SJ002 Did Not Leave Committee

"Our effort had a bit of a setback at the Senate Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee meeting today, but we remain optimistic that our Plan B can and will still win the day.

Here’s what happened

SJ002 was introduced last week in the Senate and assigned to the Minerals Committee. We were very excited to learn Monday night that it had been scheduled for a hearing today. Wyoming Promise volunteers showed up in force and packed the hearing room. Our primary sponsor and a co-sponsor are on that committee, so we knew going in that we had two solid Yes votes, and we had hopes that the committee chair was a supporter too, given his agreement to a very quick hearing. Three votes would have carried the day and reported the resolution to the Senate floor. However, during the debate on the resolution, it soon became clear that while four members of the committee were strongly in favor of our ultimate goal (a 28th Amendment limiting the role of money in electoral politics), two of those four yes votes were uncomfortable with using a limited Article V convention to propose that amendment. They preferred to simply ask Congress to propose the amendment. The resolution therefore failed 2-3 on the final vote. However, we are strongly encouraged by the fact that there were four solid Yes votes on the committee to ask Congress to propose the amendment we need. We are therefore working right now to get a new Resolution introduced, in either the House or the Senate, doing just that. Since we are only in the second week of the session, there is still sufficient time to get this back-up resolution introduced, heard, and voted on. The language of that resolution has already been drafted and is ready to introduce very quickly. So our work continues. We plan to go ahead with the legislative reception in Cheyenne on Friday (see below), and hopefully our new Resolution will be introduced before that meeting. If you are able to get to Cheyenne for the reception, please do so! We have lunches ordered for all legislators and some extras for volunteers; please feel free to enjoy lunch *after* all of the legislators in attendance have had a chance to eat." -Ken Chestek, Chair, Wyoming Promise

January 16th, 2019