Recently, Tyler Lindholm got taken to task for preventing 2020’s SF-70 from becoming law. He was asked about his role in the fiasco, and his response was a generic deflection that omitted the most critical features of SF-70.
Rep. Lindholm was quoted by one of his supporters on Facebook as saying, “SF-70 is being reported as some type of miracle bill, but the reality is far different. You can see in the bill that the bill amends 9-11-101 through 9-11-103 and creates new statutes 9-1-514. Why is this important? The new statute is trying to create a Waste and fraud reporting system in 9-1-514 while that already exists in 9-11-101 through 9-11-103. The bill would have made law the same system…twice. Its a duplication of services but what makes that even worse is that the author and sponsors of the bill decided to create an unfunded mandate in the bill. Essentially, SF70 could and should have reported itself as fraud and abuse.”
The truth is 2020’s SF-70 would have given Wyoming’s waste reporting statutes the much-needed teeth it lacks.
One of the bill’s sponsors, Senator Tom James noted that the statute would have done several things:
- Allow for injunctions to stop wasteful activity. Such injunctions would hold individuals that continue wasteful activity personally liable.
- A reporting requirement requiring publishing of waste, fraud and abuse reports to be published on the state website, allowing for complete transparency.
- There would be annual reporting to the Governor and the Legislature on reports made under the statutes.
- Fundamental whistleblower protection allowing for anonymous reporting of incidents of waste fraud and abuse.
- Cleanup of the language of the existing statutes.
It’s pretty clear from reading SF-70 that contrary to Rep. Lindholm, SF-70 was far more than the duplication of existing law.
The real question is, “Why does Rep. Lindholm stand against holding people accountable and full transparency of reporting waste, fraud, and abuse?” All I can think of is that Rep. Lindholm and the rest of House leadership (Speaker Harshman and Rep. Barlow) did their utmost to ensure spending is as high as possible to justify new taxes.
Rep. Lindholm is in a hole, losing a tight race against challenger Chip Neiman. Why Rep. Lindholm continues to dig the hole deeper is beyond me.
