WORLAND — After many changes in the House and the Senate, the Wyoming Legislature approved a 62 House District-31 Senate District plan last week that keeps the representation as is in the Big Horn Basin with some minor changes to the legislative district boundaries.

The House worked the 62-31 redistricting plan that was submitted by the Joint Corporations Committee and then the Senate changed it to a 60-30 plan that the House did not concur with so a conference committee went to work, essentially going back to the House plan that passed.

The House adopted the conference committee’s version 44-12 with four excused and the Senate adopted the version 17-12 with one excused.

Sen. Ed Cooper (R-Ten Sleep) said the 62-31 plan does have Senate District 20, which includes House District 27 and 28, going further north into Big Horn County and Park County than the current district boundary.

Under the plan Washakie County and Hot Springs County remain intact within HD27 and HD28, respectively, due to their low populations.

“For our region this was our best option. It kept us whole and we did not lose any representation. We didn’t have to take a chunk out of Fremont County,” Cooper said. Senate District 20 will still include a portion of Fremont County, Shoshoni and Lysite.

Rep. Mike Greear (R-Worland) said, “It’s what we all liked, what we agreed upon, the legislators and clerks, was the best option.”

“It was a journey to get there,” Greear said noting about 6 p.m. on Friday night he had to meet with Sheridan County and Johnson County legislators to broker a deal to complete the work of the conference committee.

An agreement was reached that does have Sheridan County out of the plus-or-minus 5% deviation to achieve one person, one vote. He said there is one district in the county that has more population than they should.

“The difference between them and the Big Horn Basin being out of deviation is that they are agreeing they are under-represented,” Greear said. Under the original 60-30 plan with the Big Horn Basin out of deviation at 6% the Basin was essentially “over-represented.” With the 62-31 plan the Basin is within the 5% deviation parameters.

He said the 62-31 plan, which will be in place for 10 years until the after the 2030 census, “sets us up in a better position 10 years from now.”

Under the new plan, House District 27 and 28 split the Town of Basin with the east side coming into House District 27. He said since he has been the District 27 representative, in representing Manderson and Hyattville he has visited the school district in Basin and other organizations in Basin so the new boundary will not be difficult for the new representative. (Greear announced last week he is not seeking re-election.)

“As far as workload it doesn’t really change for this representative,” Greear said.

He added that the legislators in the Big Horn Basin work well together and try to get constituents to the “Basin legislator that can help you the most.”