Revisiting the Wyo. State Constitution

Publication year2024
CitationVol. 47 No. 3 Pg. 14
Pages14
Revisiting the Wyoming State Constitution
Vol. 47 No. 3 Pg. 14
Wyoming Bar Journal
June 2024

By Robert B. Keiter

The Wyoming State Constitution, a unique document in its own right, merits renewed attention by the state's lawyers in an era when the U.S. Supreme Court appears intent on rewriting federal constitutional doctrine to protect corporate interests and revise individual rights.

Written and adopted on the eve of the Progressive Era, the Wyoming Constitution has been adapted over the years through amendment and judicial interpretation to meet the state's needs and to protect personal liberties. Today, the state Constitution remains rooted in a tradition of pragmatism true to its origins.

The Wyoming Constitution dates to 1890, when an all-male Constitutional Convention penned it in 25 days to lay the groundwork for statehood. It was a bold yet pragmatic move, since the territory then lacked the population formally required for statehood. Borrowing from other state constitutions, the Wyoming framers produced a document that reflected the rising popular distrust of corporate power, promoted clean and accountable governance, and granted women the right to vote for the first time in the nation's history. In short, they gave the new state's Constitution a distinctive progressive flavor.[1]

The Wyoming Constitution, then and now, bears a passing resemblance to the U.S. Constitution, but goes well beyond it. The document not only details the state's governmental structure, but also extends extensive individual rights to the state's citizens. Where the relatively spare U.S. Constitution contains 7,500 words in seven articles, the Wyoming counterpart comes in at more than 26,000 words stretching across 21 articles. It addresses such essential concerns as the legislative, executive, and judicial roles as well as such matters as education, water rights, corporations, taxation, public indebtedness, and public lands. It notably begins with a Declaration of Rights that now contains 37 provisions, including three separate equal protection provisions, an access to the courts guarantee, and a recently added right to health care.

Since its inception, the Wyoming Constitution has been amended 80 times, while more than 50 proposed amendments have failed to secure voter approval. The amendments have discernibly expanded the legislature's power, modernized the judicial system, relaxed governmental spending and investment limitations, and manifested a reluctance to tax except for public education. Two recent amendments to the Declaration of Rights have extended protection to newly defined individual liberties. Taken together, the amendments reveal pragmatic responses to emergent governmental and public policy concerns.[2]

The Wyoming Supreme Court has played a major role shaping the state's constitutional heritage through its decisions interpreting the document. It has regularly endorsed two basic principles when confronting constitutional questions: one is the...

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