State Sen.-elect Dan Laursen, R-Powell, may be new to the upper house of the Wyoming Legislature, but the preparation work he’s been doing ahead of the Jan. 10 start of the General Session comes with years of legislative experience courtesy of his time in the House. 

Despite being only the second senator since at least 1992 to have been denied a seat on a major committee, Laursen said he’s committed to passing legislation, both as lead sponsor and as a co-sponsor, to help his constituents. 

Meanwhile, he’s still urging both his colleagues in Cheyenne and his constituents to tell Senate President Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, to give him a committee seat and enable him to more fully represent the people of Senate District 19. Driskill told the Tribune he did not give Laursen a seat due to Laursen attacking and disparaging fellow lawmakers, including legislative leaders. 

“If I don’t have a voice for my citizens, that isn’t right,” Laursen said. “It’s bad precedence to start. The other senators ought to be very concerned, if it can happen to one it can happen to all. If we had a majority say no, this isn’t the right thing to do, that might change.”

In the meantime, Laursen is preparing for a busy session. 

As of the week before Christmas, Laursen had two bills in the works: one mostly affecting other legislators and one to get out in front of a perceived threat happening in other states. 

The first, he said, would enable legislators to be reimbursed for expenses at a wider array of conferences, such as the conservative nonprofit American Legislative Exchange Council, of which Laursen is a board member. Legislators are allowed to be reimbursed for expenses at up to two approved conferences per year.

“We can go to the National Conference of State Legislatures, but I don’t like going to them,” he said. “Currently we’re not allowed to go to [ALEC], but I think we should be able to go to any one we can get education from.”

It was while attending a recent ALEC conference that he said he heard employers in certain states have talked about requiring employees to be microchipped. While Laursen hasn’t heard of any Wyoming employers making that demand, the second bill he’s seeking co-sponsors for would preemptively ban Wyoming employers from requiring employees to be microchipped.

“If you want to do it voluntarily, OK, but it should not be mandatory,” he said. “It would also prevent state government from requiring it.”

Beyond those two bills, Laursen is working on some others ahead of the 40-day session. That includes bringing back a bill that would make it easier for contractors to sue the Wyoming Department of Transportation, mainly in contract disputes, and another bill to make education dollars follow the student, whether to public, private or home school. With that latter bill, he said another legislator may already be working on legislation that he would be willing to co-sponsor. 

Bills are piling up well ahead of time as the deadline for submitting bills is early in the session. 

“There’s a scramble to get your bill to the [Legislative Service Office],” he said. “I think the LSO is going to be busy. I bet we end up with 300 [bills] easy, in both [chambers].”

Laursen said he’s concerned with the amount of bills being sponsored by committees, some of which are introducing well over 20. He’d prefer that number to be no more than 10 or 12, saying committee bills tend to crowd out the personal bills submitted by legislators.

Laursen also wants to support legislation to ensure the state government does not implement red flag laws, which allow law enforcement to remove guns from a person prior to a hearing if the person is suspected to be planning to use them to harm their self or others. The federal government is currently promoting red flag laws by offering grants to states that enact them.

“We shouldn’t take the money,” Laursen said. “We should say, ‘No, we don’t need your money.’ We are something like $30 trillion in debt. The government can’t keep printing and borrowing money.”

Laursen said he’s also planning on bringing forward a bill to require high school graduates to pass the same citizenship test that people must pass before becoming a citizen of the United States. He said it’s vital students graduate high school knowing the country’s founding documents, its major wars and major accomplishments that have made an impact on the world. 

Laursen would also like to see the state’s burgeoning surplus be preserved in a more secure place than the rainy day fund, along the lines of the mineral trust fund. He said he’d also like to see the surplus funds that do get used going to more than just K-12 schools. 

“I think our schools get plenty of money and they’ll never have enough money for them,” he said. “At what point do we as citizens say, enough is enough? Do we have to sacrifice everything else — roads, security, all the other stuff just to maintain school funding? I don’t think so.”

Laursen has also been keeping up with bills his fellow legislators have been preparing. A solution to the recent spike in property taxes has been at or near the top of the legislative agenda, and Laursen said he’s been examining some of the bills and determining which ones to lend his support to help get passed. 

“Whether we give a rebate to everybody, or a bigger rebate at the elderly level, we’ve got to do something,” he said. “County governments have got a lot of money. I think our county commissioners should have just lowered the mill levy, and they could’ve done that, and the fire district could have lowered their mill levy, too.”

While he’s preparing for a busy period in Cheyenne — expecting to be reading bills late into the night to be prepared to amend bills he’s concerned about — Laursen is not interested in getting a higher per diem or any more benefits. He’s already seen bills that would do both. 

“We definitely don’t want a full time Legislature,” he said. “That’s not good.”