Legislative committee votes to restrict journalists' access to State Capitol

The Select Committee on Legislative Facilities, Technology and Process voted last month to bar photo- and broadcast journalists from entering the halls that run next to the House and Senate floors. The rule change eliminates the opportunity to gather eye-level images of lawmakers at work in each chamber, relegating journalists to documenting what’s happening on the floors from the galleries above.

If adopted by the Management Council in November, the policy change would become the latest in a series of progressive restraints applied to the diminished legislative press corps in the People’s House. Aside from a basement media room in the Capitol Extension, journalists have been able to use their press credentials to access the corridors adjacent to the chamber floors — until now.

“This change is at the request of the current presiding officers,” Legislative Service Office Director Matt Obrecht told the committee at the Sept. 18 meeting.

“With the amount of traffic in those hallways … it’s just not a place for photographers. Photographers can have access to the floor from the galleries,” Obrecht said of legislative leadership’s request.

The Wyoming Press Association sees things differently.

“It has been the role of the fourth estate to report on the work being done for the people of Wyoming by their legislators. To limit or revoke access sets a dangerous precedent not only for the Wyoming Legislature itself, but for local government agencies to follow suit,” Darcie Hoffland, executive director of the association, told WyoFile in an email.

The committee voted 4-2 in favor of the policy change with Rep. Mike Yin (D-Jackson) and Sen. Cale Case (R-Lander) in dissent. Sens. Dan Laursen (R-Powell) and Chris Rothfuss (D-Laramie), and Reps. Dalton Banks and Dan Zwonitzer (R-Cheyenne) voted in favor of the new press restrictions.

Committee discussion

Several committee members pointed to the Legislature’s live stream — which captures and broadcasts both the House and Senate floor as well as committee meetings — as an alternative form of transparency and justification for the removal of press access.

The Legislature cemented its streaming policy during the COVID-19 pandemic after first debating the idea of broadcasting more interim committee meetings online in 2017.

Now, with everything that’s said at the microphones being captured in audio and video, “I think that’s somewhat the reason this policy came forward as well … you don’t need that same access because it is much more transparent,” Rep. Dan Zwonitzer (R-Cheyenne) said at the September select committee meeting.

Rothfuss agreed.

“I think the discussion that we’ve had so far about the fact that our technology has improved dramatically to ensure access makes this a reasonable step,” Rothfuss said.

Other lawmakers, including Case, instead contrasted today’s arrangements with what once was.

“There was a time, and it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago, that the media were actually permitted to sit on the floor of both chambers, specifically at that large table that’s to … the Speaker’s right or the President’s right,” he said.

While Case also commended the technological advances the Legislature has made, he pointed to Rules Committee meetings, which often take place on the floor in an off-mic huddle, or in leadership’s offices, as an example of the no-journalists policy’s shortcomings.

Lawmakers typically report on such meetings to the floors after the fact, but “they’re not really public meetings,” Case said. Media had previously been allowed to attend and observe such Rules Committee confabs, he said, but that’s not been true in more recent years.

“So that’s always been a bit bothersome to me about the transparency of the Rules Committee,” Case said.

Yin told WyoFile after the meeting that he understood the desire for the proposed change, but didn’t think there was adequate justification.

“I think it’s important that we have as much journalism as possible for the Legislature,” he said.

Wyoming Tribune Eagle Managing Editor Brian Martin told WyoFile he’s hoping for some kind of compromise.

“My hope is that they will decide to keep access open and create a system where media can take turns,” Martin said.

It’s difficult to get good photographs of lawmakers from the galleries, Martin said, adding that it’s much easier to do so from the side corridors.

Overall, Martin said he was concerned about the Legislature continuing to look for more ways to restrict media access to the People’s House.

Whether to adopt the policy is ultimately up to the Legislature’s Management Council, which is scheduled to meet Nov. 7.