The big news: Republican Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed an anti-union bill that looks remarkably like Idaho’s own House Bill 745. On Wednesday, the Wyoming Legislature tried to override the veto and failed.
Why it matters: Idaho's House Republicans passed an almost identical bill — House Bill 745 — on a 45-23 vote on March 3. It is now in the Senate, and if it passes, Gov. Brad Little will face the same decision Gordon did. Like Idaho’s HB 745, Wyoming’s anti-union bill would have barred payroll deductions for union dues. And like Idaho’s HB 745, the bill specifically targeted the state’s educators’ union.
The outside money angle: It’s no coincidence that the bills are so similar. Idaho’s was written by the Freedom Foundation, based in Olympia, Wash. Wyoming’s was written by Americans for Prosperity, based in Virginia and founded by the billionaire Charles Koch.
• In Idaho, HB 745 has drawn support from the Freedom Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, the National Right to Work Committee, and the Mountain States Policy Center. Only the latter has an Idaho headquarters.
• Both the Freedom Foundation and Americans for Prosperity are members of the State Policy Network, which coordinate on state-level policy.
• Both make the argument that allowing payroll deduction for union dues diverts money from the state — even though, in Idaho, lawmakers have heard repeated testimony from public school districts that the accusation is simply untrue.
What Wyoming’s governor said: Gov. Gordon — a staunch conservative in one of the most heavily Republican states in the country — rejected the idea that he was in the pocket of “far-left” educators.
• In his blistering veto letter, he made his objections clear: “I am frustrated with the increasing trend of out-of-state interests foisting out-of-state solutions on Wyoming. With alarming regularity, these think-tanks-for-hire use our legislative process to enact solutions to problems we do not have.”
• He continued with the same argument that IEA members have been making for years against the attempts by Rep. Judy Boyle (R-Midvale) and her Freedom Foundation-aligned allies in the Statehouse to enact the same legislation: “Wyoming is already a ‘Right to Work’ state, there are no closed shops here. When an employee chooses to opt in for automatic withdrawals, the state should presume they know what they are doing.”
The bottom line: If HB 745 passes the Senate, Gov. Little will be forced to choose between legislation created by out-of-state think tanks or the Idahoans who have negotiated payroll deduction and other provisions at the local level with their own districts.
$5 Can Help End This Tide of Bad Bills
Even just a regular $5 contribution to IEA’s Political Action Committee for Education (PACE) can help IEA end the cycle of constantly fighting out-of-state, cookie-cutter bills like HB 745. PACE was created by IEA educators to support pro-public education candidates from either party.
