Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
suffrage became a highly visible political issue in the United States, Wyoming granted all
women age 21 and older the right to vote. Democrat Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first
female governor in the country when she won a special election in 1924 after then-governor
William Ross died in office. She later became the first woman to serve as director of the
U.S. Mint, appointed in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a position she held until
her retirement in 1953.
Wyoming remains one of the few states that has a true part-time citizen legislature,
meaning its members don't enjoy the same accommodations provided to full-time legislat-
ors in larger states. There are 60 state representatives elected for two-year terms along with
30 state senators that serve four-year terms. There are no term limits. The state legislature
meets in odd-numbered years beginning the second Tuesday in January. The general ses-
sion is limited to 40 legislative days. The offices of governor, secretary of state, auditor,
treasurer, and superintendent of public instruction are all elected every four years.
The Wyoming Legislature passed a bill limiting the office of governor to two consec-
utive terms after Democrat Edgar Herschler served three terms in the mid-1980s. In 1992
voters approved term limits in a ballot initiative, but neither action constituted an amend-
ment to the Wyoming constitution. In 2004 two state legislators challenged the term-limit
law in the courts, and the Wyoming Supreme Court subsequently invalidated the limits in a
unanimous decision, ruling that a constitutional amendment would be required to establish
such a law. Popular Democrat Dave Freudenthal, who served two terms as governor after
being elected in 2002 and 2006, did not use the same challenge to seek a third term.
Freudenthal's election and popularity—his approval rating was a staggering 82 percent
in the months before the 2010 election—defy Wyoming's Republican nature. In fact, the
governorship in general has seen its fair share of Democrats, but Republicans have domin-
ated both houses of the legislature almost since statehood. Wyoming has only voted for one
Democratic president in the last half century (Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964), and Republicans
have held a majority in the state senate continuously since 1936 and in the state house since
1964. Despite its tendency to elect Democrats as governor—current governor Matt Mead is
a Republican—Wyoming is considered a red state on the national level.
Dick Cheney is Wyoming's best-known political figure. Born in Casper, Cheney was the
White House Chief of Staff during the Nixon and Ford administrations and was then elected
to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978. He served five terms and was then selected
to be the Secretary of Defense during the first Bush presidency and later served as the vice
president 2001-2009 under George W. Bush. His daughter, Republican Liz Cheney, is look-
ing to shake things up in 2014 by challenging the incumbent Republican, three-term senator
