CASPER, Wyo. — The Wyoming House of Representatives rejected an effort to wrestle control over the naming of the new state office building in Casper from the executive branch.
The House defeated House Bill 132 on a vote of 14-46 on Thursday, legislation which would have had the building named after former Wyoming and United States Rep. John Wold.
The building will instead become the first state building in Wyoming named after a woman — Wyoming’s first female Secretary of State Thyra Thomson who served in the role from 1963-1987.
Rep. Dan Zwonitzer (Laramie County) said during the House’s floor debate that the State Building Commission has named state buildings in Wyoming since 1975 and had selected Thomson as the person to honor with the naming of the new building in Casper after holding three public hearings on the matter.
Zwonitzer said that he didn’t think the legislature should step in and wrestle the power to name the building away from the executive branch.
“It does seem wrong for the legislative branch to come in and say ‘we don’t like who you named the building after and so we the legislature are going to over-rule you and in statute,” he said.
Rep. Tom Walters (Natrona) argued that the building should be named after Wold because he lived in Casper for 70 years. He said that Thomson is also deserving of having a building named after her, but he thinks that should be a building in Cheyenne where she lived for many years.
Walters said he thinks the matter is an issue of local control and that other new construction projects in Wyoming should look to be named after someone from the local area.
He said that one reason he believes the building should be named after Wold is because: “I would venture to guess that his companies have paid billions of dollars in severence and ad valorum taxes to the State of Wyoming.”
Rep. Shelly Duncan (Goshen) noted that there is “not a single building in the state of Wyoming named after a woman.”
“I’m going to pull the woman card,” she said. Duncan said that the idea that the legislature would over-turn the executive branch’s decision to make the Casper state office building the first to be named after a woman on the heels of the state celebrating the “Year of the Wyoming Woman” would be a reversal that “doesn’t sit well with me.”
Rep. Joe MacGuire (Natrona) said: “I’m going to pull the minerals card just a little bit.”
He said that Wold was a crucial figure in terms of developing the energy industry in Wyoming.
“A lot of times the people who really built the state and paid for the infrastructure that we have are forgotten,” MacGuire said. “John Wold, without question, was one of the pioneers who brought in the mineral industry to Campbell County. Period. End of story.”
He said that Wold also started the first trona mine in the Green River area.
MacGuire said he thought the “at some point we kind of need to recognize those people that really did build the state.”
House Minority Floor Leader Cathy Connolly noted that there is already a building named after Wold in Casper, the Wold Physical Science Center at Casper College.
She said that Thomson is “so deserving” of being honored with the naming of the new state office building in Casper.
“She was such a supporter of UW and the students and the College of Arts and Science,” Connolly said, describing Thomson as a “wonderful, wonderful, generous individual.”
“She was also a powerhouse in this state,” Connolly added. “24 years she served as the secretary of state.”
“She lived in Cheyenne because she was our secretary of state.”
Connolly said that since the new building is a state building she thinks it “makes absolute sense that we honor a statewide figure.”
Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (Park County) said she would vote in favor of naming the building after Wold, who served as a minesweeper in World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Rodriguez-Williams said her own grandfather, who just turned 95, was also a minesweeper.
Zwonitzer said that some of the arguments presented by his fellow legislators was “exactly why we don’t leave this to the legislature.” He noted that they had pulled the so-called minerals card, women’s card and veteran’s card.
He added that state buildings in Cheyenne are not all named after someone from Cheyenne and that he doesn’t understand the argument that a state building must be named after someone specifically from the community where the building is located.
Zwonitzer offered an amendment to House Bill 132 to name the Casper building after Thyra Thomson. While the House adopted this amendment, Zwonitzer said he didn’t necessarily want the bill the pass as amended since that would establish the name of the building in state statute rather than leaving this up to the State Building Commission.
The House defeated the bill on the following 14-46 vote:
- Ayes: GRAY, HALLINAN, HARSHMAN, HUNT, KINNER, LARSEN, L, MACGUIRE, O’HEARN, OLSEN, OTTMAN, SWEENEY, WALTERS, WASHUT, WESTERN
- Nays: ANDREW, BAKER, BANKS, BEAR, BLACKBURN, BROWN, BURKHART, BURT, CLAUSEN, CLIFFORD, CONNOLLY, CRAGO, DUNCAN, EKLUND, EYRE, FLITNER, FORTNER, GREEAR, HAROLDSON, HEINER, HENDERSON, JENNINGS, BARLOW, KNAPP, LAURSEN, D, MARTINEZ, NEIMAN, NEWSOME, NICHOLAS, OAKLEY, OBERMUELLER, PAXTON, PROVENZA, ROSCOE, SCHWARTZ, SHERWOOD, SIMPSON, SOMMERS, STITH, STYVAR, WHARFF, WILLIAMS, WILSON, WINTER, YIN, ZWONITZER
The building is anticipated to be complete by fall 2021. The new building will house several state agencies that are now spread around Casper, including in an aging building on Midwest and Center. It will eventually contain nearly 400 workers.
This article contains further details about the new state office building.
House Bill 132 was sponsored by the following legislators:
- Representatives Burkhart, Harshman, Hunt, Kinner, MacGuire, Oakley, Sweeney, Walters, Washut, Western
- Senators Landen, Perkins, Wasserburger
