been discussed, does a lot of great things. It's it's a great um you know um tool in in state court. It checks almost all the boxes that you would expect um out of an anti-SLAP law. And those have been discussed, so I won't rehash all of those. But I do want to get directly at um at Representative Kelly's question um as to what are some of you's potential deficiencies and these this has kind of been hinted at and I don't have all of the the solutions to this but it's something that I want to flag because I do think that over the next couple of meetings that that we should have this serious discussion. Um and Mr. Mr. Chairman, you mentioned it's this is a complicated procedural matter and that that's really the crux of this is um UPEPA is designed to provide a procedural mechanism to get out of a lawsuit. Um and there's an ongoing fight in the federal courts both at the district court level and at the circuit court level as to whether anti-SLAP laws, including some that are based on UPUPA, are procedural or substantive.
And the courts are kind of all over the map on this. it it really is uh kind of a confusing state of affairs. And so I think that's what kind of motivated um the bill that we saw last session, which was an attempt to kind of get ahead of um some of this litigation and some of these court cases that we're seeing where um federal judges are declining to apply even really good UPUPA based state anti-SLAP laws in federal court proceedings. Um and that's leading to um not just litigation tourism but forum shopping. Um you um the Erie doctrine as has been mentioned um specifically applies in diversity cases and that means that if somebody in another state was to come in and sue a Wyoming citizen in federal court um that the courts would apply the federal rules of civil procedure before they apply any um state um procedural laws including anti-slap laws. Um, and the 10th circuit has considered this in the context of New Mexico's anti-SLAP statute. New Mexico's is not uniform, but it does use a similar procedural mechanism. Um, this is from a case called Los Lobos Renewable Power. Um, the citation for that um, for future reference is 885 F3R 659. That's a 2018 case. Um, and the court in that case said that their anti-slap statute was quote nothing more than a procedural mechanism. And that's what we're trying to avoid here. We we want to create a substantive protection that goes beyond um procedure. Um, and again, as I mentioned, that's not limited to non-uniform states. Just last year, there were two federal courts um that found that UPEPA did not apply uh in federal court. This is um a case called Salam v. Trump. This is out of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The citation for that is 350 FRD14.
Um and that is notable because that court said that UPEPA did not apply in its entirety. Um which is farther than some other courts have gone. Um and and that's again because it's deemed to be procedural and not substantive. Also last year the federal district court for the district of New Jersey. They took more of a peacemeal approach. Um this case is called Powik P A C versus Shaolus H S H A L I S. The citation for that is 349 FR D498.
And the court there found that some of the UPUPA provisions applied but some of them did not. Um, and I'm aware of some other cases where UPEPA has applied in federal court to varying degrees. Um, but that's really what we want to try and address here is how can we take the best parts of UPEPA, how can we take the best parts of other anti-SLAP statutes that have applied in federal court and make sure that we're not creating additional problems and additional incentives um to go run rush to federal court to try and avoid Wyoming state court protections. So, um, again, I don't have all of the perfect answers, uh, today, but, um, I'm happy to, um, you know, pass along some of those, um, citations in writing if if you would like. Um, and I'm happy to stand for any questions.
>> Questions for Mr. Jackson?
>> Yes, Senator Craig.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for being here. Super helpful. So, have any of the states that have non-uniform laws also have the same issue regarding whether it's procedural or substantive in federal court?
>> Yes, it Mr. Chairman, Senator Craig, um it's been hit and miss um and and it's kind of um getting difficult to predict what the federal courts are going to do.
Uh sometimes um the not to get too far into the weeds, but the the US Supreme Court um has a case called Shady Grove.
That's kind of the modern um structure for applying the Eerie Doctrine. Um and and what they're trying to figure out is does the law at the state level address the same question that a federal rule of civil procedure addresses? And if so, they're not going to apply the state law. And that's the really shorthand uh version. And so what we want to make sure is that we're creating a new or unique substantive protection that goes beyond what the federal civil procedure rules do, which is why this immunity concept um was explored is because that's not something that is found in this context in the federal rules. Um and um I to the the point made by one of the previous speakers from the governor's office, um I I do think there is a Pennsylvania case. Um this is uh called Jake versus Young Bloodood.
Citation on that is 782 F sub3rd210.
Um they used the framing of immunity um and still called it procedural. So I I don't know if immunity is a perfect answer either. Um, but that was a characterization that the litigant made that the the court was citing. That wasn't, as far as I'm aware, the immunity was not embedded in the statute. So, um, we're going to be we're going to have some work cut out for us to to really create a Wyoming based solution to try and tackle this problem.
>> Representative Chestic.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Jackson. Very helpful. I I I do want to see those cases. Um I I wrote them down. I hope I got them written down correct, but if you could email those to me, I'd appreciate very much. I'd like to read those cases. Um my question for you is u to me um procedures are contained in court rules and substantive rights are contained in statute broad broadly. Okay. Um I'm not sure that's there's exceptions to that, but is the fact that we're we were we're considering putting this these rules into statute does that give I mean have the courts considered that statutes are providing substantive rules and leaving the procedural rules to um actual rules of court. Uh so by putting into statute are we does that by itself create a substantive right?
>> Um Mr. Chairman, Representative, I don't think that's a determining factor in the in the cases that I've looked at. Um, like I said, the the the courts usually look at is is the statute is the state statute trying to address something that the federal rules address. And if if there's overlap there, that's when there's going to be uh some tension. Um, one of the things they look at in this eerie analysis is is it going to affect the substantive outcome of the case? Is it going to affect who wins and who loses? And that's what some some of these cases are are fights about the attorney fee provisions and the fee shifting provisions um which are generally deemed to be procedural um because you can win and not get your attorney fees or win and get your attorney fees and so the courts are saying well if you can win and not get your attorney fees then that's that seems more procedural um but um I I I think the biggest point I wanted to make today was that UPUPA does not necessarily solve um the problem that we've raised um and it it is a very knew, like I said, both those cases um finding that UPA didn't apply in federal court, at least in part, that that those were just last year.
>> Senator KGO.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [clears throat] So, I just I want to follow up, I guess, and go back. I mean, you said a few minutes ago that some of the states that also have non-uniform laws regarding this issue have had the same problems. Is that correct, >> Mr. I think so. the um the challenges that were mentioned earlier, those were on constitutional grounds. Um that that was dealing with the the jury trial, right? And I I've not seen that in the UPUPA context. Um I I do think that there was an amendment to the the bill that was brought during the session that would have addressed that concern, so it probably wouldn't have um been struck down on that particular ground. Um but but yes, there there are some non-uniform. The thing with non-uniform um statutes, as was mentioned at the beginning, is is they really are all different. Arizona's, for example, is really unique because it's it's not only not based on UPEP, but it's the only one that applies, as far as I'm aware, um to criminal cases. Most of these are designed to get rid of civil cases. Um and so it's really hard for me to categorize all the non-uniform ones in one way or the other because they really are a case by case.
>> Senator Kel, >> follow up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I'm just focusing more on the procedural versus substantive issue in federal court and I think you'd said that some of the non-uniform have also had the same discussions and same issues when they went to federal court. Is that correct?
>> Mr. Chairman, Senator, I think that's right. And that's because most of them use this special motion to dismiss or special motion to strike. Um and and we want to get to a point where yes, we have the procedural tool, but the procedural tool is being used as a substantive protection, not merely as procedure.
>> Representative Wet.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So, it seems like this question of how do we protect Wyoming citizens if these cases migrate into federal court is yet unsolved? No one has clear direction for us.
Would the committee be wise to pass an anti-slap law that doesn't fix that piece of problem? Would we still be miles ahead to have a slap anti-slap law that applied for state courts? And even if we can't come to a solution for the federal issue, >> Mr. Jackson, >> Mr. Chairman and Mr. Chairman, um u I do think having UPEP would be better than nothing. Um because it would protect those cases that can only be brought in state court. Um but it does leave open those other cases, especially when you're talking about the First Amendment. That raises um all sorts of, you know, there's federal questions there. Um, again, the the diversity cases we're talking about is, you know, out of state versus instate or vice versa. Um, so that's something that we'll need to think about, but it would protect at least against instate litigants bringing state claims in state court.
>> All right. Thank you, Mr. Jackson.
Appreciate you being here in person coming all the way from Arizona. Uh, >> from Lyman. Yeah.
>> Oprah. Oh, no. You So, you practice from Lyman, but you practice in Arizona.
>> Yes. Yes, Mr. Trump.
Welcome, >> Mr. Chairman, [clears throat] members of the committee. Thank you for the time.
You have a handout uh for me with a big buffalo on the top of it. I'll be very brief. My name is James Halverson, deputy state director with Americans for Pros P prosperity.
um you know, as a a simple-minded cowboy from Kirk County, Wyoming, which is in Wyoming, um who's more more comfortable standing behind a cow than a microphone debating a very complex legal issue. I'm just going to give you a few of our thoughts.
Um the previous legislation is a little bit cumbersome. I'll be the first to admit that. Um but this is a complex issue as we've all seen right here. I I would just offer a little food for thought though that just because you know a different proposal hasn't been challenged. I don't know that that necessarily makes it better. Uh but I I would say that that definitely makes it more narrow in its scope and protections. I I'm thankful for all of the very very smart people in this committee and in this room and I know that we will will find a way forward that that protects our first amendment rights and I'm looking forward to that.
You know, in a time when roughly 24% of the households across our country are living paycheck to paycheck, this is a big issue. Um, if people are scared to speak out, that limits that limits our participation in our government. So, this is extremely important. This is a form of cancel culture. We've seen it.
We've seen examples right here in Wyoming. We've heard another one happen right here between the session and now.
So, this is very important. Um, this is just a fasttrack process. We we understand that and we need that to help dismiss some of these cases. That will save not only those defendants money, that will also save the taxpayers money and we're definitely in favor of that.
Uh it can also will also relieve some of the burden on our very overworked court system and we think that that will help uh help everyone involved. Um, our government, as I, as I previously, previously said, requires public participation, and we at Americans for Prosperity are in favor of anything that helps move that forward and encourages that. So, that's all I have for you. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
>> Questions for Mr. Halverson?
>> All right. Thank you. Thanks, folks.
>> Mr. Crossman.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh Colin Crossman, uh Cheyenne, Wyoming here, personal capacity. Um a couple of points. First, thank you all for bringing this issue up in the interim.
This is a uh something that uh I think that Wyoming has needed um for a while.
Um I won't rehash my experience with an anti- with a slapsuit. Um it wasn't in Wyoming, but uh before I moved here. Um so I will also stress that uh yes I do agree that UPEPA is better than the state of affairs. However I do think that it has some gaps going to um one of the representatives comments earlier.
One of those gaps being uh the thing that was discussed at length which is the uh lack of I believe lack of uh uh activity in the federal court. I think that uh the lowest level's decision in the 10th circuit um gets to that.
Uh so that's why the immunity provision was discussed in the previous uh piece of legislation HP 103 I think it was.
Immunity gets to a couple things. One of those is uh it is a substantive right and it does tack on to the existing procedural aspects that the court uses. So it doesn't need to create uh new procedures. We'll just use the procedures that exist. Uh so uh that's that's effectively why immunity was discussed because they unders the courts understand how immunity works. And uh one of the previous presenters mentioned that you know it's unclear whether or not the federal courts would take in the state grant of immunity. Um at least two cases uh in the 10th circuit have shown that that should not be a concern. Uh the first case being uh quint let me find it. Put it at the top of the page here.
Oh come on.
Quintana v Dodge in 10th circuit. It's um uh that's the wrong citation but it was in uh 2024. Get that citation for you.
Um well, it's I I have the uh the docket citation 23-113 1113 um where governmental immunity in Colorado was deemed to be a substantive right. There's a second case actually a more interesting one because it comes out of Wyoming and this is Jackson Roberts v. Jackson Hall Mountain Resort in the 10th Circuit in 2018. This one talks about the um it's not an immunity per se, but it was a substantive right that was granted uh over um uh the assumption of right for skiing, dangerous skiing and the 10th circuit held that grant of uh exclusion of liability was a substantive right. So there is reason to believe that the 10th circuit would actually be more uh because of Los Loos more negative toward the procedural component but potentially more positive toward a grant of immunity. And if immunity is a fraught term because uh uh of uh you know what it seems to imply uh there are ways to get at that without specifically calling it immunity. But the grant of immunity for that I think is is potentially the right way to go or at least attempt to have a serious discussion about including it. The [snorts] other think I uh area I think that um UPEPA might be a little bit um lacking is its explicit exclusion of commercial speech. It gives an example of a mattress store where a mattress store's false statements would not be uh uh whereupa would not be available to them.
Well, are they false statements? We don't know. We haven't done anything yet. If they turn out to be false, should they have the fees shifting a u of of uh fees shifting open to them? If they are false, then it's fraud. It's not protected. It wouldn't uh qualify for immunity anyway. But, uh, if if someone can go to a a corporation and just hit them with, uh, you know, frivolous lawsuits for that, that's that's just leaving them open to um the same thing that we're trying to protect citizens from. And one of the big uh aspects that h that is unique to Wyoming that some of the other states don't have is that we actually have a very large number of entities here that are where the people are not necessarily here. We we like to have entities here. We get a lot of money from them. Uh tax revenue and other things. Um and you know we uh we we are the second most popular state for incorporations. In fact, what was one of the things that Wyoming did that wasn't uniform, which is we invented the LLC. So uh you protecting those entities, having them move here is good for the state. and making sure that they they they are protected from uh these kinds of lawsuits as well as our citizens is important. I think leaving them in the cold doesn't really uh uh doesn't really look good to me. So, uh I'll leave it there and and open myself for questions.
>> Representative Chessik.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Crossman, for being here. And I do recall our conversations uh in a room like this [laughter] earlier this year about the immunity issue. Um my question to you and I haven't thought this through completely. I want to read some of these cases that you were throwing at me. I'm interested in them. Um but my question is whether or not the immunity solution that you came up with would actually work in cases involving federal question. So to me, so I don't want to get too deep into the weeds here, lawyer to lawyer, but so in a diversity case, it is state law that provides a substantive rule for decision, right? So in diversity case, sub state substantive law applies and the immunity would probably apply there.
It's a diversity case. Federal question is federal law that provides the rule of decision.
We're deciding the case based on what the federal rules are. federal law, wouldn't federal substantive law be supreme over f state law? So, would the supremacy clause wipe out the immunity issue anyway in a in a federal question case?
>> Mr. Crossman, >> thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Chesterik, um I'm going to answer in a very annoying way and say yes and no.
Uh, no. The supremacy clause would not apply because it wouldn't apply. The uh when you're when you're talking about defamation, there is to my to my knowledge, there is no federal cause of action. So, you're not going to be in the state law anyway. So, the state substantive right wouldn't be at issue.
It just wouldn't because in order for you to in order for the federal court to be looking at the state law to begin with, it would have to be a state law question. So the supremacy clause wouldn't override it because the question wouldn't even be on the table.
If it were on the table, I would say that yes, the supremacy clause would apply, but I don't think we get there because uh you know, ex except in a couple of very specific uh and narrow circumstances, there isn't uh there aren't the federal tors that would read in the state immunity to begin with. So, >> any other questions for Mr. Crossman?
Senator Grego.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, Mr. Crosslin for being here. On the Jackson Hole case, we must be talking about the Recreational Safety Act. Is that it?
So, I guess my my followup on that is do you know at what stage in the proceedings the case was decided? Was it on a motion to dismiss? Was it at the summary judgement sta stage or was it did we go all the way to trial?
>> Mr. Crossman.
>> Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would have to go further into that. I I just called it up while we were sitting in the room um in response to previous testimony. So, um I skimmed it, but uh it they do get deep into the facts. So, it was uh it it was probably at a summary judgement stage and not just at a motion to dismiss, but I don't know if it was a full trial at that point. Uh oh, wait.
District Court grants a summary judgement. Yeah.
>> Followup, Mr. Chairman. Go ahead.
>> So, one of my follow-up questions on that, Mr. Crossman is I mean one of the points of the the legislation we're looking at is to stop the process early in the process right and so although they agreed there was immunity they they went through discovery I mean they're probably two years in by the time they get to summary judgement in federal court um I'm just wondering if the difference between immunity and UPEPA is actually going to make any difference at the federal court anyways because we can't override their procedural ederal um rules. That's what the federal courts are saying is their their process is going to play out how their process plays out. They may still fall in line under our substantive law. Um I'm just having a hard time rationalizing that.
And I should have asked Mr. Jackson as well the how that would work. I mean, even if we do provide some sort of immunity, let's say we create immunity, does that slow the process down in federal court? Does that really get where we want to go? Does that question make sense? And could you help me out with that, >> Mr. Crosby? Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, so in federal court, yes, you the they're going to use their procedure and we if they don't uh if we grant the immunity or if we give the immunity and they're still going to use their procedure, then we might not get everything we want. But, uh, we probably can get more than nothing. And right now with UPUPEA, I believe that you with with any procedural uh or or eerie vulnerable uh legislation we pass, we basically would get nothing. So it we mightn't get all the way to trial even for some of these things. Um but this is a yes, I I fully admit that bringing in immunity here is an innovation. No, to my knowledge, no other state has put immunity in this context. And um that uh uh that is the innovation that is what would be special here and it would have to be tried. People would have to push it in federal court and see what happens. But at least in the qualified immunity case in in government immunity case those can be and are routinely dismissed at the uh motion to dismiss at the 12b6 stage rather than summary judgement later. And so at least the uh capacity is available there whereas it isn't for a pure uh procedural method.
Mr. Crossman, are you aware of any UPEPA states instances where an antislap motion was brought and you think that the case should have been dismissed and it wasn't sufficient enough under a UPEPA framework?
>> Uh, Mr. Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of uh of that um where where a uh where I guess a a the facts would have uh should have provided for dismissal, but the but this did not. I'm not uh so I am not making the argument that UPEPA in a state court context um wouldn't function potentially acceptably. U I haven't studied it that well. I think that um it is definitely better than nothing. Uh it is better than other state laws. I think that UPEP is possibly better than than some of what what the what the other states have. Um and I do think that yes uh there are you know strike striking out on your own does create problems.
Things you might go a little too far u and you could be unconstitutional. You would you know would cabin that at least so you're not going out of range. But uh does that mean it it gets everything that is unique to our situation here? I think that it does not.
>> Any other questions for Mr. Crossman?
All right. Thank you, >> Mr. Lance. I think you're the last one in the room before we move to online testimony.
We're running just a little bit behind, so bear that in mind.
>> I'll be pretty quick. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Co-chairman, members of the committee, my name is Beth Lance. I'm here today on behalf of the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association. Um, as an association, we have had um somewhat of an opportunity to look through this proposed uniform uh piece of legislation for anti-slap and we certainly support um fully the idea of protecting first amendment rights for Wyoming citizens and we support generally having anti-slap legislation imposed here um in our state of Wyoming.
We certainly prefer um the starting point I think of this uniform law. It uh I think creates a very good outline um for us to work off of. Uh, and I believe that um it would be uh potentially um overcome some of the constitutional concerns and and otherwise which um I think would be a good way to go in order to create a lasting piece of legislation. Uh just a few concerns I wanted to bring up just from the Uniform Act overall that we would just like to bring to people's attention. Um, one of the uh things that is not defined within the uniform bill is a what a matter of public concern is.
And I think maybe defining that would be really helpful. I don't know that that's defined anywhere else in our statutes either. So that would probably be something to consider um making sure everyone understands um what that means under this legislation.
Additionally, uh there are a lot of um rules, procedural rules laid out within this piece of legislation, which we already have, uh rules of civil procedure. And I think it could make it quite confusing for courts to be creating new rules of civil procedure within this instead of just using our existing rules of procedure which allow for um all of the same um dismissal rights and and all of that um already um under as as you've heard here today rule 12 motions um motions for summary judgement all of that already exists.
And so I think it can become confusing um when those rules of procedure are um changed or or listed throughout.
Additionally um there are some exceptions um written into this uniform rule. I do think we would have um suggestions for potentially making it more clear by adding some additional exceptions. Looking at other states like Texas and Washington, they've gone much further um with being clear about what kinds of lawsuits do not fall under this. um just to be clear to the courts um such as insurance contracts, common law fraud, personal injury, those kinds of cases, just to be clear that we are keeping this to um protection of these First Amendment rights and and being sure that that is what this legislation is addressing and we're not overreaching. Um but overall those are really my only um comments that I had here today and we certainly support this and um look forward to hopefully working with everyone involved to create some good legislation.
>> Questions for Miss Lance? Yes, Co-Chairman Walsh.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could you could you supply us specifics on pro uh I think you described them as uh uh procedures that are already exist in civil law that are recreated slightly differently in UPUPA.
Could you be could you maybe email us later some specifics of which ones exactly you think the existing rules were adequate for? Miss Lens, >> Mr. Chairman, Mr. Co-chairman, absolutely. I do have them outlined here, so it' be very easy for me. I just in the interest of time didn't necessarily think everyone wanted to go through each of them, but within the uniform rule, um, as listed now, sections 4, 6, and 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, or sorry, 8, 9, 10, and 12, all I believe are already, um, covered sufficiently under our current rules of civil procedure. So, I will certainly outline that and I'm happy to email that to the committee.
>> Great. Thank you. Uh, Representative Chestic.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, M.
Lance, for being here. Um, I assume that that um and I I do want to receive that same email about those the rules. Uh, do you think that that we don't have a bill draft yet? I think one of the things we're going to hopefully do at the end of the meeting is ask for a bill draft.
Um, if the bill draft simply refers back to the u the Wyoming rules of civil procedure, can that solve most of these problems of any potential conflicts?
>> Miss Lance, >> Mr. Chairman, um, Representative Testic, that is a good question and it's certainly something I've been sitting here this morning contemplating. I'm wondering if that would make it easier then when these cases are then switched over to federal court um that it would appear more substantive and less procedural. And so I'm wondering if that actually helps us with the eerie doctrine. Um so I I don't know. I I could I would have to do more research on that, but it has occurred to me that maybe that would potentially be um more problematic than helpful.
All right. Thank you, Miss Lance.
>> Thank you.
>> We're going to move to online testimony.
We are 25 minutes behind, so I am going to limit online testimony to just a couple of minutes for each of our folks.
Um, so if you're listening and you want to testify online, I've got uh five of you signed up, but we're going to limit you just to a couple of minutes. So bear that in mind when your testimony begins.
We'll start. Who did you let into the room? I was going to tell you to start with someone and just go down my list, but >> Mr. Chairman, I have Mr. Keading online as well as Mr. Shriftman.
>> All right, Mr. Keading, go ahead.
>> Yes, thank you very much for allowing me to speak today. I appreciate it. I just wanted to uh cover a few things. I'm not going to try to repeat anything that I've heard earlier. There actually 40 states that now have any slap laws. We do an uh a scorecard of all the states and uh currently 60% of the population now resides in a state that has a grade according to our scorecard of A or better. Twothirds of the population is covered by a law with a B-grade or better. And 89% of the population is covered by some form of any slap law, including every state bordering on Wyoming. Um, we've already heard earlier the uh from Senator Lenny. There's strong bipartisan support across the aisle. Um, every major group supporting free speech nationally supports this, including my group, the Institute for Free Speech, FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Institute for Justice, etc. Um, I would want to point out that UPEPA itself was modeled on the best state laws when they were drafting it. So, it's not something new. It took a look at the most successful state laws and tried to adopt many of those provisions, including laws in Georgia, Texas, Nevada, um, Oregon, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Vermont.
uh regarding paying of attorney's fees.
I heard some questions earlier on. I would like to point out that it's actually symmetrical because the person who filed the frivolous lawsuit or motion is the one who has to pay. So if you look at the UPUPA model, if you file a frivolous anti-slap motion, then you have to pay. Uh likewise, if you succeed on the anti-slap motion, that means the lawsuit itself is frivolous and therefore the person filing the lawsuit has to pay. Um I've heard a lot about this applying in federal court. Um look, I I think it's clear no one knows the answer, but I will provide two important pieces of information to the committee. There are two states uh that have added an immunity provision. Immunity from lawsuit if you're making first amendment protected expression. It's not a general grant of immunity. It's just immunity for protected expression. So that means it's non-defamy.
Uh Ohio has added that to its version of UEPA and Pennsylvania has as well. In my opinion, the Pennsylvania provision is the best uh written immunity provision in the country. And if you want to go in that direction, I can put you in touch with the uh one of the experts that u I think the firm at Ballard Spar who was uh helped the legislature draft that provision. It has not been tested finally in court. Um and the case cited earlier frankly is not being litigated terribly well. So basically those are those are my comments to the committee and I thank you for doing this interim joint study committee. I think this you've covered a lot of great ground this morning. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you Mr. Kading. That was perfect keeping it just at a couple of minutes.
I do appreciate that and some helpful information. So thank you for your testimony. Any questions committee?
All right, Mr. Shiffman.
>> Yes, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me?
>> We can hear you. Go ahead.
>> Okay. My name is Ross Shiffman, citizen of Casper. I'm representing myself. I am in support of the legislation to create a more fair and balanced approach to legal actions related to the rights of parties in relation to public speech.
There has been an increase in legal activity that has created a chilling effect on our rights and our ability and desire to speak out to our elected officials. This has been referred to as lawfare.
On the national level, citizens who brought forward claims of massive voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election faced unrelenting legal attacks costing them significant funds to defend their rights as well as disturbing patterns of disbarment of their legal counsel.
On the local level here in Wyoming, subtle threats of lawfare have been insinuated when citizens are looking into potential mismanagement or cronyism using our public funds. The message is clear. Do not pursue your complaints or make statements that we deem untrue or we will haul you into court. On the state level, a scenario can happen where a citizen makes a public statement claiming that a certain elected official is bought and paid for by out ofstate interest because of support or opposition on a piece of legislation.
If a defamation case is brought forward by a politician, the citizen should have proper recourse to have a fair and balanced opportunity for consideration to dismiss the plaintiff's case without a lengthy, expensive, and timeconsuming process.
Such legislation with with common sense provisions is essential to protect our rights of free speech is guaranteed by the first amendment of the United States Constitution. And it was mentioned about religious speech. U just give you an example. There have been citizens who have posted on their social media Bible verses and ended up either being hauled in the court or being threatened. So, um I believe this legislation would include that and uh I thank you for your time and your effort on this uh this important subject.
>> Any questions for Mr. Shiffman?
>> All right. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Who do we have next?
>> Mr. Chairman, next we have Miss Prather online.
>> Welcome, Miss Prather.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you committee members. My name is Laura Prather. I'm a practicing first amendment lawyer and have been involved with the passage of Andy Slap Laws in a number of different states. Uh was an adviser to the Uniform Law Commission in developing UPEPA and I'm actually working internationally to get these sorts of protections in the EU and the UK as well.
So many of the testifiers earlier today have already explained to you that really what anti-SLAP laws do is they they recognize that the process of filing the lawsuit is actually the punishment here and these laws are an effective way to shortcircuit that sort of punishment. I'm not sure that y'all have a clear understanding yet of the history of anti-SLAP laws. They actually started in 1990 actually 1989 was the very first law that was passed and the reason for one of the uh committee members asked about inconsistent applications. One of the reasons that there have been inconsistent applications is because there was a hodgepodge of laws passed between 1989 and 2020 before the uniform law commission developed UPEPa. Once Upa was developed in 2020 and the 16 states that have adopted it um have come into fruition, it's been really a wonderful way to have some consistency in the application of the laws. And the ULC process is one um that Mr. Kading just mentioned is a really uh thorough process. They actually spend an entire year deciding what areas they want to uh try to draft uniform laws in and then they spend two years studying the laws in all of the various states to pick the best of the best and really create the gold standard in protections in this area. And that's what the Uniform Law Commission did here. Then they present it to the commissioners and the commissioners then vote whether or not they're going to actually enact um and adopt these laws to roll out to the various states. There were a couple of questions on the scope of the law.
Obviously, the broader the scope, the broader the protection. I'm not sure that religion was singled out as not being um included in this. I think there is an ecclesiastical abstension doctrine that may or may not have been um something that was considered, but things like the right to life, I can tell you in Texas, the right to life folks have been protected under the anti-SLAP laws when they speak about abortion. And so those communicative activities are certainly protected in the religious setting. Um the fees issue that Mr. getting addressed. He was absolutely spot on talking about the symmetry of it because the symmetry is if you file a meritless lawsuit and if you file a meritless motion either way fees will be awarded there out of the 40 states that have anti-SLAP laws. There is only one state and that is Florida that is a straight loser pay and nobody uses that law for exactly that reason.
It is not a symmetrical law. The reason you want to have this mandatory fee award is so that it will provide a deterrent effect for those people who think they're going to be able to use the court system to harass people and may think better of it if they know that they're going to be on the hook for the attorney's fees. It also helps quite frankly create an environment where there is judicial economy. The courts are not going to be overloaded with these cases if somebody knows there is a penalty to bringing a meritless case that is particularly targeted at somebody's constitutional rights. The last thing that I wanted to address was the examples. I know that y'all were looking for examples coming from your state. What I can tell you is these examples will come out of the woodwork.
Um people when when we adopted the law in Texas, there were so many citizens that came forward. I mean, literally dozens and dozens of citizens that came forward to testify about their personal experiences in this area. People that were Yelp reviewers, investigative reporters, domestic violence victims, the Better Business Bureau for posting their ratings. The amount of people that have been impacted by meritless lawsuits that are brought for the purpose of trying to silence them in a way that is not consistent with what the courts are there to do. is truly um enormous and and y'all will see that when uh when it comes time to hear from witnesses, but those witnesses and those examples exist. The First Amendment Watch Group is now the very first group in the US that is tracking SLAP lawsuits throughout the US. And you can look on their website to see just the volume of SLAP cases that exist. And it is absolutely um staggering quite frankly.
Uh that's all the statements that I have and I was trying to just address those things that hadn't been addressed previously, but I'm happy to answer questions.
>> That was perfect. Appreciate that. Uh, co-chairman Washer, go ahead.
[clears throat] >> Thank you for for joining us today, Miss Frasier.
>> I'm wondering about this [clears throat] question came up from the Wyoming trial lawyers about a matter of public concern if you're aware of a good definition for that type of terminology. Would you email that to us, please? Uh yeah, I would be happy to, but I'll tell you, we addressed this exact issue um both in Texas and in the Uniform Law Commission process. Um and in in Texas, what we did uh we had a a definition of of matter of public concern. And we actually revised the law to pull back and really rely on US Supreme Court precedent. Snyder versus Phelps is a US Supreme Court law that specifically addresses matters of public concern. We have that incorporated into our law in Texas as well as a couple of other uh qualifiers.
You'll see that in the Uniform Law Commission's advisory notes. It talks about that exact issue and I'd be happy to send you all of that material.
One other thing to address on the on the trial lawyer testimony. I know that there was some mention of adding some additional exemptions. I would only caution on adding those additional exemptions. If you're going to add things like fraud, personal injury, those things that you definitely consider adding an exemption to those exemptions for communicative activity because we have seen problems with creative pleaders uh pleading fraud claims against media for their investigative reporting for example and of course that would be something that anti-slap laws would want to address.
>> All right, thank you for your testimony and we'll look forward to that email.
Thank you.
>> All right. Next, >> Mr. Chairman. Up next, we have Miss St. Louis.
>> Welcome, Miss St. Louis.
>> Thank you, uh, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. Uh, thank you for your time this morning. I will be reading my um, testimony because I am currently in litigation. My name is Michelle St. Louis. I live in Casper and I am currently a defendant in a defamation lawsuit stemming from statements I made publicly regarding a congressional candidate during a prior prior election cycle including statements based on my faith because that litigation is ongoing. There are limits to what I can discuss today. However, I want to share with you the practical realities and the broader concerns that lawsuits like this can create for ordinary citizens.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome, defending this type of case is extraordinarily expensive and timeconuming. For many Wyoming residents, the cost of defending themselves in court can quickly become financially devastating, even when they ultimately prevail. The real the reality alone creates the chilling effect. When citizens fear this that speaking publicly about political candidates, business experiences, or matters of public concern could result in years of litigation and overwhelming legal expenses, many people will simply just choose to remain silent. And that concern extends far beyond any my individual case. Wyoming has a long tradition of valuing independent thought, open debate, and the free exchange of ideas. Whether discussions occur at a coffee shop, at a town meeting, on social media, or during election season, citizens should not live in that fear that partic they should not live in fear that participating in public discourse should financially ruin them. This issue is especially important in the context of elections and political speech. Our system depends on voters being able to openly discuss candidates, question public figures, share opinions, and debate issues that matter to them. Even strong disagreement and criticism are part of a healthy democratic process. In addition, many Wyoming citizens hold deeply rooted religious, moral, and political beliefs that may not always align with others. Regardless of viewpoint, people should feel secure in their ability to express constitutionally protected opinions without fear of being buried in costly litigation.
I believe Wyoming should carefully consider meaningful anti-SLAP protections that discourage the abuse or retaliatory lawsuits. designed to primarily primarily to silence critics through the financial pressure rather than to resolve legitimate harm. Any legislation should provide an effective mechanism for courts to evaluate these cases early, protect legitimate first amendment activity, and allow wrongfully targeted defendants to recover the legal costs incurred defending protected speech. At the same time, truly defamatory and knowingly false statement should remain actionable. Responsible protections can preserve both reputational rights and constitutional freedoms. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, this issue is larger than any one individual case. The question before this body is whether ordinary Wyoming citizens can realistically afford to participate in public discourse when the threat of prolonged litigation hangs over them. Thank you again for your time and consideration on this important issue and I would be happy to answer any questions to the extent that I am able giving pending litigation.
Any questions, committee?
All right. No one wants to touch that pending litigation, so you're fine.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> We have, I believe, one more. That's it.
All right. We will close public comment.
Um committee, I don't recall exactly how we've done this in the past. Um, but what I think would work really well, what I prefer to do at least is is what I see works well on committees is that as we conclude each topic, we'll take any motions for um any further action that we want from LSO, whether that's drafting a bill, producing research, whatever it might be, rather than wait until the end and try to remember everything. We'll just take it as it comes. So, with that being said, um, are there any directives that you would like to discuss on this matter?
Representative Chestik.
[clears throat] >> Yes, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to make a motion to ask LSO for a bill draft for an anti-SLAP statute based on UPUPA um tailoring of course to Wyoming um procedures. But that's my motion.
>> Okay.
>> Second.
>> It has been seconded. And just as a reminder, committee, this is just a motion to bill draft. It'll just k it'll just be at the committee's pleasure as to whether we move forward with the draft, but then you'll obviously vote on that legislation um whether it should advance or not later in the committee process. That will require a majority of both bodies. But just to sponsor an idea at this point in time, uh that just requires a simple majority.
All right. Is there any discussion on this motion?
>> All right. All those in favor signify by saying I.
>> I.
>> Any opposed?
>> All right. additional directives.
I um I did want to see one thing from LSO on the issue of freedom of religion.
I don't know. Obviously, I know what UPEPA looks like, but I don't know what other states look like in terms of adopting UPEA. whether that's been addressed by any other state, found its way into the statute. Mr. Fuller, you look like you want to say something.
>> So, so Mr. Chairman, not not necessarily specifically to that question, but to the question of um you know, is there redress? Should the government say substantially burden religion by saying that, you know, you can't take this action um you know, this religious activity? Um, and I don't recall if it was 2024 or or 2025, Mr. Chairman. Um, but the legislature did enact a a state religious freedom restoration act that does um that does provide um legal recourse if the government substantially burdens religion. Um how that interacts visav this particular topic I would need to give some more thought to. Um but for anyone who is interested that um that act those statutes begin at 929101.
>> I think the co-chairman knows a few thing a thing or two about that. So then let's just do this. Let's look and see if there are any other states that have addressed it in their antislap legislation specifically. And um if not that's fine. Then that can be the the end result of that research. And then um why don't you think some more about the interaction between the uh freedom the restoration act and uh if we were to move forward with you Pepa and we'll just look we'll just look for a report from you guys on that. Anything else committee on this topic representative web?
>> Thank you Mr. Chairman. Um [snorts] somewhere along the lines I would like to see an issue addressed that um we on one side of the uh [snorts] in in one chamber we have passed a bill twice.
That bill has been held up by the number one um committee on the south side of the cap twice.
But I I don't know why that has been held up. It's never been heard. And um I would I I think if we're going to address a problem, we need to know what the issue is with um one side of the of the chamber. Thank you.
>> I think that chamber's in the west. Just for clarification purposes, that chamber you're referring to is in the west, not the south. But [laughter] We are the We are the Western Chamber.
Does that clear everything up, Senator Cole?
>> Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to address that, that's why we're here.
That's we're here with both sides in judiciary to work this out. That's the purpose of this to be clear. There's a lot of other issues. I I would suggest you go back and look at the video. It was all discussed fully on what the issues were, but we're here to fix that and get through it and make some legislation that works and we can both agree to and the governor can agree to.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>> Yeah. And you know, I'll just I'll just say because I really pushed for this topic to come forward um as an interim topic recognizing the need for this legislation, but more importantly recognizing that it needs to be done right. Uh so the legislation that came across to the Senate side was I mean a lot of those questions have been asked today. One of them was about immunity for example. There's a lot of questions about about immunity and whether that was the right way to approach it or not.
And and that's something that can be fleshed out in this process. But speaking on behalf of the Senate committee, uh we feel it's a very important issue. That's why it's here.
Uh we just want it done right. That's all.
Any other directives for the committee?
No. All right. With that, let's go ahead and take a 10-minute break and then we'll come back and we'll dive into escape from adult community correctional facilities.
Thank you.
All right, committee. Are we ready? Are we live? We are back and we are ready to move forward into our next topic. Um, which we have for 10:00 a.m. But I feel pretty confident, committee, that these next two topics will be able to make up time on. So, we should get back on track. Next is escape from adult community correctional facilities. We have director Shannon and Miss um do we have director White?
All right, perfect.
Director Shannon, Mr. Chairman, many members, I'm Dan Shannon with the Wyman Department of Corrections. I want to thank you for giving me a few minutes to review this interim topic subject. And Mr. Mr. Chairman, I'll do my best to get you back on track.
Um, how this came about, I would like to start by saying the Department of Corrections contracts with three adult community correction center. We have one in Gillette, one in Casper, and one in Cheyenne. These are transitional centers that um confines individuals in the evening, provides opportunities for work and gets them back. Um, these are fairly successful programs. Normally we average about 74% success when these individuals are transferred back in the summary of the proposed interim topic and we're talking about stat Wyoming statute 713402.
It's determining inmates in ineligibility for parole.
It serves two purposes.
It clearly states, it determines inmates to be parole and eligible for those who have made an assault with a deadly weapon upon any officer, employee, or inmate of any institution or escaped, attempted to escape or assisted others in an escape of an institution.
The proposed language uh committee, I'm not asking to change the intent, and I'm certainly not uh asking to increase any penalties. I'm just trying to clarify this law and and make it more u fitting for our needs in our correctional scene.
Why are we here? This is a policy decision that I would ask for legislative body to consider the following recommendations to 713 402.
Under the current wording, its ambiguity exists as it relates to parole and ineligibility.
The recommended amendment adding the language has been convicted in a district court or found by a final determination in the Wyoming Department of Corrections administrative hearing process. It'll clearly establish the legislative intent. And that intent was that um if an inmate escapes attempts escapes from another or any institution upon his final administrative findings, regardless of where an inmate is serving his or her sentence, the inmate is in a process.
Under the current statutory framework, the DOC frequently must wait for the Wyoming Board of Parole to determine whether an inmate is ineligible and it's resulting in inconsistent applications of the law as well as I believe unnecessary delay.
Individuals by statute may apply for an adult community correction center when they're two years from their uh parole eligibility.
We've had since we went before this committee, I believe it was July 24, we've had 24 escapes. 17 have been criminally charged. I believe 11 have gone through the process and Deputy Director Lamb may be able to help me out when when I'm done speaking here with that. It provides a number of obstacles.
Um, we're waiting for the court to go through. uh the person it takes on average they're gone 42 days and until they're returned and many of times the proboard's address in every case many of times um the the sentence has no longer the dominant sentence so the persons has expired we never address their inability amendment that we're proposing would create uniformity and certainty on the administration of the statute regardless of who serves as director of the board or the director of the Wyoming department of corrections the statute would clearly mandate the identified conduct results in parole and ineligibility. And I believe that's always been the attendance since 1947 the statute came about. The proposed language therefore advances consistency, accountability, institutional safety.
It's my belief that when an individual escapes while they're currently under a sentence of the court and serving confinement, that individual is not ready to return to our community. I also consider this individual a safety risk.
Department of Corrections does not question the parole board's decisions.
In fact, we not only respect the members, Director White and Deputy Director Lamb sitting next to me, we strongly support the separation as well as the checks and balances with the pro board. If our request become law, it still remains the pro board's decision to determine when an inmates to be released from custody, not the Department of Corrections. Amendments to the statute would quantify accountability.
This request has nothing to do with the requirement also of the prosecutor's office. No prosecutor is required by law. And I certainly understand why a county prosecutor may not want to take a jury trial, especially in some of our rural counties.
Nowhere in 71342 does the statute require conviction. I would also comment that parole is is not a right. It's an administrative process and a privilege to return to our community.
Some may reply that it's only escaping from a community correction center, but I would ask the committee to consider 718112.
It defines that an offender, parole, or an inmate is deemed guilty of escape from official detention and shall be punished provided under 65206 as the escape charge. If without proper authorization, he or she fails to remain within the extended limits of his confinement or to return within the time prescribed to an adult community correctional facility to which he was assigned or transferred or being a participant in a program established under the provision of this act, he leaves his place of employment or fails to neglects to return to the adult community correctional center within the time prescribed or specifically to do so. I I'd like to return to our intent of our request. Currently, statute 713402 subsection B states a prisoner is not eligible for pro on a sentence if while serving that sentence they have made an assault with a deadly weapon upon any officer, employee or inmate of any institution.
Appletu escaped attempted to escape or assisted others to escape from an institution. The proposed language that we bring before you, it would read has been convicted in district court or found by a final determination of W Department of Corrections administrative hearing process to have that's the additional wording to made an assault or dead.
This change will provide if any inmate is found guilty of the affformentioned acts through the department's disciplinary hearing process after they escaped and been returned to custody which will also provide an appellent process or criminal conviction. They would automatically be deemed ineligible which I believe the law clearly states no. Why does the department want to take this action? Removing consequences or having no accountability when an alleged crime is committed by an individual is currently under the oversight of the DOC in the courts greatly jeopardizes our community safety.
This this approach is very consistent with approximately seven years ago in the federal system they made which I don't believe in mandated systems uh sentences but that's what they did and it greatly reduced their adult community corrections escapes.
As the director of department corrections my number one goal is to reduce future victims. And I also want to add to this board there's no fiscal note with this.
While we currently have the authority to unilaterally remove good time, a legislative change regarding parole and eligibility I believe is necessary. I don't propose a temporary fix, but a permanent measure to serve a long-term interest.
Some may ask, is this request really necessary? And does the DOC appear to be punitive? Under the proposed uh language of this act, inmates who demonstrate appropriate conduct would still have the ability to receive earn time. uh under the current statute and and board rules uh I can conduct a hearing now and flatten inmates for this behavior but those individuals will spend their maximum sentence. So it is not punitive it with this change it would still provide they would become pro ineligible but they would still have the ability if they have appropriate conduct after return to ear to get earn time. The only alternative all only alternative I have right now is if we flatten the inmates and then they are going to do their maximum sentence um and the last thing that I would do is it's two parts uh 71342 is one if you escape and number two if you conduct conduct as is an assault with a deadly weapon. I would like to address the remaining portion of 713402 as with regards to section B assault with a deadly weapon section of the act as I will defer to the board of parole.
Deputy Lamb who's to my right uh who it's it's responsible for implementing currenting practices and determined the DOC has admin administratively attempted to remain consistent with the board of parole on how we address this under title six.
The law is clear where it says violent assault with a weapon. Inmates have learned this and sometimes that you we don't have the without the ability to as the language that deputy lamb will speak of. Um I I think it's about serious injury. You could have someone violently assault another person at the penitentiary utilizing their hands and beat them to where they have to be lifellighted, but it doesn't meet the intent of this act to make them pearl ineligible.
Mr. Mr. Chairman, I'll stand for questions and also turn it over to Deputy Lamb with the board appear.
>> So, Director Shannon, just do you do you have something with the proposed changes on it for us because I don't have anything in the materials?
>> Oh, I submitted it within interim topic, but yes, I do.
>> I believe I have it with me. Well, >> let's talk about those changes. So you're look you're you're asking for changes to both B I and B2.
>> That's correct.
>> And the change to BI the is is um it sounds like twofold. You want to expand somehow the definition of institution to include adult correctional facilities in this one as well or is that just in B2?
>> No. Um uh the definition of adult corrections uh is already in in a different statute. So that's defined. Um what I'm adding and I'll present this to you at this time, Mr. Chairman. It's uh I want to add being convicted in a district court or found by a final determination of Wyoming Department of Corrections administrative hearing of having Mac. Come on up, >> please.
Thank you.
If is this your only copy?
>> Yes.
>> Let me give this to Brian and you guys can maybe circulate this for us real quick.
>> Mr. Chairman, I apologize. I I thought I sent >> Let me So the maybe I'm just a little confused by what the topic is itself. So the definition of institution includes an adult correctional facility already.
>> Yes. And um the definition is already included in uh 7 718112.
>> It's clearly defined. Well, Mr. chairman, what we're asking, the 402 states you're pro and eligible if you do these things, but it it the system doesn't really work that way. So, what I what I'm asking is let's tighten it up that if you do escape, regardless if a prosecutor charges you or not, you will still meet the criteria of the act, meaning you're ineligible for parole. I guess I'm just I'm struggling with the application then of the issue with the application of the statute because the statute seems clear to me. A prisoner is not eligible for parole if he has escaped from any institution.
So how how is that how is that not clear?
>> Uh Mr. chair if I if I can take part in this. Uh committee members, I also want to mention that we also have director White and our chairperson Kathy right here as well.
>> Um I [snorts] I think what this statute is lacking is it doesn't define exactly what process or what evidence is used to make this determination. Um the board of parole uh towards the end of 2022 did develop some policy and has been using some policy on these types of hearings. uh since 2023.
And you know what what we do in our policy is if there is a criminal conviction, there's a non-rebuttable determination of ineligibility.
Um so it's as simple as notifying that inmate that they are not eligible. Um and and then that part is done. If there is not a criminal conviction, um what the board of parole has done is has made it a rebuttable determination. And so we advise them that they're not no longer eligible. Then they can petition to have that eligibility reviewed. Uh which is done at an evidentiary hearing in front of a three panel member of the board. Um and I believe uh what what director Shannon is getting to is it's kind of a duplicity of function. Um there has already been an hearing that has taken place through the department of corrections disciplinary procedures. uh they've they've been advised of of the allegations of the charge, so to speak.
Um they've had their time to uh defend themselves in a hearing and they have an opportunity to um appeal that determination.
Um, and so I think what this uh statutory addition does is streamline the process and it effectively it shortens the amount of time because the process through the board of parole can take some time particularly if we're waiting for a criminal conviction um to before we have that hearing. And so this language, like I said, streamlines the process um allows a shorter period of time for that review to happen.
Okay.
Uh, co-chairman Washington.
[clears throat] >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate you being here, both of you, today. So, I come from a community with one of these alternative centers, and seems like we see in the news media frequent reports about inmates don't return from work release or school release programs or uh whatever. And so I think it is a a significant number of people as your statistics indicated and it certainly affects my community when we have a an offender who's supposed to be under supervision who for whatever reason doesn't bother to return to the facility.
So, as a matter of public policy, it seems that uh this could be fixed simply by a rule change by the board of parole that you could also determine that it was the nonrebutable upon an administrative finding of escape, could you not?
[clears throat] >> Mr. Chair, co-chair it. Um that that is a potential. Um, I don't want to speak for Director Shannon, but I think his concern was, um, if that happens, that's something that can change from different board as different board members come on and off, as different directors come on and off with both Department of Corrections and and with the board of parole. Um, so having it in statute provides it solidifies it um to where that that determination can't just be made um by the change of membership of the board or by the directors. Any other questions, committee?
I now that I have the materials, I do have a question for Representative Webb.
Um, as this is your House Bill 170, so what give us a little history of um what happened to this bill in the session?
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, it was was not heard for introduction.
>> Oh, well, that's that was simple. I guess it's that's very simple.
>> In the north gallery in the north >> or the north in the north chamber.
>> Mr. >> Yes. I I do have another recommendation.
>> Go ahead, please. Uh the board would also recommend in addition to these amendments that that we also amend uh 17 71342BI uh which is the the maiden assault with a deadly weapon um upon any officer, employee or inmate in an institution. Uh title 7 does not define assault with a deadly weapon. Um there is also no there may be an indirect correlation with title six as far as the aggravated assault and battery statute. Um but but again this does not refer to that. So there is some ambiguity. Uh as director Shannon mentioned most of these assaults that we see with the institutions.
There's not necessarily a quote unquote deadly weapon used but there are some serious physical assaults that end up in in uh serious bodily injury. and and the board would recommend um changing the wording in BI uh to say made an aggravated assault and battery as defined in Wyoming statute 62502 upon any officer, employee or inmate of any institution. Um that way it refers directly to that aggravated assault and battery statute and the definitions within title six and provides some clarity with uh for DLC to make those eligibility determinations. What's that aggravated assault statute again?
>> It is uh 62502 and I do have um the proposed wording um that that we can hand out for all of you if you'd like to take a look.
>> Yeah, that'd be great. Actually, if you want to hand that to our staff, Senator Cole Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, to be clear, this is just going to streamline the process and make these things happen more quickly or has there been instances where it couldn't happen or because of I don't know what the It sounds like the process just needs to be more quickly gone through to get to the same end point. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>> Mr. Chairman, Senator, >> Director Shannon, go ahead.
>> Mr. Chairman, Senator Cole, yes, it would streamline the process. Some of these processes take more than two years to wait and the intent of the law does not get addressed. So, this would streamline it. Did if a person escapes, they become parole ineligible.
>> Senator Cole.
>> Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Then, has someone been parrolled because of this interim time period that happened? I mean, has there been instances that have that happened or is it just going I mean I I'd like to know I guess has there been issues is issues beyond I guess making this move faster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>> Mr. Chairman, Senator Coleman, I'll also turn it over to Deputy Lamb of of course uh the sentences they're currently on that they should be become pro andeligible will expire before it can become addressed. But I'll turn it over to Mr. Lamb.
>> Thank you. Uh Mr. share Senator Cole, there are circumstances where in waiting to make that determination, um the sentence that they escaped on does discharge. Um so it it then becomes a moot point at that time because by the statute it says they're not eligible while on a sentence they commit that escape. So if that sentence discharges, they are then eligible on the escape offense. Um through our process, it takes a longer time to get to that determination. um um most of the time they've already gone through the disciplinary process and received their escape disciplinary and and so we do have times where they would have been found ineligible but that sentence discharged so they're eligible on the new offense.
um on your change to uh B um I with the aggravated assault language, I would assume if it's a pretty serious assault, they're going to be prosecuted. Um but if they're is that if that's not the case, my question is about the final determination of the Wyoming Department of Corrections hearing process. What would that look like for an aggravated assault when you're, you know, because I know what it would look like in a criminal tri trial where the prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the elements of 6-2-502 are met, but how would that look in your hearing process?
>> Uh, Mr. Chair, I I can tell you what it looks like right now when when the board of parole sees those offenses, which which is uh uh marked as a as a personal offense with the DOC disciplinary. Um, we actually ask the Department of Corrections staff what type of injury was it and does this meet the criteria before we proceed with that eligibility determination. Um, I'll let Director Shannon speak for what the internal process would be should these changes be made. Um, but I assume it would be similar. And basically what we're looking for is the seriousness of the injury. Uh, nine times out of ten.
>> Yeah. Well, my my concern I understand the seriousness of the injury and we could if that was our if that was the crux of what we wanted to get at, we could adjust the statute to say causes serious bodily injury. But by bringing in 6-2-502, you bring in um more you bring in the attempt to commit the act. not just the actual serious bodily injury occurring, but you you could have a situation where someone attempted to cause serious bodily injury. That might be a little broader than what you're trying to do, or maybe that is what you're trying to do.
>> Um, you know, I think, and I'll let Director Shannon speak to this as well, but I think as long as that if it referred to serious bodily injury, that would suffice. Um if if the legislature felt uncomfortable referring spec to 62502 um at least referring to the serious bodily injury would would uh encompass what we need.
>> Okay, Director Shannon, >> Mr. Chairman, that is correct. The issue we're trying to address is serious bodily injury without a weapon.
>> Perfect.
>> It would address it.
>> Okay, co-chairman. Go ahead. I think Fuller has a call.
>> Mr. Fuller, >> Representative Bratton.
[clears throat] Sorry, I forget to look at the screen.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, my question I I just would like uh that the language change to be sent to me and um or somebody could just also quick snap a picture of that and texted to me. I would appreciate that. Thank you.
>> So, so Mr. Chairman, Representative Bratton, I did send to the committee um the first part of that change that was um 2026 House Bill 170 and we'll work on getting the material um that the board of parole provided um get that in electronic form and sent out shortly.
>> Thank you.
>> All right, co-chairman Wash.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So my question, Deputy Director Lamb, is if it's the will of this body to start moving forward with this legislation, might it be feasible for the board of parole to administratively through your rules, change this language? Now, I don't know how long it would take to change your rules, but if you could change your rules while we proceed with statutory changes, I think we get the best of both worlds. We get a fix more quickly because the soonest this could go into law for us would be what, July 1, 27. So, that's my question for you is is could you by rule change these things more expeditiously than statutory changes?
>> Uh, chairman, guess what? Chairman Wash.
Um, yes, that is a potential. Um, I I can't speak for the board. They'd vote on that matter obviously. Um, but there is the potential for that to occur.
>> Representative Lean.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, Director Shannon, I'm just curious when we're talking about changing um the definition of how an officer is attacked, how often is that occurring within our facilities?
>> Director Shannon.
Um, Mr. Chairman, Representative Lean, I I can report last year and as well as the year before, we had no serious attacks on officers, but we've had assaults on inmates.
>> Any other questions, committee?
>> All right. Appreciate you both.
[clears throat] Miss White, were you going to testify?
Director White, or are did your deputy cover everything?
>> Oh, I'm sorry. I'm I'm not going to make you talk then.
Any other agencies wishing to testify?
But general public comment, I'm sure everyone showed up for this one. No.
>> Hello.
>> Online.
>> Yes. Hello.
>> Just a moment. We're trying to >> figure out what do we Who do we have online?
>> Oh, >> because I don't have I don't have Oh, I have Miss >> Yes.
>> Can you hear me?
>> Can you hear me?
>> Miss Hoffmeister.
>> Yeah. Is my is my um video not showing?
>> Your video is not showing.
>> Okay, let's see.
>> You're just an ominous voice in our >> Oh my goodness. I apologize. Let me see how to Okay, I Here's a video. Let me see.
Is it still not showing? No. And that's okay if you can't you can just give us your test be great.
>> Okay. I apologize for it not showing. Um I um had talked to you guys previously about I had testified about absanding.
>> Hey Miss Hoffmeister, if you could just begin by introducing yourself.
>> I'm sorry.
>> My name is Valerie Hoffmeister. Um I'm a community member in Gillette, Wyoming. I am here representing my family and the rest of our community. Actually, um this whole uh escaping from community placement, absanding, whatever you want to call it, um is very close to our family. Um my daughter married a man that she had to marry to live. um she was able to get away from him. We found out later he had also abused my son. Um neither one of them were willing to prosecute him for years um out of fear of being harmed.
Um, and they have good reason for it for all the women before him. Um, before them, um, in his, uh, career criminal. Um, my son finally decided to prosecute to try to save future victims as he would continue to return to our town. He was a transient.
Um, he would bounce from one state to another. He got jobs using 1090 forms so he could not be tracked. Um he um finally um my daughter and son finally um testified. They didn't have to testify. We did a plea. Um he got two charges. One he served in prison time for. Second one was um uh set aside and he was given probation for.
Uh we've been to every parole hearing.
Um he refuses not to uh do classes to help himself to rehabilitate.
We wrote letters against him getting community placement, very in-depth letters, and he was still um accepted in Cheyenne.
In Cheyenne, he was given in my opinion um some freedoms he shouldn't have had.
But we received an email basically in the middle of the night that he had um not returned back. Um [clears throat] he was at large for three almost four weeks. He was reported to be in our town Gillette where he has no family members, no friends. Um u this criminal is a psychopath, although his criminal record does not show it because people are afraid to report. He was here. Um it was um confirmed by police um as we took his mug shot to them. Um my husband and son went around notifying um bars. Um apparently it was on some dating app and somebody screenshot it. Everybody that knows my daughter knows um the seriousness of what he can do. Um sent it to her. Um Mr. Shannon thankfully um he is a great director. I can't sing his phrases enough. Thank you Mr. Shannon. Um was we were able to find phone number he was using while he was incarcerated and US marshals went after him.
We thought he was going to be criminally charged so he can no longer um get parole.
And in my opinion, he should not be able to go to community placement or honor farms where you're given less supervision than in prison. Um, I understand not all escapes are this circumstance, but he is very dangerous to his victims.
Um, he's, um, very retaliatory. I fear the day he gets out. Um, we've taken concealed carry classes. We've taken self whatever classes because he's very um very much a psychopath where he minds the rules, looks nice, whatever. And then when your back is turned and as far as I'm aware, um he has pretty good um record and was sent and everything going great and then all of a sudden he's just gone. And that's how he works. That's how he operates. And I understand he might be the minority in this, but my family should not have to look over our shoulders when he's supposed to be incarcerated.
We shouldn't have to watch emails that he's going up for parole hearing when he shouldn't he should have been criminally charged. um prosecuting attorneys in Cheyenne say that it was the turnover um during election. They were over their heads. He was already captured. Therefore, um they dropped the charges. I'm trying to get them to recharge him. Um it is my feeling. We live in Wyoming. Um there's some things that yeah, you're given second chances for, but other things I do not feel that is the case. I do not feel you get a second chance when you've burnt your first one and you are um on aggravated assault charges. Um and that's my opinion and that's my testimony. I I support this. I would even add that they shouldn't be given a chance at community placement again.
I don't know if that can happen, but I will push this. I will be there. I will do the work. I'll do whatever needs to be done. This won't protect my family this time, but it will protect another family, and I'll continue to work to try to get him charged to protect my family.
>> Any questions, >> committee? Any questions?
>> Miss Hoffmeister, we appreciate your testimony. We're deeply sorry that you had that you and your family had to go through what you did go through, but we appreciate you being an advocate for the issues.
>> Thank you. I will advocate for I'm the mom and I'm supposed to protect my family and I will go to the ends of the earth to do that.
>> Absolutely.
>> All right.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you all for your time.
>> All right. I believe that is the end of our public comment. So we'll close public comment.
committee directives on this issue.
Representative Web, you have a motion you want to make.
>> I I do have a motion I'd like to make. I think we need to u look at not only the proposed change that was originally in House Bill 170, but the proposed changes that um director Shannon has proposed.
>> Okay. And and see about moving this forward. Yeah, let's meeting.
>> Why don't we start with a motion to make the House Bill 170 a committee bill? Do you like that motion?
>> That'll be fine.
>> Okay, >> I'd make that motion.
>> All right, sir.
>> And it's been seconded. And then um if we want to incorporate the other change, uh we can make an amendment here. I will say I'll speak to this a little and see if you're interested in this motion as a committee, but I think the proposal the second proposal that you have to bring in the aggravated assault and battery statute is a little much. If you look at that statute, there's a lot that we would be bringing in when it sounds from like from their testimony the concern is serious bodily injury. So, I would propose that under BI we keep the language that we have because you don't want to necessarily get rid of the assault with a deadly weapon. You could still have that as a as a reason to prohibit parole, but you could you could amend this language so it says made an assault with a deadly weapon or causes serious bodily injury upon any officer, employee, inmate or institution. And I think that gets to the heart of what they're trying to address.
>> So moved.
>> Okay, it has been moved and seconded. Any I kind of already discussed it, but any other discussion on that?
>> All those in favor of that motion signify by saying I.
>> I.
>> Any opposed?
>> All right, that has been adopted. What about back on the main motion? Any discussion on that?
>> Yes, co-chairman Washer.
I don't think I'll bring it today, but I'd like LSO maybe to contemplate um eligibility for placement at an alternative center, whether or not we might be able to to uh add to this idea that not only would they be ineligible for parole, um but they might also be ineligible for placement. I don't think it fits statutoily in this one right here, but we might want to look at a an additional bill draft maybe at our next meeting.
[clears throat] All right, any other discussion on this motion?
All those in favor signify by saying I.
>> I.
>> Any opposed? So, we've got that bill draft and then Brian, we've got the second directive from co-chairman Washett. All right.
Any others, committee?
If not, we'll just keep rolling right along. We're doing good. Told you we're gonna make up some time. Our next uh topic is a report from the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security and update.
We have uh Director Bud, welcome.
So nice seeing on my paper that it says Wyoming Office of Homeland Security.
>> Mr. Chairman, for a short amount of time. Yes, >> we're almost there.
>> We're almost there. Uh good, good, almost afternoon. Uh I'm Lyn Bud. I'm the director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, which will be changing to the Wyoming Department of Homeland Security on July 1st. Um I have my wingman with me, uh George Nikkin, our deputy director. Um, and I will be uh try to be expedient. I may not be entertaining, but I hope to be thoughtprovoking. So, there we go. Um, agency transition uh is what I'm going to address first. Um, it it is going very well. Um, it is a lot of moving parts, but is not difficult. So, we're working in conjunction with the state budget department, state auditor's office, the state treasur's office, ETSs, and ANI to make sure we get all of the movements covered in in a uh efficient manner. Um, we are going to be agency 95. Um, so we're working on moving all of the finances from agency 001 to agency 95. Um hopefully with just the use of the legislation and avoiding uh B11 processes uh to make that happen.
Um we also in this uh transition and due to the recent shutdowns um just this is kind of the financial part of it there's many many grants that have to get moved that we have multiple um subreients there and and so there's lots of lots of uh entries to be made but again not a difficult process just a tedious process. Uh we will be asking for an extension on some of our preparedness grants um due to the lapse in um uh the government funding uh DHS and and FEMA and hopefully that will help with folks that are trying to get projects done um at the local level and in our office as well.
Um uh we do have a whole timeline set up for this transition. It appears as though we're on track to get that done.
Um, we're asking all of our subreients to turn in reimbursements to us by June 15th so that we can get those processed prior to the change of the fiscal year.
If not, there will be a slight delay in those reimbursements after the July one transition because we'll have to get everything all set up again. All of our units will be the same, so you should have continuity uh to be able to look at at activities of the agency uh prior to July 1st.
Um, any questions about that?
committee. Any questions? No.
>> Okay, great. Um, another review for you.
Um, uh, the legislature was gracious enough to, uh, fund some, uh, equipment for the regional emergency response teams, which are hazmat teams as well as the bomb teams. Um, there was $4 million appropriated in support of the uh, regional response teams. um that when those teams were created clear back uh prior to 2010 for sure um that all of the uh teams received uh specialized equipment, specialized trucks and things and those were all end of life. So, we have been able to uh with that $4 million with regard to the RERT portion of that uh provide uh heavy duty three heavy duty hazmat engines for um uh regional response teams 1, three, and four. Uh light rescue team for hazmat unit for region 7. Two uh three F-150 F550 trucks for region two and one 550 truck for region 7. Um we will be looking at coming back to you all with a request to continue with that process which would cover um regions five, six, and eight. Um so that will likely be a request in our supplemental budget for them to get everybody up to speed. It does take two to three years to get these um uh units put together and brought in and and with the supply chain situation right now that might even be uh longer term to make that happen. So, we want to make sure that we stay um within a reasonable amount of time to get those other uh teams outfitted. Um we have spent $3,856,840 to date uh because these vehicles will be owned by the state and not the local jurisdiction. We are setting aside the remainder of the funding there, $143,60 to pay for maintenance and repairs on those trucks. Uh going forward, at least for that period of time, uh the bomb teams, we received five $1.5 million to upgrade their equipment. Um we've actually purchased five bomb robots uh for RERTS or well for bomb teams one, two, and four. uh Nrona County and Campbell County received a large robot as well as a throwot. Uh four bomb suits which were expired. Uh so that was very important to get those done. Um as well as digital x-ray system for our ERT1. Um and then also some training and equipment for our uh explosive detection canines, specialized glasses and ear protection for them. [snorts] Um and and [clears throat] uh kennels and other safety equipment for those canines. um as well as um source source um material for them to train the dogs on. So, uh have spent out of the 1.5 1.489 leaving $10,000 for additional supplies as needed. We'll continue to spend on that.
Um any questions on that expenditure?
>> Representative Le.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Director Bud. Could you just repeat for me um the bots and particularly the throwbot? Where did those go?
>> Um, those two went to uh the bomb team in Atrona County and the bomb team in Campbell County.
What we did, just so you know the process, we brought the regional response teams and the bomb teams together and had a conversation upfront with them to talk about what do you need um and what kind of what kind of equipment do you need, where is your gaps, and then also they agreed on um kind of a prioritization uh for equipment for teams. And I apologize I didn't address you. I apologize. Um uh so that that that was a team effort to to talk about, you know, who who needs the equipment now and um who uh can wait a little bit.
>> My apologies. Okay.
>> All right. Um uh as you may have known, I'm going to give you a quick federal update. There's been a lot of movement at the federal level that you've probably heard about with DHS and FEMA.
Um it's moving in a positive direction.
This does have a tremendous amount of effect on our office mostly with um grant funding but also for those preparedness grants. Uh our office is funded about 90% with federal grants. So we pay a lot of attention uh to what is happening at that federal level and um as we move forward there will be a lot of uh things that we need have to to talk about. Um, as you may be aware, there is a new Homeland Security Secretary. Um, former senator from Oklahoma, Mark Wayne Mullen, has um already made some pos he's been confirmed and he's already made some really positive changes to DHS and FEMA.
Previously, our funds were held up due to the need for uh a a procedure that was put in place by the previous secretary to sign off on any payment over $100,000.
You can imagine that that's a large stack of payments. And so there was a a large uh bottleneck put in place for funds moving towards the states uh for reimbursements and and other things. So um that has changed now to 2.5 million and also will be handled by a deputy rather than the secretary himself. Uh just one small change that will make a difference. Um yesterday Cameron Hamilton who was a previous interim FEMA administrator was nominated as the uh FEMA administrator. Um and we'll have to go through the confirmation process with the Senate. Um there have been three previous temporary administrators and that's part of the confusion as well at the at the federal level um when you don't have somebody who is um qualified for the job as you know to be a permanent position and and doesn't have the authority as well. So it's that's a very positive mood move. Again, I I hope that that will continue to be uh positive and and we have confidence that it will.
Um the you may be aware that there was a FEMA review council appointed by the president uh created through executive order 14180 to review the um FEMA processes and and and they actually at one point in time they were pushing to get rid of FEMA completely. Um we've moved back around to just as it is right now. There is a lot of um adjustments that can be made within the FEMA procedures uh that will make uh it easier to get funding to folks on the ground that need it in a disaster, but also um with the grant funding and the support uh from the federal level. I will uh let you know that that particular committee um and the the sentiment from the administration at this time is to certainly push additional responsibility both uh uh in actions as well as financial responsibility to the state level. Um with that does come more control on the funding and how it's spent. Um, but that will be a conversation that we will continue to have because we will be needing to look at our uh staffing um as far as where we're focusing our staffing uh ch with changes in this report that just came out last week. Um but also um with regard to what they will be doing and how we will be able to handle that with the staffing that we currently have. Um the overall theme which has has been a theme historically but somehow got changed over time um and that is that all disasters are locally executed, state managed and federally supported.
So again the idea is that the responsibility for also a big one is training um is going to be a lot of the federal training that's available right now will be uh will be gone and we'll be responsible for doing that um at the state level. Um so there's 10 recommendations. I'm not going to go through them all, but again, a lot as we review the the report and again these are just recommendations to the president. So, uh we don't know how much of those will actually happen, but it certainly is the sentiment and there are at least two bills in Congress that are looking to reform FEMA as well. But there's a lot of the same um conversation happening with those. Um uh the as we've talked about before with the preparedness grants that support our office um we actually only have one employee that is not supported with a federal grant. That's our our newest critical infrastructure position. So um they did instead of just turning the faucet off uh within this report talked about a two to threeyear glide path to remove those federal uh preparedness grants. Um, so we will need to be looking at a um plan for um how we're going to be able to fund our office um in the in the uh days moving forward. Um we have current grant funding enough to cover the uh budget fiscal year 2728, but likely that will not be there for budget fiscal year 2930. Um that amount at this point in time uh to sort of cover that funding is about $5.4 $4 million um for the bianium for us. So for continuity sake and and for the for the purposes of keeping our office running, we're probably going to need to look at some different ideas for uh keeping our staff and our office running.
Um there is a change to the way that they are looking at disasters. We historically have not gotten a lot of disasters in Wyoming, not because we don't have things happen, but because it doesn't affect enough people. Um which is fine. That's a good thing, right? uh except that that means we don't get any federal support. That uh is also going to continue to become more uh complicated or less disasters being uh qualifying for funding from FEMA. We get a lot of questions, you know, FEMA needs to help. FEMA needs to help. There's so many qualifications to get a disaster.
Uh one of the things that is changing as well is the thresholds for the W for Wyoming to qualify for a disaster.
um is based on population and it's a a a pretty the threshold per capita. Um and right now it's a $1.94 um which would make our minimum um loss at 1.14 million uh to even begin to look at requesting a disaster from the federal level. Um the recommended uh fee or recommended rate in this new report is $2.99 which would make our threshold 1.75 million. Um it's just very hard and that's in in uh public infrastructure destroyed. So that's that's a tough one for us. We just don't have that concentration of population to to get those disasters. So, uh, you know, a lot of the conversations that we'll be having moving forward will also be how do we how do we support our communities after a disaster, uh, when we know that there will likely not be federal funding coming for any of that recovery. Um, we'll just have to collectively take a look at that. Um there are I want to say 38 states that have their own uh public assistance programs within the state as well as individual assistance which would be more like the housing and and support to individuals after disaster.
Um, and uh, so I think it's something that we in Wyoming are going to need to look at, especially um, I think we've moved towards that situation a little bit with the with the funding for um, cheap grass mitigation after wildfires.
And and the other part of it is that FEMA focuses really heavily on the disasters they know, which is hurricanes and and other large disasters like that.
They don't understand wildfire as well as or snow melt, flooding, um, blizzards, those types of things. We we lost a we did a disaster declaration request at one point in time and and [snorts] uh we didn't get we were denied it because it wasn't the right 24 hours that we had the record snowfall. It wasn't from 0 to 24. It was from 6 p.m.
one day to 6 p.m. the next day. So hopefully some of those complexities within FEMA will get changed. But again, I think it's um imperative that we start to plan for how can we support our communities after disaster.
Um, any questions on that sort of federal level conversation?
>> Representative Lean and then Chairman Washard.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, director. I'm just wondering if you could tell me, and you might have to grab it, um, what the budget cost for your office is that we just passed. Do you remember, >> director?
>> Mr. Chairman, Representative Lean, I believe the total budget, including which would be a lot of pass through money um to the local level, our grants do that is about 24 million. Um so that total budget would certainly reduce the total spending authority if we didn't have the federal grants. Again, to uh if we took all of the federal grants out and said we need to fund the office as it stands today, it's about what did I say? 5.9 5 No, 5.4. 4 million.
>> Co-chairman Washington.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Bud, one of the things that keeps me awake at night is a $40 trillion debt that we're staring down at the national level.
>> The potential for huge impacts to our state should federal dollars start being siphoned away um seems to be significant. And I would, [clears throat] and I'm sure you're already doing this, but but some type of uh uh report to this committee, uh anticipating down the road, what's the state's responsibility going to look like?
>> Uh I I think it could be substantial and and something that we need to be planning for in addition. And secondarily, training facilities. you know, we have a law enforcement academy, we have a state fire academy. I'm wondering, has your office identified any gaps when it comes to training facilities uh within our state because I I hesitate to keep sending people out of state >> to pick up training that a lot of people in Wyoming might need. So, um those are things I just ask you to keep your eye out in the future u and and keep the committee informed as to what those needs might look like.
>> Uh Mr. Mr. Director, >> Mr. Co-chair. Um, absolutely. And and as we I I totally agree with you. We need to be looking forward and and not get um in a spot where all of a sudden we're in trouble. Um we need to plan ahead for what responsibilities the state is going to be given uh with the removal of the federal support. And to your point of the of the national debt, um the the recommendations um here actually will reduce the amount of money that the federal government pays out to larger disasters such as, you know, Florida and other places that have hurricane um and other large situations, large populations. Um, so the good news is that likely they won't be paying out as much money uh from FEMA for those disasters, but on the other hand, that's also going to not send money to the state of Wyoming. Training is a very good example of conversations that we've been having lately. Um, we currently have a half-time position for training and that went to halftime due to previous budget cuts. we will likely be looking at at least asking for that position to be put back to full-time um to manage um additional training to be brought to the state. We do have a challenge um already in the state with getting enough people for classes, believe it or not. But with the removal of a lot of federal support for those um entities that have done training at that level before, I think we'll see um um increased um demand for training in the state. We do also maintain on our website right now a training site that uh has training within the region. So all of the states surrounding us so that that travel can be minimized and and try to be uh you know get classes filled for all of the western states who have a trouble getting uh people into the classes. But the the and again the responsibility is probably going to be put on the state to get that training put together and developed and and brought to the state. However, that gives us control over what we bring and what we're able to do as far as bring what type of training is appropriate for our state and the members of our state.
>> Any additional questions?
All right, director, do you have more for us?
>> I I'm I'm being fast.
>> You're doing great.
>> No, you're doing great. Go ahead.
>> Yes. Um I wanted to give you an update on two other programs that were funded with the with the previous budget. Um, one of those was support for the critical infrastructure program and and the comparison of uh land conveyances uh and looking for investment by foreign adversaries. Um, we are uh working very diligently with our uh selected uh provider for um the software program that we're going to need to to work through all of those comparisons. Um that is Deote Consulting. We're finalizing our statement of work with them right now and we'll be um looking to um get that fi that put together. It is a arduous process because this is all completely new. You know, many it's not something that other states have done and and so Wyoming once again is on the cutting edge of of getting some of this done. Um we anticipate the contract ex execution for July 1. uh kick off that project July 15th and then the go live uh would be probably mid November as we develop the the program in conjunction with them. Um one of the the bumps in the road that we've run into is the consistency of the county data coming to us. Um it is quite inconsistent and often missing a lot of information.
We're trying to work very closely with u the the counties and the clerk's association to make sure that we can try and and figure out a way that isn't a huge burden on them, but that we can get the information in a way that is efficient and and complete. Um most of the counties work with a company called Tyler Technology. We've been working with Tyler Technology to try to help develop a system where they can just scan the documents and it will pull the information off of that. six counties are not using Tyler technology. Um but with the with the bill that created um this task for us, there was funding for the counties uh put in there and given to the Office of State Lands for distribution. It's about $10,000 a county for that. So, um again, just trying to work out that that first grab of data is the most important thing, and we need to figure out how do we get that in in an efficient manner. I I uh uh hope [clears throat] to not have to go to a rulemaking procedure and and put that burden on the counties. We want to try to work with them and figure out how do we how do we help them uh get the right data to us. Uh so that's just an example of one little bump in the road that we've run into um as we develop this program. Um so far uh to date we've received about 300,000 submissions from the counties trying to compare that uh to those uh critical infrastructure zones. Again, we right now are focused on mapping of what we call seaweed, the the most uh the lifeline sectors of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors. That would be communications, water, energy, and transportation. And of course, we're also mapping the military facilities in our state. So, that's where we're focused right now. Um, of course, we'll be looking at the 12 other sectors as we move along, but we're starting here because those are the most important ones for the sustainability of the state.
Um, yeah, we are, >> director, we have a question from Senator Cole.
>> Thank you, M. Chairman. Uh, Director Bud, have you found anything? You've what have you been looking at? Have you found anything? Uh, that was my question. Thank you, Mr. >> Director.
>> Mr. Chairman, Senator Cole, um, actually we have. Um, we are in the process of of investigations on on a couple of different properties in conjunction with the Division of Criminal Investigation as laid out in the in the legislation.
Um um I think it's going to be a fruitful project unfortunately and um hopefully create some more safety and security for our state.
>> Thank you.
>> Okay, I think that's it on that. Uh one last well two topics. Uh the rave panic button implementation that was also funded in last legislative session that actually has already begun at the local level. Um, some folks were already on uh the RAVE system for their alerting. This is for your community alerting the notifications that you get to evacuate or something like that. Um, and as as their current contracts expire, they're moving on to the state contract. Um, and then also moving some people are moving from um other providers uh to uh the RAVE solution. Hopefully, this will save a lot of money at the local level uh being able to do the contract at the state level. We have previously given them grant some uh counties grant funds to pay for their local solution. Um so again trying to get away from utilization of the grant funds for normal everyday uh sustainment working more to provide things for the counties that are are specialized equipment and other things that's working well. We are in the process of working with ETSs who has a program to uh kind of pre-contract with some technical folks. Uh we're working with them. It's called the RAP program and I'm sorry I don't know what the acronym stands for. Um but it's basically getting extra extra uh staffing support for a uh technical project uh for a period of time and then you don't they've already vetted them so we don't have to go through the complete RFP process. There's 29 different companies that they have in this kind of pool. Um, and we'll be doing a RFP to them, which will only take two weeks and trying to get a project manager on board for the state solution. If you recall, um, the state solution involves an app on your phone for every single state employee that is got a panic button as well as a medical alert. Um, and that is a geoence to their building so that if something happens in their building, if they have an intruder, they are able to just push a button and that makes that contact right away and notifies authorities that there's a problem there. Because it is geoenced, it it helps law enforcement find the folks and wherever they are um to make sure that they are are taken care of. It also is a communication tool uh for uh general messaging um or alerting uh say within the hsler building which has multiple state agencies in it. Um we're able to then alert all the folks within the hersel building um at you know if there's an issue in the building maybe there's an intruder on the third floor and you want them to you know shelter in place or whatever. So I it will take some work to get this done. Our goal is to try to get this done by the end of the year. Um we'll have to identify managers in every building as well as managers for every agency. Um we hope to in the future be able to connect the system to the ANI employee system so that uh people are automatically added or removed um as we go through to reduce the burden on management for that questions on the panic button program.
Okay, just a quick little update on planning for summer events and support for local jurisdictions. Um there is a thing called a SEIR level rating which is at the federal level and asking for federal support. It's a special event assessment review and um depending on how that comes out, it uh lets us know how much federal support we can expect for that event for the safety and security of that event. It goes from one to five. Five is basically yep, we see you've got an event. one a sear level rating one is for instance the uh quarterfinals and finals matches for the world cup so those are the very very uh sort of high level events for the first time ever we were able to get a a sear rating of three for the uh shine frontier days activities um part of that is because there will be a uh federal event if you will or national event which is the day of the American west on Thursday of frontier days and we expect a lot of high level folks from um the federal government to be there for that celebration. So, um that will give us the ability to ask for federal resources in support of that event. Um and mostly what we'll be asking for is um drone uh detection and mitigation for for that event. Along with all of the other events that are going on over the 4th of July in many places, we actually got four other events across the state with a SER rating of four, which is a great recognition um just of the fact from the federal level. Hey, we have things going on in Wyoming and and you need to pay attention. So, we may get some additional support there. Um, we're monitoring also uh any possible impacts to the state for the World Cup, the FIFA World Cup. Um, it starts June 11th and goes through the first weekend of Frontier Days through July 19th, I believe it is. Um, while we don't have any matches or anything planned in the state, there are matches in Seattle as well as um Kansas City. So, we anticipate uh through traffic, if you will, of teams and fans moving uh throughout the country. We also anticipate people will uh be coming from many other countries to take a look at the state of Wyoming and hopefully leave their money here with us, but um just want to make sure that that folks realize there certainly could be a lot of different folks in our in our state that that maybe from countries that you maybe have never seen before. So, uh working on that. Um, yeah, Bora, I think that's I'll just stop right there and and ask if there's any additional questions.
>> Any additional questions, committee?
>> All right, director.
Thank you for that report. Thank you for the speedy report. Uh, this is your opportunity, though. Is there anything that you need from us as a committee that would make your department life easier or that is uh at issue?
>> Mr. chairman. Um I I just would ask that you rem remain open uh for conversations in the future with regard to the transition that we're going to have to make um as federal support changes and and we take on more responsibilities. So we appreciate that. Thank you for your time today.
>> Excellent. Thank you. And do we have any public comment?
There's nobody signed up online. All right. Well, committee, it is that time for lunch. We will break until 1:30.
We'll be back at 1:30 and then we'll take up um we've got uh three more topics after lunch. So don't eat too heavy of a lunch because you're not going to want to sleep through the second half of this meeting. I don't think you'll want to sleep through the second half of this meeting. Be back at 1:30.
Videos Relacionados
Trump Impeachment STORM IGNITES as 29 Judges Vote for Conviction!!
DanielBriefDaily
2K views•2026-06-02
सुप्रीम कोर्ट में 5 जजों का शपथग्रहण समारोह #supremecourt #judges #oathceremony #shorts #ytshorts
Bharat24Liv
4K views•2026-06-02
THE STREISAND EFFECT AT BARBARA STREISAND’S HOUSE! - First Amendment Audit
KULTNEWS
1K views•2026-05-30
Jury seated in the Frisco Track Meet stabbing trial — opening statements set for tomorrow
Wfaa8
343 views•2026-06-03
Monkton family worries husband who murdered wife could inherit all of her assets
WMAR2news
152 views•2026-06-02
ترمب وأسواق المال الأميركية.. كيف أنعش "رأسمالية المطلعين"؟ - شرق غرب
AsharqBusiness
282 views•2026-06-04
They Dismissed Every Black Juror in the Karmelo Anthony Trial — Every Single One
Tim_Black
406 views•2026-06-04
Crashes involving e-bikes can mean gray area regarding insurance coverage
fox31
210 views•2026-06-05
