Tensions high as Legislature tees off new session

JACKSON — Only two days into the Wyoming Legislature’s budget session, House Minority Floor Leader Mike Yin described his side of the Capitol building as “chaotic.”
 
The Senate had its own fire to extinguish.
 
The tumult started within hours of Gov. Mark Gordon kicking off the session by calling for teamwork to successfully execute the Legislature’s primary task this session: developing the 2025-26 state budget. Gordon compared lawmaking to the Wyoming ranching tradition of branding calves.
 
“A well-executed branding is a thing of beauty and an achievement to be proud of,” he told a packed House Chamber during his State of the State address Monday. “A bad one is a misery. That is why a good crew tends to get invited back year after year.”
 
Like a branding crew, lawmakers come together every year for a short stint to complete a specific task. But there are times when someone tries to “tackle a calf like a linebacker.”
 
“The calf gets loose, a horse starts bucking,” Gordon warned. “Coolers and crew get trampled, and everyone else tries to catch the calf. Chaos ensues, like what we see in Washington.”
 
In an election year, the governor warned, there might be temptation for some lawmakers to try to tackle the calf.
 
Frustration ran high on Day One of the session, with customary procedures upended, bills killed and leadership facing a shake-up.
 
When the Legislature convenes, there has been a precedent that committee-sponsored bills pass more easily through introductory votes. That’s because lawmakers have identified the topics and spent the interim between sessions holding committee meetings around the state and taking testimony to craft the bills.
 
“Last interim we spent $679,704 of state money to do interim work,” House Speaker Albert Sommers, R-Pinedale, said Tuesday morning. “This is the work we do all through the summer, put staff time behind. This doesn’t mean that every bill that comes out is good. It doesn’t mean that every bill should be introduced.
 
“But the vast majority of the committee bills should be introduced.”
 
That’s not what happened Monday. Sommers expressed frustration after House Freedom Caucus members killed 34% of committee bills in the House.
 
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is a faction of the Republican Party and associated with a Republican caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.
 
It came after House Majority Floor Leader Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, gave a speech Tuesday calling on lawmakers to introduce all property tax relief bills whether sponsored by a committee or individual lawmaker. This was a drastic contrast to the actions he and the Freedom Caucus took the day before.
 
“They need to get to committee,” said Neiman, who is a member of the Freedom Caucus. “They need to have the opportunity to be able to be openly debated on the floor of this Legislature, work through the committee and see what comes out. So that we can do the business that the people of the state of Wyoming have called us here to do.
 
“They’re not having an easy time out there, and they’re counting on us. Of all the issues that we face right now, this is probably the most pivotal.”
 
Even after the call to give every tax relief bill a chance to be considered, three died Tuesday, including one from Rep. Yin. The Teton County Democrat’s real estate transfer tax bill died 8-53-1, leaving another Cheyenne lawmaker to ask if the plan was still to vote for every kind of property tax relief.
 
Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, criticized Neiman’s call for support of tax relief bills one day after the Freedom Caucus killed so many committee bills.
 
“I find it just a little bit offensive to think that now we’re going to take into consideration all the hard work the committees have done over the interim, the thousands of dollars that have been spent, the time away from work,” he said. “And that we would consider these committee bills are now more important than the ones yesterday.”
 
What died
 
A wide range of bills died in the House on Monday, from measures that tried to end the cycle of incarceration for Wyomingites struggling with mental health conditions to ones that aimed to protect election officials and voters from election intimidation.
 
“The two-thirds vote introduction allowed for an extreme minority of the Legislature to throw away a lot of the work that would have supported all our communities,” Yin said. “It is irresponsible to govern that way.”
 
The first bill killed was one backed by Rep. Andrew Byron, a Teton County fishing guide and member of the Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee. It would have raised nonresident fishing license fees 10% after decades with no increase, with the money going to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to protect local waters from invasive species.
 

 
Another Travel Committee-sponsored bill for float fishing guide licenses died in the same manner with no support from the Wyoming Freedom Caucus on the two-thirds introductory vote.
 
“I think yesterday was a sad day for the Wyoming House,” Byron said. “And it was sad that the results that came out of it were because of political development within the body.”
 
He said the most frustrating part was many of the bills were backed during the interim by the same people who voted them down Tuesday.
 
Other bills that weren’t introduced dealt with American Rescue Plan Act dollars, state funded capital construction projects, education savings accounts and campaign reporting.
 
“When I go and confront them about it, often they don’t remember how they voted on bills,” Byron said. “And it’s because of that list they get — because they get told how to vote.”
 
The Teton County lawmaker said he approached a fellow representative about property tax bills he voted on and saw the text on that individual’s phone with a list of “yes” and “no” votes on certain bills. He said outside influence — more than their constituents — appear to be driving the votes. 
 
Freedom Caucus defense
 
Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, is chairman of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which makes up more than a third of the House. He defended their approach.
 
“The Wyoming Freedom Caucus and our allies in the House of Representatives removed a quarter of a billion dollars of government spending from the Legislature’s bill docket yesterday,” he said in a statement Tuesday.
 
Bear said they defeated a third of the committee bills as an “illustration of the growing movement to both curb state government spending and bring government policy more in line with conservative values.” 
 
He also expects those same spending measures to come back in some form to the House for a vote before the end of the budget session and hopes lawmakers will consider “needs rather than wants.”
 
The caucus chairman also addressed the texts alleged by Byron.
 
“The Wyoming Freedom Caucus expends a great deal of resources on research on behalf of its members,” he said. “The results of that research are shared with both members and allies in the House, along with a recommended vote. How those legislators choose to use that information is and always has been up to them.”
 
Senate change-up
 
The Senate didn’t struggle with this issue in such a concentrated way, largely because there aren’t as many Freedom Caucus members in the chamber.
 
Its issue came down to leadership.
 
At the same time Freedom Caucus members were rejecting committee bills, the Senate hadn’t taken a single vote on bills Monday afternoon. Instead, its members were focused on who would co-chair the Appropriations Committee, which is among the most influential committees and develops the budget during the interim ahead of the budget session.
 
Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, removed Sen. Dave Kinskey, R-Sheridan, from his position as co-chair in April due to concerns about his performance. He handed the reins to Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, a longtime member of the Appropriations Committee and former chair of the Judiciary Committee.
 
But Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Lingle, brought an appeal to reinstate Kinskey as chairman, which, after a long debate, ended in a successful 17-14 vote.
 
Sen. Mike Gierau, the only Teton County lawmaker in the chamber, voted against reinstating Kinskey. He declined to comment Tuesday on that vote.
 
Driskill said it was the first time he knew of that the president’s decision had been challenged on the floor, although there was one instance when a vice chairman was removed. He apologized and said he was sorry the leadership dispute reached this point.
 
Nethercott wanted to push ahead after the vote and reminded the Senate of its constitutional duty to pass a budget.
 
“I am confident that the budget that’s been worked on, so much is in a place where he will be able to shepherd it through,” she said on the floor. “So I look forward to your continued cooperation, and I thank you. And rest assured, I respect and appreciate all of you moving forward.”
 
It’s unknown how the change in leadership will impact the budget that Nethercott spent months drafting.
 
Following the committee leadership shake-up, the Senate moved to introduce bills. Although a few bills died, the numbers paled in comparison with the House.
 
Rep. Liz Storer, D-Jackson, expressed her disappointment as she listed off bills killed in both the House and Senate during the first two days of the session.
 
“The far-right faction of the Republican Party chose to start the budget session by rejecting a slew of committee bills that the Legislature had worked hard on during the interim,” she said in a statement. “Bills that would help people access mental health services, provide funding for early childhood education, help recruit firefighters to keep our communities safe and help us manage commercial guiding on our rivers.”
 
She also said rejected bills would have helped renters impacted by higher rents due to high property taxes, manage an outdoor recreation trust fund and raise salaries for “hard-working” judges.
 
Referring to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, she said, “They don’t represent freedom or the Wyoming way of life.”
 
This story was published on February 14, 2024.