Natrona Co. lawmakers to lead Legislature

By Nick Reynolds
Casper Star-Tribune
Via Wyoming News Exchange
 
CASPER — For the next two years, both houses of the Wyoming Legislature will be led by representatives from Natrona County who, coincidentally, represent each other.
At its party caucus on Friday, Wyoming Republicans elected Sen. Drew Perkins of Casper – who previously served as majority floor leader – to the position of Senate president. Republicans tapped Rep. Steve Harshman, also of Casper, to his second consecutive term as speaker of the House.
Two legislators from the same county being elected to top leadership posts is not unusual. In 2014, Albany County Rep. Kermit Brown was elected as House speaker and Sen. Phil Nicholas, also of Albany County, was elected as Senate president. However, Perkins, who lives in Harshman’s House District 37, will become the first legislator from Natrona County to be elected Senate president since Republican Diemer True was named to the post in 1990.
According to results provided to the Star-Tribune by Sen. Michael Von Flatern, other members of the majority’s leadership include Sen. Dan Dockstader, who will take over for Perkins, and Ogden Driskill, who will serve as Senate vice president. In the house, Eric Barlow – in his first time in party leadership — will take over for David Miller as House majority leader, and Albert Sommers will move up from the House majority whip’s position to become House speaker pro tempore. Rep. Tyler Lindholm of Sundance will be elected to leadership for the first time, becoming House majority whip.
Selections are not made official until the day prior to the start of session. According to Article 3, Section 10 of the State Constitution, while the Senate and House will elect one of their members, Senate president and speaker of the House, respectively, each shall “judge of the election returns and qualifications of its members” to ratify their nominations. This was an option House Minority Floor Leader Cathy Connolly told WyoFile that Democrats planned on exercising in a roll call vote.
“As the minority party we want our voice our heard,” she said.
In an interview Monday afternoon, Connolly said that while no potential Democratic nominee for House speaker has been identified, she expressed that the roll call vote was intended more to bring both the House speaker and the speaker pro tempore positions back to what they were intended to be – non-partisan, at-large positions – rather than positions assigned and controlled exclusively by the leadership of the party in power.
However, she said she was “excited” to work with Harshman, and plans to continue a positive working relationship with the speaker.
For the Democrats, Rep. Connolly remains minority floor leader, Rep. Charles Pelkey will be House minority whip and Rep. John Freeman was elected minority caucus chairman. For the Senate, Chris Rothfuss will remain Senate minority leader and Sens. Lisa Anselmi Dalton and Mike Gierau, who was just elected to the Senate after one term in the House of Representatives, were picked to serve as Senate minority whip and Senate minority caucus chairman, respectively.
In an interview, Rothfuss said he does not plan to put forward a candidate in the Senate to contest the Republican leadership, saying that the pair have already met to discuss each party’s priorities this year.
“I think there’s a lot of commonality between what I want to accomplish and what he wants to accomplish,” said Rothfuss.
With their elections, Harshman and Perkins would control the priorities of the House and Senate, responsible for facilitating what bills are discussed on the floor and for how long.
Perkins – reached by phone Monday morning – said he has met recently with both Harshman and Gov.-elect Mark Gordon to hash out their legislative priorities for the coming session. So far, the three have found plenty to agree on, from an expressed need to diversify and expand the state’s revenue streams, push forward with the work of the state’s government efficiency commission, and proceed with further defining the efforts of ENDOW, the state’s economic development policy suite.
All three, said Perkins, also have reservations with the state’s budgets, approaching recent improvements to the state’s revenues with caution and gearing up for inevitable conversations on broadening the state’s tax base on a “revenue neutral basis,” Perkins said.
Finding a solution to impending issues with education funding in Wyoming is another area the Legislature hopes to tackle this coming session, Perkins said, as lawmakers to shift more of the state’s revenues away from its rainy day fund and into a pool dedicated for education funding; an area Harshman – a school teacher and football coach – played a central figure on in the last budget session.
On health care – another key issue for the Legislature – all three have, in the past – expressed apprehension over Medicaid expansion and, though neighboring states have voted for it, Perkins said that leadership will continue its work to develop a number of “state-based” solutions currently being pieced together at the committee level.
“Everything is up for discussion,” Harshman said. “But right now, we support Medicaid for caregivers and children, and we’ve never expanded it to able-bodied, childless adults. ... I’m still watching it, but seeing what’s happening in other states, it’s not the panacea some think it is.”
Inheriting a relatively inexperienced crop of senators, however, leaves Perkins with a challenge to unite the upper house behind those priorities. Acknowledging the loss of some institutional knowledge in the Legislature the past two years, he said that those assigned to replace outgoing members on the committees – whose rosters were announced Monday — will bring “fresh new perspectives” to government and that, while there may be philosophical differences from member to member, everyone elected to office was there to serve their constituents to the best of their ability.
“It’s always concern, but that’s how the electoral process works,” Perkins said. “We may have challenges, but we always have challenges.”