Articles Tagged With: Wyoming
Republican Mitt Romney became the second White House hopeful to visit Wyoming and attend fundraisers in as many days, arriving here Wednesday afternoon for a standing-room-only gathering in a humid motel conference room.
Late the night before, Democratic presidential candidate and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson attended a Jackson fundraiser before jetting off to Nevada the same evening.
On Wednesday, some 50 to 75 people sat or stood inside and outside the 49’er motel conference room as Romney, immaculately groomed in a pinstriped dress shirt with French cuffs and links, took the small, makeshift stage aside flags of the United States and Wyoming. The event was open to supporters, detractors and the media.
“The civilized world and America is in a perilous situation and is under attack" by “radical jihadists” who want to drag it “back to the 8th and 7th centuries," Romney said.
Update:A press conference this morning in Washington, D.C., provided news that Sen. Tim Johnson, D-SD, had brain surgery last night and is recovering without complication. Senate Majority Leader-Elect Harry Reid, D-NV, said he'd visited with Johnson and he's doing fine.
Earlier reports that Johnson had suffered a stroke were in error. Latest word is that he experienced an intracerebral bleed -- a congenital condition in which a tangle of brain arteries and veins sprung a leak. Surgery drained the leaked blood and fixed the leak.
This latest report may stem initial speculation that Democratic control of the Senate was in danger.
A little-known, and until a few years ago, unused provision of the Wyoming Constitution, mandates that when school districts that receive more in revenue from a special property tax for education than they’re entitled to under state law, the state "recaptures" up to 75 percent of the excess for redistribution to other districts. The rest of the excess money is rebated to the district that originally collected the tax.
This year, the Associated Press reports in the Casper Star-Tribune, that constitutional provision will send $51. 4 million back to five wealthy school districts in Pinedale, Gillette, Big Piney, Shoshoni and Fremont counties.
That amount is more than double the figure Wyoming returned to Sublette and Campbell counties last year, where booming natural gas revenues set up the need for the state to return excess funding.
The first year the rebate function was ever mandated for use was 2002-2003, but since then the state has returned a total of $90.64 million to the five wealthy districts.
