- State Senator Bo Biteman of Ranchester and State Senator Tara Nethercott of Cheyenne have been in the Wyoming legislature for almost 10 years.

This year, they've risen to the top two leadership positions in the Wyoming Senate.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

Join us now for "Capitol Outlook."

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- Welcome to "Capitol Outlook."

We're here in Cheyenne today at the Wyoming Capitol, joined by Senator Bo Biteman, Senate District 21, that's Sheridan County.

And State Senator Tara Nethercott of Cheyenne, Senate District 4.

Senator Biteman, you're the Senate president, Senator Nethercott, you're the majority floor leader.

Senator Biteman, what is the Senate President?

It's the equivalent of the Speaker of the House generally?

- Yeah, yeah.

Senate president is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the Senate, helping to coordinate the activities of the Senate in conjunction with the majority leader and my vice president.

We have a great leadership team and we all work together on making sure that the senate's running smoothly.

- Concur with that.

What's the majority floor leader's specified task?

- Well, I like to say that the specified task is making sure the trains run on time.

And so what that means is I'm the logistics coordinator, so I make sure we are scheduled on time, we have appropriate bills to hear that we have the work to do.

The work is getting done.

I assign the bills for the day, make sure everyone feels comfortable with the work assignments and how things are gonna be distributed and we're ready to do the people's work.

- Is that.

- Daily.

- Is that the pink sheet?

The purple sheet?

- Green sheet.

- Green.

- Green sheet issue.

- Yes.

- Thank you.

- Green sheet.

- I've seen that once in a while.

It's highly guarded from US media types, but- - And the trains are running on time, Steve.

- That's my next question.

We're a little more than a week into the session.

In terms of the least of the logistics of things.

So far so good?

- So far so great.

- Yeah, good.

- It's far surpassed my expectations for all of us being new to leadership.

I think we've hit the ground running.

We have a great relationship with each other and we work very well together.

And I think we've been able to really get to work.

- Now, I might ask you a little bit more about this later, and we did talk about it with Speaker Neiman last week.

You two have both been in the Senate for a while.

What was your first year of election?

- I got elected in 2016.

- '16.

- Same with Senator.

- So you're come going on a decade now.

That helps, I presume?

(Tara laughing) - Yes, it does.

- When you were able to observe two or three different people in the chairs that you have now.

And kinda got the hang of how you'd like to do it, what you'd like to emulate, so forth.

On the House side, there's quite a bit been made of the fact that several, whether there's a lot of new faces, number one, based on the last election.

And the speaker for example, and he spoke about this very frankly, he was just elected and took office in 2021.

He's already in the speaker's chair.

Is it a much more complicated job, I presume, than what you had before?

Are there things that you can't do anymore that you used to do that maybe you wish you still could or just acknowledge that you can't?

- Well, spending time on personal bills is almost impossible.

I'm currently scrambling to try to get a couple bills.

I've been working on all interim, finished and ready to be introduced before the deadline.

But I'm trying to get everybody else's bills out first and making sure everybody's getting, all the committees are running on time and they have enough bills to get going.

So that's probably the biggest thing.

Not being able to really go to too many committee meetings, if any- - Do you still serve on a committee or too?

- No, I don't, no.

- You don't?

Is there a rule that says you couldn't or it's just?

- It's just custom and for good reason.

I was here 14 hours yesterday and I felt like I was cutting myself short by leaving when I did.

I mean, I could stay here all day and still not get everything done that needs to get done on a daily basis.

So yeah, I think personal bills are suffering, but other than that, no, it's been great.

It's been great.

- Senator Nethercott, you told me right before we came on the air that you have a half dozen bills or more that you've sponsored.

- That's correct.

I'm sponsoring my full load that a senator can't.

Senators are limited by our own rules to only seven bills in a full general session.

And so that is what I have chosen to sponsor, which is a heavy lift, but the people's work needs to get done.

And so some of the bills are more complicated than others that I've been able to get published and start working on.

I'm excited about those.

But as a former chairman of the judiciary committee and the appropriations committee, I'm used to a heavy and high workload.

So I've learned how to facilitate that workload with a heavy committee schedule.

- And I'll add too, I mean, I thought I'd have to beg Tara to get on minerals.

I wanted her to serve on a committee as well, because I need, I mean, she's fantastic legislator, right?

So she's a workhorse on committee.

She's been a chairman.

So I really needed her on a committee as well.

And I felt bad asking her, but she absolutely said yes, didn't give me any (laughs) grief, and said, "Which one you want me on?"

So that's just kind of her nature and we're so lucky to have her.

- So this is a third big committee for you in your tenure?

Again, some people serve on these same committee for a long, long time.

That hasn't been your path.

How come?

- Well, I enjoy learning all the parts of the legislature and all the things affecting the state.

And I like a challenge and learning new things and how to be of service and all those different areas.

So I really appreciate the confidence given to me by President Biteman.

I think it really demonstrates the type of leadership that he exhibits, which is delegating to others, letting others rise to the occasion, and creating an atmosphere of civility and leadership.

- We sort of have to do that in a way, the amount of material, I think what the average voter or viewer probably just can't really comprehend is how much material crosses your desk.

- Yeah.

- And you read every page of every bill, right?

- Yeah.

(chuckles) - I generally try to read all the bills.

The level of detail which can be devoted to some of the bills, you know, changes and varies.

And then sometimes, you just don't have the expertise to be able to evaluate what the bill states.

And so you do have to rely on others within the chamber that do bring that expertise, which really is, I think what's remarkable about a citizen legislature and seeing all the diversity of professions and experiences that come to the table.

- Yeah.

- And you learn throughout your years how to prioritize your time and not waste effort.

You know, I remember as a freshman, I was reading every bill.

Even Senate, when I was in the House, my first term, I was reading all of them Senate bills, House bills, stuff that never even got introduced or passed.

So you learn to, like right now, all I'm solely focused on is Senate files.

I haven't even looked at any House bills because you don't know which ones are gonna come over.

You know, you take the committee bills more seriously because those have been vetted and you read those first and you start making your way out from there.

But Tara's absolutely right.

You read them all, but you trust, you have go-tos in every area.

Whether it's an ag bill, a corporations bill, you have your trusted advisors, your trusted legislators that have been there and done that, that you can rely on for quality information on bills.

- Let's talk about those committee bills for a moment.

Last year, a lot was made of the fact that a much larger number of bills that had been vetted, so to speak, in the interim period, been heard by the committee, read, reread, rewritten if needed amended, debated, testified to, and voted on, giving the feeling the endorsement of the committee that this is something that could be introduced.

And a lot of them weren't right here in the early days of the legislature.

How did that go this year?

Did more of those bills survive?

Was that another a difficult day?

This would've happened last week.

- Well, in the Senate, those bills are being worked and are being heard just as the process is intended to respect the work of the interim, to respect the work of a joint committee made of both House and Senate members who've spent time, heard from the subject matter experts, the stakeholders and the communities, and have really built a product to bring to the full legislature, to the full Senate.

So we are hearing those bills.

Most of them are making their way through.

Some of them are not after debate and consideration.

But none of them are being summarily dismissed.

And I think that's a very important distinguishing feature of how the Senate may not be passing some of those committee bills, but only after debate and full fair hearings.

Both either in committee again or on the Senate floor.

And that's how legislative process is intended to work.

- Yeah, and I would would say, you know, maybe the last time it was a budget session and it takes a 2/3 threshold.

- Sure.

- And so, some of the bills the committees took up were maybe more controversial than they usually are.

Usually they're cleanup bills that are pretty mundane and under the radar.

They're just kind of simple bills.

So if you add adding more controversial matters plus the 2/3 vote, you're gonna lose a lot more committee bills, right?

So there's that to be taken into account as well.

- And meaning that in the budget session, which is shorter.

- [Bo] Yes.

- And strictly speaking, you're not supposed to have anything that isn't a budget bill unless a lot of people are behind it.

- Yeah.

- We're hearing the sort of bills now that typically you wouldn't, might not have time to hear, at least in the budget session.

And it's twice as long.

I don't wanna dwell on this subject.

Maybe the one more question about experience versus newcomer.

Everyone's a newcomer to the legislature at some point.

You two both were.

What do you remember about those days?

Or is there something you wish you'd known then looking back that you didn't or that you could impart to someone who's a newcomer now?

- Well, I remember was just how terrified I was when I first got here.

It was overwhelming.

My analogy since I'm a sports guy, it's like, you're going from single A to the majors.

And that's how fast the game is, you know?

And it takes a while for the game to slow down, so to speak.

So you probably by the end of your freshman year going into your second year, things finally start to slow down a little bit and you kind of get into a groove and a rhythm.

It is just part of the process.

And that to me, stands out the most.

Doing these interviews was a terrifying thing.

Never doing TV before, but now, it's getting easier the more you do it and stuff like that.

But as far as what I wish I would've known, I don't know.

I mean, you gotta learn by trial and error and- - Jump in the pool.

- Jump in the defense, sink or swim.

How about you, Senator?

- Not everybody agrees that you have a good idea.

- [Bo] (laughs) Yeah.

- Sometimes, that can be difficult, but when you think you have a simple idea and without relationships and trust and a lot of conversation, getting those good ideas across takes a little bit of effort.

So my first year, I sponsored a couple simple pieces of legislation, passed them out of the Senate, of course, my chamber where I had made relationships and had support and they failed in the House.

And it really was because I just didn't have those relationships developed to help carry my good ideas over on the other side of the capitol.

And so I learned very quickly that I needed to spend more time with my colleagues over on the other side of the building, and I have done that.

And so looking forward to continuing to do that good work.

- That's always one of the really interesting things to me is to watch a bill that someone feels very strongly about and it gets changed.

And some of the time, the original sponsor thinks, "Well, they were right.

It's better now than it was, and my name's still on it and they've helped me make it better."

I guess what you're talking about the different points of view, the different levels of experience and what you're bringing in so you're not always completely right.

- Right, and being able to handle criticism and rejection.

You're gonna lose more than you win in this building, that's for sure.

And how you handle it and how you conduct yourself.

And you just gotta pick yourself up and get right back to work.

Because if you hold the grudge around here, it's gonna be a miserable experience and you're not gonna make those relationships that you need to be effective.

- What were some issues coming out of the interim heading into the session that you felt were particularly important to either one of you?

Senator Nethercott?

- My primary concern for the legislature this year was to create cohesiveness and to make sure that the Senate maintained its reputation of the upper chamber, of leading with civility and thoughtful measured lawmaking where we were united as a senate and could debate with civility and really understand the issues of our constituents.

And so not necessarily a single policy issue was my priority, but really, creating a leadership team with Senator Biteman, Senator Salazar in order to lead the Senate to make sure there was an environment and an atmosphere for good policy.

- Yeah, I'll agree with that.

I mean, that was definitely at the forefront for all of us when we left.

It was a rough couple years.

It makes it a less enjoyable place to work when things aren't going smoothly and as you think they should.

So that was on our minds.

And then obviously from policy, property taxes, we didn't get everything we wanted on property taxes.

The governor vetoed our bill and we were kinda forced to go back to the drawing board on the revenue committee during the interim to go back to work on that.

So that was something we heard about throughout the summer and into the fall.

And so that's where we kind of picked right back up where we left off.

It seems like not too long ago, but, you know, time flies.

Here we are.

- Does either one of you have a favored approach to how this property tax issue where so many people through not just fault of their own, but really no action of their own suddenly are confronted with these huge tax bills lot.

I mean, they're half dozen bills or more last time presented and they weren't all the same.

- [Bo] Yeah.

- What are you thinking in 2025?

- I think this year we've condensed them down to a couple different ideas, which is helpful because we did have almost too many.

It's good to have ideas and options, but I think we were paralyzed by so many options the last couple of years that we couldn't really coalesce around one.

I think after all these years of dealing with property tax relief and reform ideas that we've kind of all come to the conclusion that we did the cap last year and the cap saved a lot of people, a lot of money from their property taxes doubling year over year.

So that was helpful.

But there's still, you know, a lot of people under the curve.

I say the bell-shaped curve where the majority of the people in Wyoming didn't get tax relief.

We had the people on the poor end of the spectrum and got the low income help that they needed.

And our seniors got some relief and our veterans got relief.

But the vast majority of people in Wyoming did not.

And that's where we're focused on is fixing that and whether it's an exemption to kind of wipe out some of these massive gains we've seen since 2019 and the COVID, people moving in during COVID.

And there's still talk about maybe switching the definition of what full value is.

Could full value mean acquisition value?

That's still on the table.

So there's options out there, but they're more narrow than they used to be and we're still addressing other issues on the tax front, whether it's personal property taxes and giving relief to small businesses.

So we're walking and chewing gum at the same time.

But the main focus is on that residential property tax relief piece.

- The entire legislature is pretty committed to providing some long-term solutions to the property tax challenge that we experienced.

And so we provided immediate relief, but not necessarily a long-term solution to understand how to prevent those incredible swings that the people of Wyoming experienced.

So we are all committed to that.

As we navigate that though, and understand what solution makes sense, a really critical area for the legislature to continue to solve that we are coming together to provide solutions on is education funding.

- Yeah.

- And so, as we know, property taxes don't actually come to the state.

It's not a source of revenue for state government.

It's a source of revenue for local governments and schools.

And so as we understand the increasing cost of education in Wyoming, how do we balance that with property tax reduction?

- So the individual clamoring for it, "I just can't pay so much property tax," but then two years later, "What do you mean my school bus doesn't run here anymore?"

- Right.

And fire districts as well, you know.

It's all local.

The policy is a state policy, we enact laws that affect the entire state, whether it's the rate at 9.5% or whether it's, you know, exemptions that affect everybody.

So we set the policy, but it does affect the local districts.

- One of our guests last year said, "Well, we have seven bills, let's pass them all.

And see what works and what doesn't."

That didn't happen.

And I didn't hear either one of you advocating something like that, but it does show there are lots and lots of different ideas, hard to know which one's gonna work.

And that's a Wyoming issue.

As opposed to some of the issues that are coming, they're being talked about a lot.

And again, I hope that our show hasn't fallen victim to this, but they're what I might call cable TV issues in a way, that are sort of set on a more of a national stage and brought to bear on Wyoming that don't really have a whole lot to do with the way individuals live their lives every day.

I think I hear you saying you're trying to concentrate not so much on those.

I mean, if they come over from the House, which is where they're originating, you'll deal with them.

But you're thinking about more specific Wyoming type issues when you can.

- We are.

I mean, as senators, we're trying to provide real solutions to the people of Wyoming, our actual constituents, and providing relief to the challenges that they face every day.

With increasing inflation and property taxes, we know that our constituents are challenged, that they are suffering from how to pay their bills.

And if they can retire, if they can afford to continue to afford to be retired.

I have a number of retirees in my district and former state employees and there's no COLA for them from their retirement plans.

And so they're really struggling right now and I'm focused on providing those type of solutions for hardworking Wyomingites who chose to build their lives here and want a future here as well.

- I mean, in an eight-week session, there's time to consider lots of stuff and you'll get to the things that you need to get to or you'll try to.

We carried the governor's state of the state address live last week.

He of course, submit some of his budget priorities in this off budget year.

The supplemental budget as he calls it.

What did you think of those and how are they shaping up as legislation?

- We certainly support the fire suppression efforts to replenish those funds and those are desperately needed.

That's an emergency situation.

We're looking at his other requests.

I know our appropriations committees meeting as we speak, they're working diligently on hammering out some sort of a compromise on what's within the supplemental budget.

And so it's a little premature to make a final declaration on where we stand on that because, you know, we have to respect the will of the body and the will of the committee.

And so I don't wanna necessarily get out ahead of the body on that.

But general principle would be we support emergency funding.

Absolutely.

But we'll take a closer look at the, what we would think is non-emergency spending and possibly, you know, adding employees here and there and those types of things.

Those would be looked at more carefully.

- These are recommendations, but they're recommendations.

- Yeah, recommendations.

- Just like.

- Exactly.

- Any others.

- Yup.

- In that way.

- Yeah, the governor's very experienced, right?

He's in his second term as well.

And certainly understands how to present a budget and understanding the climate and the legislature.

So I think he presented a pretty conservative supplemental budget based on primarily emergent needs, primarily as a result of the terrible fires that Wyoming experienced this past summer.

And that was recent, right?

Those fires really just ended in the fall.

And so the governor put together a pretty quick supplemental budget.

We have additional time to review that and think about what appropriate amounts may be and how to craft those more thoughtfully.

So I'm confident that the appropriations committee and the Senate will provide a good solution.

- Yeah, he also spoke quite a bit in some detail about the issue very generally identified under the umbrella as the Kelly parcel.

And now there's been what I would call an innovative solution that state has come up with, with your involvement, to bring that into the national park.

But it's also now been tied to another issue that's been important to the state, that's been particularly important to you regarding this BML's management of some land down in Southwest as well.

And now you've found a way, maybe possibly addressing two problems with sort of one solution.

- And the fact that the Rock Springs RMP, you know, for more than 12 years, was being discussed by people in the area.

I remember talking about it with then Interior Secretary Bernhardt under Trump.

And it just sort of ended up in the last couple of years, established as a conservation initiative and we had a lot of work to kind of pull it back.

So being able to talk about the Kelly parcel as being a logical placement in the park and sort of connecting those two to talk about conservation and what it really means as opposed to conservation and what it means maybe to folks in DC was something that we thought could help balance that discussion.

I have signed the sale agreement.

Which allows me, according to what the legislature passed last year in the budget bill, to move forward to closing if I feel that the Rock springs RMP, the record of decision, that's the final document, meets the circumstances that are outlined in the legislation.

I have to make that determination sometimes before June 30th.

It's important to remember that in this closing document, the right to hunt continues, the right to graze continues.

So there's no real change there for the Kelly parcel.

The money that we get from that- - Which is a substantial amount, by the way.

- $100 million, which is, you know, potentially gonna be able to be applied to acquire new lands.

We can finally work to be able to block up lands to better manage them, to get rid of some of the isolated parcels and make them more valuable.

And I wanna make sure that people of Wyoming understand, that's a process.

It's not just one and done.

It's then, okay, where are the lands?

How do we identify them?

How do we socialize those?

How do we bring those to the people of Wyoming to discuss that?

It's not easy.

- Does either one of you have a work particularly on that or have an opinion or how that has been working out and what the state's direction on that seems to be going?

- I think we have different perspectives on that.

And it shows how you can be a leadership team and work together as colleagues and have different viewpoints on policy.

So I supported the Kelly parcel.

I thought it was very important that we took that sacred piece of land and received $100 million for it, which was significantly more than it was valued for protected and perpetuity in our national park while continuing to allow for access to hunting rights and its continued traditional usage of that land.

So public access is preserved forever for all people, including hunting access on that county parcel in exchange for $100 million, which is a pretty significant financial bonus to the state at a time when we're needing revenue and trying to understand how to pay for education.

So very excited about that.

To be able to provide for generations and generations.

- Senator Biteman, wasn't your first preference?

I voted against it.

I thought it was be wise to maybe hold onto it and see, maybe it'd be little bit more measured on it and not rush it.

But, you know, that's not an issue that keeps me up at night.

We've got a lot bigger fish to fry in the state of Wyoming than a parcel of land.

And so.

But, you know, those are the different policy debates we have and you know, sometimes you win, sometimes you don't.

- The talking things over.

- Yeah.

- [Steve] Thinking about it over time.

That gets you to a better place.

- Absolutely.

- That's right.

- And that's what we're trying to get back in the Senate is that deliberative, civility, calmness, steadiness that the Senate's been known for.

And that's my goal as president is to kinda just guide with a steady hand and allow the debate to happen.

Allow everybody's voice to be heard.

And that's the best thing I can do to facilitate good quality work.

- Voters will be more confident, you'd think?

- Yeah.

- In the outcome if that happens.

- Yeah.

- Senator Nethercott, majority floor leader, Senator Biteman, senate president.

Good luck with the long session to come.

We're just in the second week.

There's quite a bit more after this.

Maybe we'll talk to you again at some point.

But for now, thanks for being with us on "Capitol Outlook."

- Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

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