Wyoming's legislature disrespects Martin Luther King...again

Tomorrow the Wyoming legislature will disrespect the legacy of Martin Luther King once again. The legislature considers Dr. King’s birthday just another day on the calendar. Although they close for Presidents’ Day, they’ve never done so for King’s birthday.

The truth is they never really liked the idea of setting aside a day to honor the slain civil rights leader. They avoided it for twenty-two years after King’s martyrdom. Eventually they were cajoled into becoming the 46^th state to do so. After Wyoming, only New Hampshire, Montana, Idaho, and Arizona held out. Wyoming wasn’t as recalcitrant as Arizona. The NFL moved a Super Bowl from Phoenix to Pasadena because of their refusal to recognize King’s birthday. Arizona then saw the light.

President Ronald Reagan signed a law establishing Dr. King’s birthday as a national holiday in 1983. It took 17 years for all 50 states to join Reagan. Wyoming’s legislators resisted steadfastly until 1990. Even then a majority of Wyoming legislators couldn’t stomach the thought of giving all the recognition to Martin Luther King. Alas, though they passed the law, they purposefully denied the iconic civil rights leader his due by giving the holiday a hybrid name.

That’s how Wyoming ended up with what is called “Martin Luther King-Equality Day.” The compromised name was necessary to get the bill through both houses of the legislature. To their credit, they weren’t as bad as Virginia legislators who originally deemed the holiday, “Martin Luther King, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson Day.”

As a member of the Wyoming House of Representatives, I was the first to introduce legislation establishing the Martin Luther King holiday. It was 1973. Former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had died a year before. He called King “the most notorious liar in the country” even as King was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Hoover’s FBI tapped King’s phone and sent anonymous letters to his wife about alleged extra-marital affairs, attempting to persuade him to commit suicide. Hoover considered King a Communist.

By 1973, King had been gone for only five years and Hoover hadn’t lain in the grave long enough for many conservatives to cleanse themselves of Hoover’s slanders.

But, it was the shear doggedness of the first black woman elected to the Wyoming legislature that eventually prevailed. The late Harriet “Liz” Byrd was the champion who finally got it done.  

State Senator Byrd knew personally what King’s civil rights struggle meant. In 1949, she was a twenty-three-year-old college graduate, applying for a teaching job in Cheyenne. According to historian Todd Guenther’s 2009 “Annals of Wyoming” essay, “The State Superintendent of Public Instruction refused Byrd’s application because whites didn’t want black teachers disciplining their children, and thus, Wyoming did not hire ‘Negro’ teachers.” Mrs. Byrd couldn’t get a classroom-teaching job until 1959.

Although her bills making King’s birthday a holiday were rejected nine times, she never lost hope, believing the words of the slain civil rights leader. “If you lose hope, you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose the courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”

The law establishing Dr. King’s birthday as a holiday has been on the books for 27 years and for 27 years it’s been dishonored by Wyoming legislators. They choose to work that day meaning that their staff must work along with skeleton crews in each state office.

It’s time for the legislative body that made this holiday the law of the state to honor Dr. King as do most other public entities. Close shop. Join the march up Capitol Avenue in memoriam. Speak to school children and others, reminding them what this patriot did for our nation, how his non-violent leadership kept the lid on a situation that could have, without his leadership, resulted in greater mayhem than was experienced across the nation.

Take the day off and, along with others, celebrate the life and legacy of a prophet who brought hope and healing to America.

Time to come out of the closet

Before November 8, I was a white, heterosexual, able-bodied male, Christian citizen of the United States of America.

Under a Donald Trump presidency, I feel it’s time to come out of the closet. I am a black, Hispanic, Asian, gay or transgender, disabled, Muslim and Jewish undocumented human.

Many don’t recognize the privilege they enjoy because of the way they were born. Nothing earned. Birth is like the lottery. In a culture of discrimination, some win, others don’t. It’s always been comfortable in Wyoming for those who are white, heterosexual, able-bodied male, Christian citizens of the United States of America. If you remove any one of those descriptors, it gets harder. Change any one of those descriptors and “the Equality State” betrays itself.

The LGBTQ community continues its struggle for civil rights as the legislature refuses to enact anti-discrimination legislation. Women fight an uphill battle for wage equality. Racial and religious minorities are denied the protection of a state hate crimes laws. People who have lived here since they were infants whose parents are undocumented are feeling the fear of what’s to come in the change of government. Most of the state’s gender, racial, sexual, and religious minorities, and immigrants face threats and the sting of bigotry that white, heterosexual, able-bodied male, Christian citizens of the United States of America do not.

It’s not coincidental that in the weeks following Trump’s election, hate crimes surged. According to the FBI, attacks on Muslims skyrocketed by two-thirds to the highest number since the days following 9/11. Attacks against transgender people have increased. The FBI says the numbers may actually be conservative because states like Wyoming don’t do a good job of tracking them and many of these crimes go unreported in states with no hate-crimes laws.

News outlets report a greater spike in hate crimes since the election including threats as well as assaults on people made even more vulnerable by the political rhetoric and behaviors of the man who will be President. There is little to be gained here by repeating some of the crude things Trump did and said during his campaign. But his transition from candidate to president demonstrates he meant every word.

As President-elect, he chose an anti-Semitic white nationalist as a top adviser. He appointed an Attorney General whose nomination to be a federal court judge was rejected by the U.S. Senate for his racist past. Cheering his election and these appointments were people like David Duke, a former Grand Wizzard of the KKK. His views about women and people with disabilities scarred the campaign. Some of those closest to the new president say they will implement a Third Reich kind of database to track Muslims.

Regardless of whether you voted for Trump or not, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, you must seek to understand why minority communities of all sorts are fearful. But I realize that empathy is, unfortunately, in short supply these days. 

Wyoming is a small, non-diverse state. Ninety percent of us are white. An even higher number are Christians. The Pew Hispanic Center believes there are fewer than 10,000 undocumented humans in the Cowboy State. Given the reputation Wyoming earned and never lost after the execution of Mathew Shepard, there are likely fewer gays, lesbians, bisexual or transgender people here than in many states.

That doesn’t make it any easier to watch the Trump administration take action which denies their worth to the community. In a small state, it should make it more difficult to ignore those actions. These are our friends, neighbors, and fellow workers.

We are them because we are all God’s children. When the government becomes big enough to threaten the rights of women, the disabled, immigrants or gays, lesbians, bisexuals, or transgender people or Muslims, they are coming after each of us.

For the next four years, those who follow Jesus, whether Christians or not, are indeed black, Hispanic, Asian, disabled, members of the LGBTQ community, Muslims, Jews and undocumented human beings.

5 thing to watch for as the 2017 Legislature begins

It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Well, who knows? Putting new eyes on old problems might prove helpful.

As Wyoming faces daunting education-funding deficits and other fiscal crises attributable to declining oil, gas and coal revenues, nearly 3 in 10 members of the legislature are new to the process.

Retirements and defeats rendered seven of 30 members new to the Senate. The House lost 18 of 60 members. But, these numbers don’t tell the whole story. Among those whose seats are filled by freshmen are longtime leaders. Gone are knowledgeable legislators like Gerald Geis, Phil Nicholas, and Tony Ross. Each served as Senate Presidents, accumulating 75 years of combined-legislative experience.

The House lost former Speaker Kermit Brown. Floor Leader Rosie Berger served 14 years before her defeat. She’d have become the first female Speaker since 1969. Mary Throne and her decade of service, including time as Minority Leader, is gone as is Elaine Harvey and her 14 years of accomplishments.

Years of experience were exchanged for newly-elected members with much to learn. Governor Matt Mead is right. Their learning curve is steep. Will they the take time to learn and legislate with vision rather than ideology? Will they follow their instincts or fall in line with their caucus? As legislators begin their work Tuesday, here are five inquiries that will answer those questions.

1.     Will legislators ignore the people and move ahead with legislation transferring federal lands to the state?

2.     Will Republicans finally deliver a healthcare plan?

3.     Will legislators exercise independence from the far-right’s national agenda?

4.     Do any Republicans have realistic ideas about the future of coal?

5.     Will the legislature continue shielding the “rainy day” account from the current thunderstorm?

How new legislators deal with legislation urging the U.S. government to transfer ownership of federal lands to the state will be most revealing. This baby seems to have no known parents outside of a few incumbent legislators. Governor Mead admits the idea is financially and legally impractical. Polls are clear. The public thinks the idea stinks. During a recent legislative hearing, nobody spoke in favor.

Still, the proposal has legs. Key legislators are listening to someone other than constituents. There’s some smoke-blowing in a backroom somewhere. Will the freshmen listen to the voters back home or take their marching orders from legislative leadership? That will tell us a lot about these folks.

Next, with uncertainty about Obamacare, it’s urgent that the legislature enact a Wyoming-specific healthcare plan. The incumbents failed. The best they could do was to oppose expansion of Medicaid. Among new members, is there anyone creative and thoughtful enough to save community hospitals from financial failure and insure the 20,000-working people who fall through the cracks?

Third is a question of independence. Outside organizations exercise oversized influence in the legislature. Ideologues like the thankfully-defunct WyWatch and the Liberty Group, with connections to national groups like ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and the Koch Brothers, infected our legislature with a far right, Wyoming-irrelevant agenda.

Consuming valuable time debating divisive social issues pleases many of these national organizations but doesn’t contribute anything to solving real problems. Will the incoming class have the wherewithal to demand their colleagues focus on Wyoming solutions for Wyoming problems?

Next is the question of the future of coal. The campaign disclosed no fresh faces who’ll do anything but repeat the mantra about ending the partisan-nominated “War on Coal” and resurrecting the industry. Time will tell whether someone will provide leadership and create a reality-based vision for Wyoming’s economy.

Finally, there’s the so-called “rainy day” account. Legislators never developed a consensus for what “rainy day” means. Perhaps there’s no one better to demand a definition than people who weren’t in the legislature as longtime members thoughtlessly spirited away tens-of-millions for whatever they determined was a “rainy day.”

Old problems benefit from new eyes, but only when new legislators use their own eyes rather than those of lawmakers who’ve proved themselves unable to solve those “old problems.”