Shrouded in Capitol check controversy, bill killing Teton County housing fees heads to the Senate

After a debate in the House about the optics of passing House Bill 141 given ongoing investigation, Senate may be less favorable.

JACKSON — Some Wyoming lawmakers were adamant this week that they shouldn’t “punish” a bill targeting Jackson and Teton County’s housing fees, even if one of its vocal supporters spurred legislative and criminal investigations by handing out campaign checks to lawmakers on the House floor at the start of the session.

The “Fifth Amendment Protection Act” cleared the Wyoming House of Representatives Monday in a final 35-17 vote, with 10 lawmakers excused.

Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, the bill’s sponsor and a leader in the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, has said the fees he wants to ban violate the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says “property shall not be taken or damaged for public or private use without just compensation.”

Jackson and Teton County charge housing mitigation fees to offset the impact of development, and help fund affordable and workforce housing programs. They have helped build hundreds of homes but also been controversial for years.

Bear’s bill is now in the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. 

House Bill 141 was introduced and assigned to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Last week, Senate Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, said she thinks “it’s prudent to not hear that bill,” because of its role in the ongoing check controversy.

“These are the unintended consequences of poor behavior,” Nethercott told the Jackson Hole Daily on Feb. 18. “It’s probably best in the interest of transparency and the institution to not take up that bill and have anyone feel compelled to vote for it or not vote for it for the wrong reasons.”

In the House, HB 141 faced significant scrutiny and initial pushback from some lawmakers when it was debated last week.

On Feb. 19, Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, asked lawmakers to hold off on considering HB 141 altogether until after the House investigation that began Thursday. The House rejected his request 45-13 with four lawmakers excused.

“This is the bill that spawned the investigative committee, essentially,” Yin said.

Other lawmakers pushed back.

“It’s innocent until proven guilty,” Rep. Clarence Styvar, R-Cheyenne, said.

The House unanimously voted Feb. 12 to create the investigative committee after Rebecca Bextel, a conservative Jackson activist, Teton County GOP state committeewoman and affordable housing critic, was photographed handing out campaign checks to lawmakers on the House floor after adjournment on the first day of the 2026 legislative session. Bextel said she was dropping off campaign contributions for Teton County donor Don Grasso, who said he wrote 10 checks for Republican candidates, but he expected them to be mailed.

Yin first brought the checks to the House’s attention when HB 141 was being introduced on the floor on Feb. 11, spurring a rebuke from Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, and Bear, a former leader of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. Both were slated to receive checks and later admitted to doing so — but not on the House floor.

Bextel also hosted a legislative event at the Little America Hotel and Resort on Feb. 10 to discuss affordable housing projects in Teton County, which she’s accused of “fraud.” A reporter that tried to attend was kicked out of the event by Bextel. All of the current and former lawmakers set to receive checks attended, except for Rep. Tony Locke, R-Casper.

Bear, the bill’s sponsor, gave a presentation about HB 141, according to a recording obtained by the Jackson Hole Daily. Other people interested in the issue also spoke at the event, including Teton County rancher Kelly Lockhart.

Lockhart’s family owns ranch land in northern South Park, adjacent to the Gill family’s. In 2024, Teton County approved rules for that area that could allow thousands of homes to be built, in a mix of market-rate and affordable units.

“This is a property rights bill,” Lockhart said at the event. “This is also a family bill.”

Lockhart said that families from Dubois, Alpine, Pinedale and even across Teton Pass who get up early in the morning, say goodbye to their children and commute to and from Jackson face those conditions because of regulations like housing mitigation.

“They view it as free money,” Lockhart said of town and county officials. “They are imposing taxes on new construction, both houses and commercial, to pay for mismanagement of housing programs for going on three decades now. How long have I been fighting it? I can tell you stories upon stories upon stories.”

He said the issue was best handled by the Legislature, not the courts — where a family is currently suing Teton County over mitigation fees.

“It would be a lot simpler if state statute just prohibited it,” Lockhart said. “Public policy, as most of you in this room know, is not best handled by the courts. It’s best handled by you folks in this room. So please help us with this bill.”

Bextel has denied any wrongdoing on a podcast and doubled down, tying the controversy to ending Teton County’s housing fees — which HB 141 would do. Some lawmakers who received checks have also denied any allegations of bribery, as it pertains to banning housing fees. A few check recipients, including Neiman, supported similar legislation in the past and sponsored HB 141 before the session began.

“Why would I need to be bribed to do what I already did a year ago?” Neiman said on the House floor late Feb. 18.

This didn’t stop lawmakers from expressing concern on Feb. 19 that the controversy was hanging over the bill’s head. Most representatives who did so were not affiliated with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

“Last night we heard some pretty emotional testimony on the need to preserve the integrity of this body and the legislative institution,” Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, said on Feb. 19. “This bill is being pushed by the same person who is photographed handing out checks to members of this body on the floor of the house. We have a committee assigned to determine if the actions associated with the distribution of those checks are innocent of any wrongdoing or not.

“Allowing this bill to be heard before we’ve had that determination, in my opinion, will reflect very badly on the integrity of the House.”

Larsen’s perspective was far from the House consensus. The nearly half-hour debate about tabling the bill was heated and confrontational. Neiman had to ask lawmakers to act like adults.

Bear defended his bill and spoke against delaying its consideration.

“There is no evidence of bribery,” he said. “This whole hullabaloo started with this accusation coming to the floor during the introduction of this bill.”

Other legislators repeated the “innocent until proven guilty” line and urged their colleagues to not make the bill ending housing mitigation a “victim.”

“It’s a great idea,” Rep. Daniel Singh, R-Cheyenne, said. “I would hate to see it be a victim to an ongoing situation, and so I ask for us to maintain neutrality on the idea itself.”

Yin’s motion to table the bill ultimately failed.

Later that day, the House passed it out of the Committee of the Whole. It moved along throughout the House fairly quickly, without any more discussion of the check controversy.

But there were debates about the pros and cons, as well as the constitutionality of mitigation fees. Democrats from Jackson were concerned about what the free market would really look like if the bill passed the entire Legislature.

“When our colleagues talk about unleashing the market to build affordable housing in my community, please keep that in mind, it’s just not going to happen,” Rep. Liz Storer, D-Jackson, who brought three amendments to the bill, said during the final vote in the House. “That market is not going to provide affordable housing. It’s going to build $3.2 million homes and up.”

This story was published on Feb. 27, 2026.