Building+a+State+Government

//Introduction// //to// Wyoming Blue Book, Volume II //(1974).//
 * Building A State Government ** by Stanley K. Hathaway, Governor



The basic foundation of the government of the State of Wyoming is its Constitution. This document, which appears in the following pages, was adopted by the voters of Wyoming in the General Election of November 5, 1889, before Wyoming was admitted to the Union in 1890. It provided a framework for the establishment of the Executive, Judicial and Legislative Branches of government.

Development of Wyoming government has been both evolutionary and cumulative since the original framework was established. The Executive Branch, which started with only a few departments, has changed and expanded the most. Through the years the Legislature has often responded to needs and demands of the people for extended and additional governmental revision by creating new agencies to administer those services. The complexities of an expanding economy and ever-changing social patterns have often dictated new approaches to the delivery of public services. Once established, few government agencies are ever abolished.

By the middle 1930s, the State Capitol still housed all three branches of the Wyoming State Government, including nearly all of the Executive Departments. However, at the time of publication of this issue of the //Wyoming Blue Book//, in 1974, the State Government occupies many buildings in the Capitol City of Cheyenne with some branch service offices in each of Wyoming's twenty-three counties. This expansion has not occurred, of course, without a corresponding cost paid by Wyoming taxpayers for new services provided. Disregarding inflation, appropriations from the State General Fund during this period have risen by approximately 2800 percent.

With the growth of government, reform and reorganization become an inevitable and continuing necessity. In recent years, many agencies in the Executive Branch have been consolidated and reorganized into new departments, such as Recreation, Health and Social Services, Economic Planning and Development, Environmental Quality, and Administration and Fiscal Control. This process of re-evaluation and reorganization of the Executive Branch may be expected to continue in the years ahead.

The Judicial Branch has expanded mostly by the addition of more courts and judges to handle ever-increasing dockets of cases requiring the administration of justice. Judicial reform has included a new system for the selection and tenure of judges.

The Legislature has also felt the pressure of expanding activity which led to the lengthening of the Constitutional session limit from forty to sixty days biennially and providing for an annual budget session. A Legislative Service Agency was created to provide staff assistance to Wyoming's citizen legislators.

Government, however, is not the result of laws alone. It is appropriately said that "good laws are no better than the people who administer them." In this respect we have been fortunate in Wyoming to have had the service of many good people in building a solid base of state government.

In reading through the //Blue Book//, the reader will find the names and some of the photographs of the men and women who have made a splendid contribution to the building of one of the last frontier states of the Union. Most of them were and are citizen politicians dedicated to making self government work. Even though many were great individualists with conflicting philosophy and ideas, they almost always found the common ground that brought solution to problems for the benefit of all the people.

Because Wyoming is a large state with low population, there is a spirit of freedom and self-reliance among its citizens which enriches the quality of life. Close personal contact between government leaders and the people they serve provides a unique opportunity to solve human problems before they reach a stage of crisis. Hopefully, this kind of communication and accessibility of people to their institutions of government will permit Wyoming to continue to develop with quality.