Saturday, February 18, 2012

Good news from WPEA: Retirement bill fails introduction in Wyoming House


The Wyoming Public Employees Association reports this today:
HB91, sponsored by Representative Pedersen, a bill to change the Retirement System to a Defined Contribution program, failed to collect the required 2/3 votes of the House members today. The final vote count was 30 ayes and 30 noes; a no vote was the correct vote as it killed the bill.
So, the bill sponsored by Laramie County Republican Bryan Pedersen, failed introduction. It would have radically changed a solvent retirement system that is the envy among other states. One can only assume that this is attempt to certain Republicans to punish us terrible public workers – a trend we’ve seen in other Republican-dominated legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida. But not all Repubs voted for a change only they believe in – note that some of the no votes came from Republicans. Thanks to moderates Del McOmie, Dave Zwonitzer, Owen Petersen, Rita Cannady, Pete Illoway and others. Special thanks to all of our House Democrats. And fie on those Laramie County Republicans who voted for the bill. That includes Rep. Pedersen and my Rep., Bob Nicholas.

The bill will return during next year’s lawmaking session. By then, let’s hope that voters have booted out some of the more regressive Republicans. Not likely, but hope springs eternal among Democrats in the reddest of red states. 
  
Here are the results of the roll call via the Legisweb site. 
Ayes:  Representative(s): Berger, Blikre, Bonner, Brechtel, Brown, Buchanan, Burkhart, Edmonds, Gay, Gingery, Greene, Jaggi, Kasperik, Kroeker, Krone, Lockhart, Loucks, Lubnau, Miller, Moniz, Nicholas B, Peasley, Pedersen, Quarberg, Reeder, Semlek, Stubson, Teeters, Wallis, Zwonitzer, Dn. 
Nays:  Representative(s): Barbuto, Blake, Botten, Byrd, Campbell, Cannady, Childers, Connolly, Craft, Davison, Eklund, Esquibel, K., Freeman, Goggles, Greear, Harshman, Harvey, Hunt, Illoway, Madden, McKim, McOmie, Patton, Petersen, Petroff, Roscoe, Steward, Throne, Vranish, Zwonitzer, Dv. 

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