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- [Steve] At the start of a legislative session when as many as 700 bills could come up for consideration, no one has a bigger job than the two leaders of Wyoming's legislative chambers.

We'll meet the Wyoming Senate President, Ogden Driskill, and the Speaker of the House, Albert Summers.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming, PBS, join us for Capital Outlook.

(vibrant music) - [Announcer] This program is supported in part by a grant from the BNSF Railway Foundation, dedicated to improving the general welfare and quality of life in communities throughout the BNSF Railway service area.

Proud to support Wyoming PBS.

- [Announcer] And by the members of Wyoming PBS.

Thank you for your support.

- Hi, I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

Welcome to Capital Outlook, our first legislative edition of the New Capital Outlook season.

We're here at the Wyoming Capital in Cheyenne and joined today by the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House in Wyoming, Senator Ogden Driskill, Representative Albert Sommers.

Welcome to you both.

Thanks for being with us to help us kick off this new season of Capital Outlook.

The session just now getting started.

Senator Driskill, what's your sense of how things are going so far, if you can sense that yet?

- So we're just hitting the ground running.

You know, we've come off a pretty contentious running season for people and lots of new people.

And so the pomp and circumstance kinda was yesterday and today.

And then we get down to business, and I look forward to really a good session.

The people are falling in together and everybody's kind of eager to get down in the trenches and get to work for the state.

- Sure, that's just the way you want it to be here at the beginning.

Speaker Sommers, what, you echo those sentiments?

What's your sense of things so far?

- So Steve, you know, kind of the same, you know, the House has 29 new members out of 62.

And so I think actually the pomp and circumstance is a wonderful opportunity for those really true freshmen to see and to feel where they're at, right?

They're in the Capitol, really the essence of where our government takes place.

And I think you could see yesterday in the faces of many of those young legislators that awe, as we should be in awe of being in this position.

- That's an interesting point.

I spoke when State Superintendent Schroeder had just been appointed, and within a few days had to come to work and he told me on on air, he said, "I walked in the building and thought, boy, I work here now."

And it was meaningful to him.

You say there are 29 new members in the house.

Has that, I mean the Senate has longer terms, but a lot of new faces there too, I presume.

- Well we have three raw freshmen that are brand new coming in, and then we've got really gifted.

We've got the past speaker of the house, Eric Barlow, has moved over and come in and he's obviously a good leader and understands the process well.

And Dan Larson from Powell is also over and he's a seasoned legislator out of the house.

So, you know, we've only got three of the new ones, and all three of 'em got their heads screwed on their shoulders solidly.

And I think we're really gonna have a good session.

- What exactly is the speaker of the house, for example, compared to what we might call a regular legislator?

- So the speaker of the house is basically the chief administrator of the house, right?

We kind of direct traffic and we run the session, you know, we run the day session, we assign members to committees.

We introduce bills.

It's kind of very similar between the two presiding officers.

But a lot of it is ministerial, and then sometimes you have to be a, you know, a middle school principal.

And so it's kind of a combination of jobs, but ultimately we're administrators, more than policy makers at this point.

- And I assume when you say nearly half of your house is, they're having their first session here this week, and two years ago, there were a lot of new faces then too.

So some might just be in their second session, they've had the interim period, had some committee work.

Well, I imagine that could make the job of the administrator, as you call the speaker, maybe a bit more challenging.

- Certainly, you know, of course I have never had the job of speaker, but I've been a majority floor leader.

And I think the more new members you have, it's a coaching thing as well, right?

We're here to educate new members so they can become efficient and quality legislators.

It's incumbent upon us older legislators to mentor new legislators and teach them like we were taught, right, how to respect the process, how to be civil, what decorum means, and the fact that we are part of an institution that really is the crucible of democracy.

- Senator Driskill, when you're talking to a new member, what are some of the things that you tell 'em?

I know just the, some of it's the logistics of where do I park, and what door do I come in, and where do I sit, and a lot of it is at that basic level and then you build from there.

- Yeah.

You know, when you run, and I can remember back, a little over a decade when I went in and you come down, you've run a race and you know you're here to set policy for Wyoming, but almost no one understands how the process really works 'til you get here.

And it's such a combination of things.

I was just visiting this morning about it with, with one of our pages.

And it really is a mix of intelligence, and personality, and being able to work with other people.

And when you come down, you know, you have a feeling that it's about you, and when you really get into it, you find out it's about us.

And that's a tough deal to get to once in a while, 'cause the race really is focused on you.

And so you've gone from a contentious race that you're outrunning usually against something, and all of a sudden now you're not against something, you're trying to do for something.

And that's building policy for Wyoming, and to get the grasp that it's not a bill, it's not something for you, but you're really setting policy for all your constituents and the rest of the state.

And once you get that grasp then it goes to a different level, and you're truly working as part of a team, not trying to go against.

And of course everyone in Wyoming knows the splits we've got and that's the real challenge for the speaker and I is very similar to what's in DC, you've got here and here, and how do you bring them together so that they find the common good?

That we all craft really good policy for Wyoming, 'cause it's not one side against the other, it's about how do we together craft really good solid policy for the state going forward.

And of course we're in a critical time.

We've got a budget surplus this year, it's a not gonna last, we know that.

So we've got a unique situation that we can invest, but not have the income coming in full time.

So how do you make those wise investments?

And for them, they're really in an interesting place and it's gonna be a great session, I think, it's gonna be a test, but it's gonna be a good one.

- We're here in early January, the election was in early November.

There's a period of a couple of months there where new members get some formal sort of orientation, don't they?

Do either of you play a role in that?

- Yeah, we had three new member trainings.

We had one in November and then we had two new member trainings, just this, just earlier.

- When they get elected, they're within a few days the work begins for 'em.

- It really did this year.

We tried to get a new member training early, like, right off the bat in November to give 'em a little bit of history.

And then this last new member training, we tried to actually get 'em to the mic, run through the process of a session and how Bill works, and how you amend a bill on the floor, and the motions you would make, and just try to teach them.

Ultimately they've gotta watch and learn and listen, right?

Like we all do.

You know, it's funny, we all come in with these type A personalities, and probably think we're the smartest person that ever hit the deck running, you know?

And then you find out no you're not.

And you figure out ultimately if you're a good legislator, you figure out who to lean on, who's smarter than you on some issues, and then how to manage and, and how to pass legislation you want.

- Well these things are important.

Senator Driskill, how many bills on a typical general session, and the odd number of years are the long sessions.

We're talking about hundreds of bills that would at least be considered.

- So I believe the bill drafts, and I'm guessing here, but I think around 700 prior rule.

- 700.

- We'll likely have 500, plus or minus 500 bills will actually hit between the House and the Senate.

- So these processes and procedures, this education is extremely important just to help you get work done.

- It is, and it's really hard.

As a freshman, you know, one of the things that hit me was you come in and you've got your four or five key areas that you really believe in, and you're pumped up and you're ready to go for it, and then you hit the realization, there's another 200 bills in the drawer that you really don't know anything about- - And at least one of those has someone who feels just as strongly about it, right, I presume?

- Absolutely.

And you know, you've gotta deal with issues that frankly either you don't know about, or maybe in certain cuts, you don't care about.

And you know, you have to, as legislator, you're making judgment on every bill.

They're all personal.

Everybody has an investment mentally and personally in it.

So that's part of it, is how you treat those other legislators on their bills affects how they treat other people.

So the system is really based around collegiality, and working together, and the people that figure out how to do that almost immediately become your leaders.

- Yeah, excellent point.

You may know that my father was a legislator, served in the Senate in the late '90s and into the 2000s.

He got appointed to his position.

It came down the next morning and sat right there in the front row, and I was, I came with him to observe that.

And I remember they put him through sort of a mock session of administrative rigamarole, just to rattle him, sort of, as almost a joke, amendments, and motions, and counter motions, and Senator Peck, do you concur?

And he was sort of, and this was a guy who was 67 years old at the time and had done a lot, but it was overwhelming to him, and they were trying to make it seem a little harder than it was.

It sort of put him at ease too.

And I just, I'm sure, I hear what you're saying, that if you can find a way so that when the session begins there's less of this, the headlights aren't right in your eyes anymore.

And that's, as senior leaders, a big part of what you have to do.

- You know, when I came in, we had five days of training, and then during COVID, it cut back to a day, or something, on Zoom, you know, I can't remember.

And so now we've got back to three.

And I think the more you put new legislators in those positions early, you know, when you're not in session, I think the more successful they will be.

And so training is important but ultimately doing is the most important.

And the breadth of the breadth of topics we discussed, to me that's what is so fascinating.

I love to learn about a broad set of topics, and I think a lot of people eat that up, right?

The ability to learn about things you've never thought you'd need to know.

- You become experts in things that have rarely crossed your mind prior to being a legislator, I'm sure.

- Absolutely.

- Does being in a leadership position prevent you, necessarily, from doing other legislative tasks?

Do you both serve on committees, for example?

Or are you allowed to do that as leaders?

- We would be allowed, but we do not.

You just do not have the time to do it and it does change.

Speaker Sommers alluded to it earlier as I've been a prolific legislator, as far as sponsor lots of bills, do lots of bills, and all of a sudden your role changes from being a real policy maker to really mentoring and helping your people be more effective.

And I tell my entire body is, my real job is to make them look good.

How how I can make them do better, reflects on how I'm looked at as leader and how the legislators looked at as a whole.

And so it really is incumbent on us to do that.

And Albert and I are, Mr. Speaker and I are obviously very good friends, and that's the other part- - It helps, doesn't it?

- Yeah it does.

- Making the two bodies work together 'cause, you know, I try to emphasize it's not the Senate versus the house, and it's not the legislature versus the executive branch, it's how do we build bridges so all three of us create really good effective policy for the people.

'Cause when we walk out of here, what we've done during the session affects every one of our constituents.

If it's anywhere from a seatbelt law to a tax law, to whatever it is, there's a direct effect of what we do.

And that's, it's really hard to figure that out.

The first year I went in it's like, I'm gonna teach these guys something.

I ran against a bunch of old guys who've been in a long time and you walk in the capitol and it's like, oh my god, I can actually wreck the car now.

Thank god some old guys are here to make sure that I don't really get out of whack.

- Now nothing prevents you from sponsoring bills, and I know, Speaker Sommers, you have a bill or two under your name heading into the session, correct?

- Correct, we're still individual legislators that have the ability to bring bills and do things, and you know, I'm gonna number a whole series of bills, whether I run 'em, and how far they go, that depends.

But no, certainly we still have the obligation to represent our district as well as, frankly, to represent the state of Wyoming now, and to represent our different bodies, right?

We are the representatives of the house in the senate.

- Wyoming obviously has the huge Republican majority, and has for a long time.

And so I think from the outside some people might say, well then it's just a rubber stamp and it's a steamroll.

But as you mentioned earlier, there's always a place to find division, even in a group, that's seems of like mind, isn't there?

And this is what you're dealing with all the time.

Sometimes it's just one person who disagrees with another on a bill and you have actual, is the word factions?

I don't mean it necessarily in a negative way, but there are, there are real differences that are almost the same as another political party.

- Yeah, and they're for real.

On the speaker side, actually, they've got the Freedom Caucus, you know, we can openly talk about it.

They've got a group that's within the group that has set their own policies, and they're their own way forward.

And we're the same in the house as you're all levels of where you fall and we're all Republicans.

But one of the great thing about the Republican party here, I really believe, it's a big tent party and there's room for basically all of the opinions within it.

And you know, our job as leaders is to make a cohesive group out of those.

And for my end, you know, we talked about it yesterday when I was installed is, it's about how you argue policy, not personalities.

And so we can sit and talk, really have a sharp conversation, and Albert and I have some different issues that we weigh on.

And when we walk out of it, we still don't agree very often, but we both respect each other for our opinions.

And as Albert said, you get educated, you find just a little piece that you thought you really fleshed it out, and you find out that you really can make it better.

And that's what the legislature does, the sharp debates.

And I've said often this year with the division, I think we'll come with better legislation, Assuming we can stay really civil.

That's when you craft the best legislation.

'Cause you really do say, Steve, you really need to look at this from the standpoint of this group of people.

And as you do that, if you're a good legislator, you'll be moved somewhat to do the right thing.

- Yeah, somebody has this opinion for a reason.

- Right, yeah, no, and you know, in Washington D.C. and Congress, at least when you look from the outside, they've had these divisions, whether it's division, you know, internally in the Republican party at the national level, or the division between the Democrats and the Republicans.

And they can't seem to find solutions, right?

And so when they come out with a bill in Congress, it's pretty well fully baked.

The votes are known, you know, we're gonna either allow you to bring your amendment or not.

And we're gonna tell you that it's not gonna pass right up front.

Then people go on in the middle of the night on C-SPAN and give a speech that's meaningless, you know?

And in the Wyoming legislature, and what we have to continue to protect, and we have to protect the voice of our individual legislators, is we bring these ideas out in the open.

We amend bills, we have conversations, we have debate, and ultimately we do those things that is the basis of a democracy, the basis of a representative government.

And that's the best policy.

When you throw something out there and you debate it, you amend it, you make it better, you compromise.

You know, that's sometimes a foreign word to people, but compromise is what life is about.

- I mean, I wonder if you've seen probably thousands of bills now, how many times has a bill ever passed when there wasn't a compromise from the beginning to the end?

Does that ever happen?

I mean it's just- - It does, but very rarely, and it's usually an alignment bill of some kind that's just fixing things, revisers bill, a lot of times you won't have it.

But, you know, I campaigned, and a lot of no compromise people out there, and I said, do you understand an amendment is a compromise?

So when I bring my better mouse trap, and Speaker Sommer says, I can make your better mouse trap better.

So when he amends that bill to change it, what that essentially is, is a compromise.

If my bill's to go forward, it's gonna have his idea in it, and I'm gonna have to adopt it or I lose my entire bill.

And so we really are, I hate the word compromise, 'cause that is what we do.

We actually, you compromise, you work with each other, you have ideas, and Speaker Sommers said it perfectly as, you know, we actually do it in the open and do it on the floor.

And I can tell you for the people listening, we get emails and texts after a bill is read in, and very many of these amendments come directly out of our constituents that are up on the issues enough.

- Affected.

- Yeah, affected, and they get ahold of us and say, look this is bad for us, or you know, if you really look after this way, like DD waivers, you're gonna really hurt this group if you do it this way.

And so we're affected immediately by our constituents.

For anyone that's out there that's listening, there's a few legislators maybe don't get back to 'em.

Nearly all of us, if it's done in a civil manner, we listen to what they say.

And I can tell you it has a direct affect on me and other legislators on how we vote and what we do.

- Absolutely.

- That's one of the characteristics of the Wyoming legislature in Wyoming in general.

I mean, you know a lot of constituents personally, and those that you don't, you're willing to get to know them.

And they have access to you, whether it's at the grocery store, or in the halls of the capitol.

They find you, they talk to you, and they're important.

- You know, the other thing that's interesting about the Wyoming legislature is, because we're a small state, our desks are on the floor.

You go to other capitols around the nation, they have their own individual offices, and they pop in to vote and they pop out.

We're on the floor, we're working in the early morning, we're working after the session right up there on the floor.

We talk to each other.

If you can't talk to each other, you can't solve problems.

- Yeah, I'll flesh a tiny bit on that, 'cause it's something and it's educational for everyone out there.

So Wyoming's truly a citizen legislature, and all of those people, that's the only office they have and they have no staff.

So for those of you out there, it's really hard that you think they're not getting back to you during session is we really, LSO helps us draft bills, but all of the personal communications are all done individually.

And those need to happen either in the morning, on breaks, or after the session.

And people get frustrated once in a while.

But there is no one there, there isn't staff to, almost every other state, even if they're citizen legislature, they're assigned a person, or two people or three.

And most of 'em have offices.

And the only offices we have are leadership offices.

There's a handful on each side.

And I can tell you mine's almost a coffee shop, 'cause we give it to our committee chairman who don't have offices, and other people to be able to do it.

So it truly is, probably out of all 50 states, it is truly the closest to the people of any legislature in the nation.

- So it's possible that floor debate, which when we watch C-SPAN and see the U.S. Center, the U.S. House, as you mentioned there, it seems almost ceremonial, these speeches that are made.

And if the camera pans around, which it did in recent days with this speaker hub-bub, but usually doesn't, the chamber's largely empty when many of those speeches were being given.

But here you're saying that a floor debate could actually have an effect on a bill.

It's not all cut and dry when you come to the floor.

- I'm gonna tell you.

- Absolutely.

- Almost always does.

- Almost always.

Yeah, you don't know what you don't know 'til you know it, right?

- Legislators can be persuaded by other legislators on the floor during the session.

It can happen.

- Yeah, I have changed my mind from committee of the whole, which is the first time you hear it, through second reading, through third reading, and every amendment, you know, has its own flavor and does something to a bill and no, it's not a baked thing.

You know, obviously when you craft your own bill, you think you've got it right, I've got this.

But then you, just like Senator Driskill said, you don't have it.

Somebody else is gonna have an idea to put in there and you've got to be able to allow that to happen, as long as it doesn't ruin the entire intent of your bill.

If it does, then you have to find a way to kill your own bill.

And there's been people that had to do that.

- We're here today in the morning, and later in a couple of hours the governor gives his State of the State Address.

Am I right in suspecting or observing that in Wyoming, the relationship between the Governor and the legislature seems closer than in some other states, that he's, the Governor talks about legislation, makes proposals, works with legislative leaders more directly than some people might realize.

How do you view the, for example, the Governor's State of the State, or his supplemental budget issues?

You take them seriously because you need to.

- So I'll tell you the, the Governor, and it's happened for quite a while now.

We work so closely with him, and you know, his supplemental budget, as you looked at it, it's mainly tweaks.

It's not major changes and it's not battles about it.

And we're a small enough state, we're friends.

I'm sure Mr. Speaker, same as I am, we see the Governor almost daily.

We're cordial, we're friends.

The branches work together for the better of the state.

And to me it's really how you craft things.

You know, when it's adversarial, then games get played on how you get things done.

And when you can really sit down on an honest basis and do it, you work closely.

And I think the comfort level shows on it.

So his new chief of staff is the past president and the Wyoming Senate.

And for him to do that says, I've gotta trust that these people actually are out there to do the right thing.

And I dedicate my life that way is to really look, it's all three of us working together for the betterment of our constituents.

Not, what can I win?

I can tell you when we go to a conference committee, it's not gonna be in my mind is, are we gonna whip the house on this, so we come out and I can say, we scored and we won the game.

What I want to come out is walk out with Albert and say, the people of Wyoming came out a winner.

We figured out how to do this together without being contentious about it.

- We just have a couple of minutes left this morning on Capital Outlook.

Are there issues for either of you that loom large as the session begins that that cropped up and took up a lot of space during the interim, or during the committee work, that you feel are particularly important to you personally or to your chamber?

- You know, I think the big one for the whole legislature, right, is this revenue surplus.

And obviously how we handle that surplus, much of it one time, you know, obviously, I say obviously, but will save money, right, will save a good portion of it.

And I think the discussion will be, you know, should it be in permanent accounts, should it be in temporary accounts, should it be in endowments that do things for people right now?

I think those are the internal debates.

And then I think statewide, as you saw this influx of people during the COVID move, right?

All this influx into Wyoming, and we saw that our property tax, residential property tax popped up.

I think that'll be a big issue.

You'll see, obviously I've got bills on it along with every other member has, so I think those are two big issues.

- Yeah, and you know, they boil right to the core of the issue and it's really difficult, as everyone gets property tax, it hits you right now, but it ties directly back into our school funding, and school funding's probably been the key issue of stability in our budgets.

When we go to every budget, - For a long time now.

- we talk about what we're spending on this fund and what we're doing here.

But the real truth of it is, the monster in the room is how do we long-term fund education funding, and minerals have paid all of our bills, almost forever in Wyoming, and the minerals are ratcheting down.

And anybody looked, the coal revenues, all of them are dropping.

How do we find a replacement source for that without taxing people?

And the interesting part is 70% of the property tax that gets paid goes to the school.

So as we reform property taxes, you have to keep in mind we're taking a dollar away from the school.

Every time we give a dollar back to you or to me, we've taken one away from the schools, or 70% of one.

So that's the balancing act we got is how do we effectively do it?

'Cause the Constitution set property tax as a key funding source for education, a really a difficult issue.

And we tend to keep merging into this.

You say, well we're gonna do property tax.

Well, it bulges over here.

- Can't do one without the other.

- Nope.

- Big day for both of you, appreciate your time here early in the morning, I'll say on camera, we have a standing invitation for you to be here with us every week if you'd like to be.

We span to a 60 minute format starting next week, so we'll have other legislators and people involved in state government.

But I appreciate your time, and I know your insight's gonna be very valuable to us and to our viewers throughout the session.

Senator Driskill, Representative Sommers, thanks for being with us this morning on Capital Outlook.

- Thank you, Steve.

- Congratulations on your new job.

- Thank you, thank you.

(vibrant music) - [Announcer] This program is supported in part by a grant from the BNSF Railway Foundation, dedicated to improving the general welfare and quality of life in communities throughout the BNSF Railway service area.

Proud to support Wyoming PBS.

- [Announcer] And by the members of Wyoming PBS.

Thank you for your support.