Getting a seat? Drama continues for Weston County delegates

The legislators that the Weston County commissioners appointed to fill vacancies from Weston County — that reflect a district of the Wyoming Legislature created in 1991 — will have a hard time being seated, at least under the old legislative management, according to the presumptive incoming Speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives. A conversation started in Weston County regarding representation in the  Wyoming Legislature is spreading throughout the state, House District 1 Rep. Chip Neiman said at a Nov. 18 town hall. Neiman held the town hall because he said he doesn’t want people to be “blind-sided” if they attend the first day of the 2025 General Session and expect Weston County delegates to be seated.

According to a written exchange Neiman shared with people at the town hall, it appears unlikely that the delegates will be allowed entry to the hallowed chambers of the House or Senate.

In response to an email in which Neiman asked, “What will happen if the newly appointed representative shows up at the capital and wants to enter the chamber? What will that look like? What will happen?” Wyoming Legislative Service Office Director Matt Obrecht wrote the following:

“If they want to come onto the floor at the beginning of the session on the first day, the Sergeant-at-Arms will stop them from doing that because they’re not on the State Canvassing Board list of people elected to service in the 68th legislature. If they show up before then wanting to be sworn-in on the floor, it will be up to the presiding officers how to handle it. They have control over the chambers pursuant to statute.”

Republican members of the Wyoming House of Representatives met for their pre-session caucus in Casper on November 23 and selected Neiman as their nominee for House Speaker. The action will not be official, however, until the legislature votes in its entirety when the session begins in January.

Obrecht said in an email that he believes Rep. Albert Sommers, R-Pinedale, who is the 2023-24 speaker of the House is the presiding officer until the “temporary” speaker of the 68th Wyoming Legislature is officially elected.

“That’s just my and my predecessors’ belief,” he said. “It hasn’t been tested.”

In a Nov. 15 Wyoming LSO memorandum labeled “confidential and privileged communication,” which Neiman distributed at the town hall meeting, Obrecht told Neiman that the temporary speaker appoints a House Credentials Committee that reviews the certified list of duly elected members, which is the same list that the Secretary of State’s Office uses to roll call “all members elected to the House of Representatives for that Legislature.” The House votes on the committee’s report regarding members’ qualifications to serve in the Legislature.

“A motion could conceivably be made at this point to object to the list or to credential a person not on the list,” Obrecht said.

He said that unless a court declares the current redistricting plan unconstitutional, the Wyoming Legislature, the Secretary of State’s Office, the State Attorney General, and the LSO are legally required “to follow and uphold” the current legislative districts.

Currently, legislative districts do not correspond to Article 3, Section 3 of the Wyoming Constitution’s stipulation that each county “shall constitute a senatorial and representative district” because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment “requires that the seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature be apportioned on a population basis,” according to Obrecht. He said, citing Carter v. Bd. of Cty. Comm’rs of Laramie Cty, that counties are political subdivisions of states.

“If someone believes the redistricting act violates the Wyoming Constitution or the United States Constitution, the necessary course of action is to file suit in a court of competent jurisdiction,” he said. “More fundamentally, if there is a desire to allocate state legislative seats in a manner similar to the United States Senate such as based on county boundaries, an option exists to call for a Convention of States to amend the United States Constitution.”

Weston County Commission Chairman Don Taylor said at the town hall that Weston County doesn’t have the funds “to fight on that level,” which is why it wanted support from the Republican Party.

In the memo, Obrecht said that a federal district court decided in Gorin v Karpan that Wyoming’s 1991 Legislative Reapportionment Act violated the equal protection clause and “the Legislature should disregard Article 3, Section 3 as it relates to requiring a house and senate district for each county when reapportioning because of its inherent conflict with the one person, one vote principle.” The court “explicitly warned” the Legislature that if it didn’t meet a deadline for creating a redistricting plan that was compatible with the U.S. Constitution, the court would reapportion the districts itself. The Legislature created the new plan and didn’t match legislative district boundaries to county boundaries.

According to former Weston County Attorney William Curley, the Legislature should have sought an amendment to the Wyoming constitution.

“The Wyoming Legislature doesn’t get its authority from some federal judge,” Curley said. “It gets it from the people. So we’re trying to get the Legislature to follow the Constitution, or, if it doesn’t like it, start the amendment process.”

Curley said he believes the conservative caucus is willing to pursue a Constitutional amendment.

“I would hazard they themselves don’t want a giant Legislature, but they do want a constitutionally proper one,” he said.

Curley, who was among the roughly 35 people to attend the town hall in Newcastle, said in a phone interview on Nov. 22 that he believes Neiman “did everybody a good turn to be sure nobody thought it was going to be easy pickings going down to Cheyenne.”

The Weston County Commission had originally selected Curley to serve as the state senator, but he withdrew for medical reasons. At the Nov. 19 commissioners meeting, Chairman Don Taylor, Commissioner Vera Huber and Vice-Chairman Garrett Borton voted to appoint Sue Mirales to fill the senator vacancy. Commissioners Ed Wagoner and Nathan Todd abstained.

Karl Lacey was picked to be Weston County’s state representative in the Wyoming House. Taylor said at the meeting that he hopes the Legislature examines the issue “with an open mind” and, at a minimum, with a mind-set of satisfying their electorate. He’s concerned about what will happen next because, he said, he’s seeing “speed bumps” and “different reports from different people.”

“The road is nothing but uphill. That doesn’t mean the battle can’t be won,” he said. “It just means, I believe, what Chip told me was, it will end up in court. How it ends up in court or where it gets there is a different issue.”

Neiman said at the town hall that the argument that Curley has made – that the Legislature needs to either follow or change the Constitution – is “a pretty compelling argument.”

“What legislator is going to say, ‘No, we’re just going to forget the Constitution,’” Neiman said.

Mirales said at the commissioners meeting that she believes the plan is for her and Lacey to sit in the gallery if they are not seated on the floor.

“I think that this will continue to put pressure on the Legislature that we need to go forward with it,” she said.

Neiman said at the town hall that the place where the delegates would likely talk with the sergeant-in-arms would be “6 feet” from the back of the chamber, so once the delegates are seated, there could be discussion. He asked supporters to seek other state legislators’ support for a vote on the matter.