The 2010 US Census estimates that more than 10,200 Wyoming children live with a relative other than a parent.

The system leaves gaping holes in the legal process that accompanies this parental abandonment. This loophole allowed parents who may have been habitual drug abusers, for example, to abandon their children with relatives and return sometimes years later to take the children from the only safety and security they’ve ever known. This flies in the face of a best interest of the child analysis. The reason this happens? The United States and Wyoming Constitutions are explicit that the right to raise one’s child and associate with one’s child is a fundamental, constitutional right.

A Wyoming non-profit, Wyoming Guardians as Protectors, brought the consideration of best interests of the child as a paramount concern to the Legislature and testified during an interim study on the issue.

Wyoming Liberty Group offered the judiciary committee testimony and legal opinion during the interim work on this admirable effort. A solution was offered – instead of a de facto presumption that will likely be overturned by the Supreme Court for constitutionality, why not allow the caretakers to petition the court for adoption after 1 year of care for the child while also allowing for a judge to order drug testing and parenting class requirements of parents in guardianship termination proceedings?

Wyoming Liberty Group drafted HB157 and HB155, working closely with Representative Jennings and other parental rights advocates across Wyoming to conduct the policy research on the best available legislation possible. The end product: bills that provide standing for grandparent adoption and guardianship reintegration plans with widespread support.

The consensus among lawmakers, including the primary sponsor of the bill, Representative Jennings, is that the bills are a “good start” toward providing legal alternatives to people in a difficult situation, while preserving the liberty interests of family and parenting one’s child.

The rationale in this radical step toward providing standing for termination and adoption proceedings to a biological parent is simple: one cannot choose when to parent. The fundamental liberty interest can be terminated. But the constitutional right cannot be allowed to be slowly chipped away without due process preservation.

Representative Jennings commented:

“HB155 just puts another tool in the judge’s tool box, especially when parents are dealing with addiction, and it allows the judge a little more time to deal with this growing problem in our society. HB157 allows the grandparents to tell their side of the story when they have been the ones who were the primary caregivers for their grandchildren. Both bills were important from the standpoint that while attempting to help parents with addiction problems, at the same time it protects fit parents and their parental rights. This was the problem with the committee bills for the last couple of years, as they did not protect the parental rights of the fit parents.”

Lawmakers across Wyoming were supportive and emotionally invested in these measures. Hats off to a legislature that made a difference this year in the lives of approximately 10,000 Wyoming children.

Wyoming Liberty Group also was successful in helping defeat HB220 by providing research and analysis to legislators. Wyoming HB220, “The National Retail Fairness Act” was a selective corporate income tax that was proposed to “bring money back into the state.” The tax would have been on select corporations (mostly retail lodging and food service) with more than 100 shareholders. After being rushed through the house in January with a vote of 44–14, the bill was shelved by the Senate Corporations Committee in February when the committee declined to vote. The bill is considered most likely dead unless the Senate decides to change its rules and bring it back.

Those in favor of HB220 sold it as a way to bring $45 million into Wyoming. These dollars are supposedly already being paid in corporate income taxes that are collected on businesses located in other states on business done in Wyoming. This is only half of the story. Since 29 other states have corporate income taxes that are lower than 7 percent, this would be a tax increase on their business done here. In addition, not all states collect taxes on the business that is done out of state by corporations who are domiciled in their state. There are 19 other states where there is no “Throwback Rule.” The corporations in these states may not be paying taxes on their business that is done in Wyoming. For businesses headquartered in those states this would be an effective increase of 7 percent.

Due in large part to the nature of the retailers and their nationwide pricing models, the tax would be absorbed through cuts to variable costs like labor. A corporate income tax such as this one could discourage the businesses effected from making increases to the employees in this state.

Also due to the nature of how corporations are structured, not all big or chain retailers, hotels, or restaurants would be subject to this tax. Some of these are franchises which are privately held and would not be subject to the tax. In addition, if one business has two stores located in the same town— one corporately run and one a franchise—some of the business is subject to the tax, and some is not.

HB220 is a tax increase that creates a corporate income in Wyoming. The tax policy is selective and creates problems just by the nature of being selective.

Read more here and here.