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- Welcome to Capitol Outlook.

I'm Bob Beck.

Today on the program, we will once again be joined by the Senate President, Dan Dockstader and the Speaker of the House, Eric Barlow will be discussing the last week of the legislative session, as well as some interesting bills that have certainly popped up.

We will also, on the Democratic side, be talking with a couple of members of the Joint Appropriations Committee, that is Senator Mike Gierau of Jackson and Representative Andy Schwartz of Jackson; we'll also be discussing some other bills with them.

And then at the end of the program we'll be joined by Casper Senator Bill Landen, a longtime Senator from that community and Representative Landon Brown of Cheyenne.

Stay with us.

Capitol Outlook is up next.

(bright trumpet music) - [Narrator] 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.

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

Thank you for your support.

- Welcome to Capitol Outlook.

I'm Bob Beck.

It's been a busy week of legislating.

We're going to talk about that with the Speaker of the House, Eric Barlow and the Senate President Dan Dockstader.

Gentlemen, welcome back to the program.

- Greetings.

- Senator, you're always closest to me, so unfortunately, we'll start with you.

Let's, you know, it was actually kind of an interesting week in the Senate.

It, a lot of discussions about things we don't generally talk about at Thanksgiving, but we had an opportunity to talk about on the Senate floor.

Let's go back though, if we can, and talk a little bit about the budget and a decision to cut funding, if that's what the amendment did, out of the Gender Studies Program at the University of Wyoming.

What happened?

- Thank you.

The issue was actually the money, 1.4 million.

Everybody expressed that they don't want to cause problems with the gender studies.

It was the 1.4 million.

And the understanding that we have, that was five employees under that 1.4, it was a budget issue.

It was money; that's where the issue was, not against the program.

- It seems like there's some ripple effects with that.

There's some other programs in there.

Is that something that potentially could be revisited?

- Perhaps, but at this point it was just, just about how much money we were spending on five people.

- It was, but when I heard the discussion it didn't seem like that.

It seemed like there was more discussion about what was being taught in that program.

- Probably from some, I'll have you go to those individually but as far as myself and many people on the floor, were asking, "Why are we spending 1.4 for five people?"

- So you think that's why the vote went the way it did?

- Correct.

- Okay.

The budget also did pass and we're having the discussions.

Speaker, what do you think about what you have in there right now?

- Well, first of all, I think we should know, the citizens should know, that we're not that far apart in our positions.

- No.

- 30, 40 million just think of it, the outside of the the positions between the House and the Senate out of 8.6 billion.

So we're not talking about a huge difference.

Now, to the previous discussion about, you know, some of the language, the intricacies within that, the language that we add as footnotes.

Yeah, there's some differences in that.

But, as far as the dollars, we're not that far apart.

So I think the, you know, the negotiations, and so that's what it is, it's a conference committee on the budget.

I think they'll iron the majority of it out very quickly and there'll be some things that, you know, they have to arm twist a little bit with each other on and try to sort it out.

- Because there is more money in that and then you've got the ARPA bill also floating out there.

It does seem like there's some things that really could help the State right now.

Could you talk about some of the things you like?

- That's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to reserve money down the road, down the, for the future.

But right now we're trying to say, what immediate problems can we address?

And yet not cause problems with overspending.

For example, my interest is, is this an opportunity to set up healthcare facilities around the State that, in places they would never of them again, can we help generations by doing that?

Can we put those ARPA dollars into something like that?

There may be other places that they'd like to look to put 'em, but that's where I'm interested in.

Is this an opportunity to help healthcare in the State of Wyoming?

- Very similar.

We have the ARPA bill with all that Federal dollars, one-time Federal dollars the President spoke about, and certainly healthcare facilities in there and there's, you know, matching dollars for future Federal potential dollars, et cetera.

So I think we are tryna find those places where we both realize savings, but also get those boots on the ground type programs available to citizens as soon as possible.

So I think you're gonna see a combination of that.

Now there was, as you may have saw yesterday, as we debated the ARPA bill, there was a lot of interest in prioritizing how that money gets spent.

But really, in the end of the day, we stayed fairly close to what the Senate position was because there had been good work.

Our JAC had done some very good work in conjunction with the Executive Branch to lay that out.

And so I think, you know, I think we're gonna come to a nice position where we both have short term and long term, not just aspirations, but actually outcomes.

- Senator, a couple of social issues and you had one too that we wanted to talk about but, just bringing up the topic of abortion.

A lotta years, we've seen those bills get to a Committee or one side or something like that, and we really haven't had many debates on that subject on the Floor.

I expected that to happen this year, judging by what we've seen in the courts and all that.

Was it difficult to bring that up or do you think this was the right time to finally have that discussion?

- Difficult in terms of a budget session?

- Yeah.

- Perhaps, but there's, there's starting to be more of an interest, my perception is, more of an interest in it across the State of Wyoming.

I traveled across the State during the summer, attended some of these meetings, starting to hear that.

I was surprised, Bob, three or four years ago that an abortion related bill, a life bill, passed in the Senate.

And I had spent a lot of years in the Senate watching those go down.

And I remember the first time it passed, I turned to my colleague and I said, "Well, what about that?

There's a change in the Senate."

And so they're seeing that change come about and I think it warrants, if there's enough interest across the State, it warrants some on consideration on the Senate side, at least on our side of the building, taking that approach.

- Again, bringing a lot of discussion, probably killed some bills, but I, I'm just kinda curious about that.

- Yeah.

I think that, you know, we did, well I took a different approach on our side.

I said, I remember, if it has personal bills, they get their first choice.

So that first choice is a Life bill, then that's what's out there.

So we, we took up, you know, one bill, one member said that was their priority and we have it, it's in the Senate's hands now.

It, you know, went through the House and now it's on the Senate side.

You know, the challenge is for Presidents and Speakers, presiding offices, you don't, you gotta be careful how much time you use on each side for or a particular issue because that takes time from other issues.

And so, you know, we try whether it's, you know, for Second Amendment issues or life issues or whatever, how much time you use.

So you try to, at least I try to, get a sense of what's going on in the, in my colleagues chamber, just to say, "Okay, let's send them something."

When something comes to our side, we've already spent our time on that issue, we'll hold back a bit.

- There are some concerned about the bill the Senate had on chemical abortions, 'cause there was, lobbyists and some other folks that I have spoken to are concerned that it might stop some different procedures from happening.

Are you confident that that bill doesn't do that and it just specifically focuses on abortion?

- I think we put it out there so we can air it out and find out if those issues are, need to be addressed, if that's a concern.

I'd come back on that situation we were we're talking about how many bills have we killed and I credit our Floor Leader for repetitively getting up and saying, "Every time you choose to speak on one of these bills, you look down that list and you, you've killed somebody else's bill or killed another bill."

And that's, they had fair warning multiple times and some didn't get to hear their legislation and didn't hear to that warning.

It's a busy, it's always busy.

- Do you suspect there'll be enough time to hear both of those bills as they flip over?

- Well, the Senator already, already has theirs.

I just received the Senate file from the Senate yesterday.

And, quite honestly, it's probably outside the timeline that we've laid out to actually accommodate or accomplish our work.

It's kind of fallen out of that schedule.

And so I don't know that the Senate file will get heard on our side.

- You also had a lot of interesting debate, I thought, on the Transgender bill and that is the one to keep transgender athletes from competing in women's sports.

Senator, you're like myself, you've done a lot of play by play.

You've done a lot of sports casting in your time.

I, I'm curious what you thought about that bill.

- I'm usually the fellow behind the camera when it comes to sports.

(laughing) I'm more on the news angle.

I think it warranted a discussion, in a credit to the Senator from Evans for bringing it up.

She'd been a coach for a lot of years.

And I, I think just based on that, it came from a person who'd been involved and she sensed that it was something that needed to be aired out and we gave it time.

- A lot of discussion by Senator Rothfuss and others that the Activities Association has been managing this.

I would just wonder if it would be better to leave it up to them or why we would need state law on that.

- I think at some point, in the future, it will become more of an issue and it would be good to lay the template out now.

- Okay.

Let's talk about something else I would love to hear both of your thoughts on, and this is on crossover elections.

I know the party is in particular Republican party; very interested in this.

Where did you stand on that particular issue?

And again, for the viewers, this is one where if you're a Democrat or an Independent, you might wanna vote in the Republican primary.

- Sure.

I stood with the bill.

But the people need to realize they have, right up to the, within three months of the election, they can still make that decision.

At some point, I think that it's good that one declares where they're at and where they stand.

And they can, three months out, they can still do that.

They can look at the people running for election to decide where they're at.

- But, however, this particular bill didn't let you do that, unless something has changed along the way.

And I think that's the concern, I'm hearing from people, is you don't see the roster of folks.

And the reason I think that's interesting is because I know in many races, boy, I like that guy who's running for sheriff, it really doesn't matter to me what party they are, I would like to vote for them.

And I wonder if that doesn't muck some of that up.

- I don't, I don't think so.

I've heard from a few on that, but I've probably heard from more saying, "Let's allow them to declare their party."

- Where do you stand on that?

- Well, I think, and I'll speak to the, the local race issue, I think, you know, a lot of folks are voting for their best friend or their best friend's niece or nephew who's running for a local office, a local elected office.

And, and quite honestly, why should some of those races be partisan to begin with.

A little different question obviously, a little different discussion, very different discussion, actually.

You know, and I understand there are interests at the state level and certainly, when it comes to National Office about you know, the partisan makeup and the partisan issues but I think where it's more challenging for me is at the local level where we, you know, we don't elect town council on a partisan basis.

Why are we electing, you know, our sheriff or our coroner on a partisan basis?

You know?

So there's some things that, so I think there needs to be a broader discussion to the President's point, is are there races where this is incorporated and are there races where actually, we need to actually rethink if should they be partisan to begin with?

- You don't want those Liberal coroners, Speaker, I mean, you never know they can get outta control on some of those things.

But County Commissioners might be one that is appropriate.

- Well, I, I agree.

I think there are, like I said, there are probably different levels of government where it has a different tone to it or different effect.

- Both the House and Senate passed different, sort of, breaks for energy, one, oil and gas over on the Senate side and one was coal that on your side.

Can we start with you and just talk a little bit about that effort for coal.

There are some people that are very concerned about losing potentially 10 million dollars a year in revenue.

- You know, the coal one, actually, I, I don't know if you've heard my Florida discussion was, so this, there's only something, one thing wrong with this bill, it's only half as much as it should be.

Many years, several years ago, I brought a bill to make equitable tax.

Now, we could talk about equitable based on a, you know, percentage and other people like to talk equitable based on a BTU or an energy equivalent, IE coal, oil, gas, let's get 'em on an energy equivalent.

But right now, oil and gas are at six percent severance and coal is at seven.

This would drop it to six.

So, you know, that's a drop of, you know, 14 percent or, you know, do the math.

Is it equitable?

I mean, that's what I was trying to approach, equitable.

Just like we talked about with redistricting, other things, is are we treating people equally unfairly?

I don't, maybe that's the, (chuckling) maybe that's the way to approach it.

And that that's why I'm supportive of it.

It also happens to be my community that produces a whole lot of that coal.

- The Senate feels a little different.

Can you explain that?

- Well, I, yes, but first of all, the mineral and energy issues are why I'm here.

You spoke of other issues before that.

Quite honestly, that is not my full interest.

My interest is in what drives the engine of Wyoming whether it be coal, oil and gas, now nuclear, we are looking at new wind energy.

Let's get it all gathered up.

Let's find one person out there, perhaps pivoted out of the Governor's office, that we can bring this together in a manner where we've got companies coming into Wyoming and making sure that all of this stays intact and that that's our interest.

That is my interest.

You talk about many topics here, but the energy, the energy market, oil, gas minerals, all of it that's where I'm interested in and now nuclear.

We're opening up a door of opportunity in Wyoming and we can't get sidetracked on all these other issues.

We have to keep the energy, the energy picture of Wyoming bright and strong because that's what's going to fund everything.

You talk about dropping the coal.

We got pretty accustomed to that.

I drive people past my elementary schools in my valley and I say, "That's Gillette coal that made that happen folks."

And we took it for granted.

And now we're gonna try to give them a break, different variations of it but that's still what drives the engine, Bob.

We gotta stay focused on what Wyoming stands for.

- If we do those things and we try and use reduced taxes to help them at the same time don't we have to come back and review our whole tax revenue situation?

- I'm already in discussions with that, looking at proposals that we could look at in the interim.

We're going to have to do that, but why not help those who have helped us for so long, in so many areas.

We took it for granted.

Folks didn't realize how minerals, how the fossil fuels and now the wind energy are driving the economy of this state.

- We have been on scholarship (chuckling) for the most part.

Before I let you go, I think I jinxed the whole process talking about how smoothly everything went with redistricting (chuckling) over in the House.

- You must have.

That was you.

- That was, it's totally my fault.

So the Senate has dropped us back to 30 and 60, and does that seem like a position that they're gonna wanna stick with?

- Oh we have seven or eight proposals we're gonna up on third reading, and people will see this at different times, but we'll have a decision made.

The concerns with some of it were that we were, I have senators that are concerned that we're gonna grow government with the additional positions and we're getting that sorted out and there are proposals out there that find ways to do it without those additional positions but we'll air it out entirely.

- Last week of the session is coming up.

Are we gonna get out of here on time, you think?

- That's my plan.

- Well, we don't have any extra days.

(chuckling) So there is next Friday.

Somebody's gonna be hitting a gavel, and well, both of us will be hitting the gavel saying, "We are adjourned."

Now, if we have more work to do that'll be outside of this session right here.

- All right, well, it's been fun so far again.

Speaker Barlow, Senator Dockstader, thank you so much for joining us.

- [Both] Thank you.

- When we come back, we're gonna talk with a couple of Democrats from the legislature.

Stay with us.

This is Capitol Outlook.

- Welcome back to Capitol Outlook, again, I'm Bob Beck.

Joining us from the Democratic Party we have Senator Mike Gierau and Representative Andy Schwartz.

They're both from Jackson.

Gentlemen, welcome to the program.

- Thank you, Bob.

It's good to be here.

- Morning, Bob.

- Well, it's good to start with the budget because both of you happen to be on the appropriations committee, the bill is in conference committee, any snags so far?

- Well, Bob, no.

I mean right now we're about halfway through and I think the overarching theme of this whole session, as far as the budget goes is and this is my second one.

And of course, two interim budgets.

I think the theme is how well we've worked together in a time when there's a lot of divisiveness, especially over on the Senate side, on the Senate floor.

The two committees have worked well and the Governor gave us a good budget.

And I think that we've, the House and the Senate have worked together.

We know each other.

We've been through a couple of these before and it's moving along.

- What's your read?

- I basically agree with the Senator.

I would add though, that we've gotten about halfway through the agreements, but what's left out there, a lot of them are the big picture spending policy concepts, the whether we save or don't save, put 'em in reserve accounts or permanent accounts, and those are big policy issues and they'll be a little harder to solve.

- Yeah, Andy's right.

The Senate and the House have some philosophical differences and it's interesting because, we both want to get to the same place.

And so on our side, it's a little bit more, we took, whether it was conserved, ARPA dollars, dollars that we converted to general funds and tried to, our big push with that was to put a lot of it towards savings.

As you know Bob, almost one out of every $4 that we use in government today is from interest income from our investment accounts.

And so we felt that it was a goal of ours to put a significant portion of that towards savings for the future.

I know the House wants to, it's all for like, say for the best Wyoming, the House has a little bit of a different take on it and so we're gonna have to work that through, but I think we'll get there.

- Go ahead.

- Yeah.

I would add there's what we do on the appropriations committee, but it's tied very closely to what we've been doing in capital finance and investments, where we are looking at trying to go to the endowment model for our funds.

And I won't go into the details but the bottom line is that we, the House's position right now is not to put quite as much money in the corpus's because we want to create the ability to invest differently.

- [Bob] And get revenue from that.

- And get revenue from that.

- Well, one of the things we do need to talk about is the Senate put in an amendment to get rid of the Gender Studies program at the University of Wyoming.

Senator Dockstader just informed us that that was all about money.

I thought it was more about what was being taught there, your thoughts?

- Well, one, in the Senate doesn't get fat by contradicting the president.

So I would not ever wanna presume that he was wrong on an issue, but I would say, I think there was a little more, there were some other facets to it as well, let's say that.

I think that for Senator Steinmetz, I think it's a philosophical issue, to a large degree.

And one that she feels strongly about.

The Senate voted by just one vote to have that amendment in and there's this, I think there's different views.

I frankly, am one that does not share her view on that.

And the House of course, did not bring it forward.

And matter of fact, didn't even rule that it was germane to the budget bill at all.

And so we're gonna have to work that through.

And I would tend to think that we will work it through.

I think that it'll probably live to, she'll have to live to fight another day on that one.

- Did you, as he just suggested, rule this out of order over in the House, so does that mean you're just not gonna budge on that?

- Personally, I'm not going to budge on it.

I can't speak for my colleagues, but I think they feel pretty strongly.

It's inappropriate in the budget.

I might add the Head of the Gender Studies program at the University is the minority floor leader in the House.

So for more than one reason, it's problematic for us.

- That is yeah, that's an excellent point.

Yeah.

- It does add a little spice to the drama.

- It certainly does, but it does seem like it ties in with some of the discussions we've had this session with critical race theory.

And I think that was the, Senator Steinmetz looked at what was being taught in gender studies and really didn't care for the direction of some of those things and, and decided to bring the amendment and Representative Schwartz, you made national news with your thoughts on critical race theory.

It's not something you're fond of.

- That would be an understatement.

I mean, to begin with, I thought the particular bill was terribly written and would've made it almost impossible to teach history in our K12 schools.

And obviously I took it a little personally, but at a higher level, I don't think the legislature should be dealing with curriculum in the schools.

I'm not sure it's even constitutional or statutorily acceptable.

And I object to it.

I mean, we create the basket of goods, that's fine.

But I think after that, it's the State Board of Education, but even more appropriately, the local school district should be determining how they teach.

- Senator?

- I couldn't agree more with Andy.

And I think, as far as the Senate side goes, and I think we've seen this since the special session, I talked about it on the floor about a lot of these policies, a lot of these ideas that are coming forth, critical race theory, what was going on with the pandemic and mask orders and vaccination orders, the gender studies program.

A lot of these issues you see, I think they all, you can trace it back to fear.

A fear of change, you know, our country's changing.

It's evolving.

Is it all good?

I don't know.

But I do know this, I know that especially with a group in the Senate, they see that change as a threat and they want to eradicate it.

So they don't wanna talk about it.

They don't wanna really have, you can add in, Medicare expansion, you can add in a myriad of different issues to that.

But that's what I see, it's just, you know, we don't wanna talk about it.

We just wanna get rid of it.

We wanna put it aside and that's the general theme, and I don't think it's good for the body.

I don't think it's good for, I don't think it's good for the people of Wyoming.

- It's not been quite as bad over in the House, at least that's been my read.

- No, it has not been quite as bad on the house side, but that undercurrent is there as well.

I just think the numbers are a little different.

To digress a little bit though, I think part of the problem is how people are getting information.

And this show is a wonderful example of how local statewide news can be very informative, but most people don't get their news that way.

It's national news sources.

So something like critical race theory, it really isn't about critical race theory, which is a very sophisticated college graduate level course, but it becomes, it's a phrase that resonates with a lot of people.

So consequently, we get bills on it and the bills have nothing to do with critical race theory.

- Abortion came up on both sides.

And I thought that was inevitable coming into the session, looking at some of the court discussions.

The Senate has it bill, a little different than the House, in my opinion, in that it could take some action and cause some people potentially some difficulty, at least that's what we've heard in testimony.

What's your thoughts?

- Yeah.

Senate file, I believe it's 83, And it has to do with doctors using chemicals that can as a result cause abortion.

And the problem Bob, is that it, what it does is it turns our medical community into people who now, in just performing their daily duties with regards to women who may have other problems, while being pregnant, if they use these drugs, or if there is a spontaneous abortion, if there's a miscarriage, use these drugs to help facilitate something that's already happening naturally, they become criminals.

And, so now we're making criminals outta doctors and when you do that, they're just not gonna practice.

And so now you're telling half the population that in certain circumstances, you're gonna have to leave the state for medical care.

It's an awful message to send, especially at a time when we're trying to grow our economy where we're trying to invite people to come here.

And so it's a mixed message that sends I think, a bad signal.

And so, and once again, and I think as Andy mentioned it quite well, I think that a lot of these bills, they're coming from national organizations, they're not written here.

They're written somewhere else.

They're spit out.

And I call 'em, commercial bills.

You know, there's folks up in the gallery, taking pictures of folks giving speeches about them.

And so they can use them in campaigns.

And I don't think it's good for our discourse, I don't believe, but that's not my call.

- The House bill, it depends on what the Supreme court does.

And then it kicks things into play, but we certainly heard some emotional testimony.

- Oh, the testimony is hard to sit through it on both sides because it's all very personal, but I think the Senator brought up an important issue that ultimately this is gonna have an impact on Wyoming's healthcare system.

Because if doctors are hesitant to come here because they're threatened with losing their license to practice.

I mean, if I were a medical professional, I would think twice, and we already have a problem in the state with a shortage.

I think the other issue it highlights is we might not have enough women in the legislature.

- Yeah.

And, and that's a certainly interesting discussion that, it was raised by a couple of people.

So it's, who knows if there'll be enough time to pass either one of those bills, but it's clearly coming back.

And so it's not going away and we'll see how this all plays out.

I want to ask you about the transgender bill that certainly had a lot of discussion.

The bill, again, we talked about it in the last segment, the Senator who brought the bill is really, I think, from her heart, coming from the position that this is unfair for women athletes and trying to address the situation, there might be some other people that have some other things going on there, but I really truly believe that Senator Schuller just is going to the mat on this one, thinking that women athletes could be disenfranchised.

- Yes, Bob, I, you know, Senator Schuller is.. and all my colleagues are terrific.

I enjoy working with working with all of 'em and on this one, you're absolutely right.

It was just a straight fairness issue for her.

Now, in my view, I felt that the state had a policy, the high school sports association had a policy with regard to this.

It was working, it has been working, but I think that, Senator Schuller had another view and it was honest, it was heartfelt just like they all are.

It's the same when we talk about Senator Steinmetz, and her bill, she and I next to each other in appropriations and have for two years and I say this all the time, we work together on many issues.

And it's an interesting thing.

And Senator Schuller is the same way.

In our personal lives, we're all married, we have kids, we have work.

Senator Steinmetz and I both own small businesses here in Wyoming.

There's 80% of our lives are all kind of intertwined in living in the Wyoming life.

And so we get to some of these issues and we have different views.

But when we stick to talking about those personal things, you find out these are real good folks.

Now there's a small group, that inside our, especially on our side, that practice another form of politics and it's the politics of destruction.

And that's the thing that makes it a really tough place to work.

And I was shocked, frankly, yesterday when the president of the Senate had to read out a rule saying that you couldn't film, members couldn't film each other, or could not record each other's conversations.

I was like, what?

I didn't know someone was walking around recording private conversations, seems that it was.

And so those types of things that are used to just to divide and destroy and that, I think that is bad for the body.

It's not up to what I call what I would call the, honoring the institution of the Senate.

But when you talk about Senator Schuller and that bill, like you say, she was coming from the heart on it and I could tell, we got a lot of letters, because a lot of folks feel very differently about that.

People who have transgender kids, they just want to compete.

They just want to be able to find a place in the world for their kids to compete.

And they're just kids.

And so that's where that issue and where I came down.

It's like, I think there's a way we can accommodate this.

And so, that was the way, it didn't go that way on the floor.

- You had another controversial issue over in the House and it dealt with pregnant women and taking drugs and tell folks maybe a little bit about that bill and maybe some of your concerns about it.

- So the bill was essentially the mothers, women who were pregnant, who were using drugs, and it was primarily methamphetamine could be subject to criminal penalties, including incarceration.

It goes back to what Senator Gierau said.

It was brought with the best of intentions, by a person who is actually a prosecuting attorney.

The question was, what will be the impact of the bill and will it actually help the mothers and help the babies.

And I think from my perspective, it would have the opposite effect of what was intended by, these women are then gonna be hesitant to get medical care, prenatal medical care, because they're afraid of going to jail and that's not good for the mother or the baby.

So the bill passed and it'll go to the Senate.

But I was amongst the group that thought, ultimately the impact will be negative.

- And just to balance it out a little bit, I think Representative Oakley, and I've talked actually to some law enforcement people about this.

There is a loophole in the law.

If somebody is born with some effects from all of this.

And I guess there's other ways to get at that, but this was the one that she particularly chose.

- I understand that.

I just feel that prosecution is not necessarily the best avenue to deal with this situation.

And yes, there's a loophole in the law, I think I'll go back to what I said.

It's just not the best way to deal with it.

- Medicaid expansion failed, tried some budget amendments, tried a whole bunch of stuff.

And once again, do you ever see a scenario Representative, where that's going to pass this legislature?

- I'm the eternal optimist.

Yes.

I think eventually enough members of the body will recognize that it's good for Wyoming citizens.

It's good for Wyoming healthcare.

And it's actually good for the state from a financial perspective.

I ran the bill myself, I'm losing track of time, maybe three years ago.

Little by little, it's getting more support.

I honestly don't understand the downside.

- More support in the House of Representatives.

You may need some, an election to fix things in the Senate.

- It's got a ways to go in the Senate, but you know, actually I think it may be, this year it got nine votes and we brought it up as a budget amendment because we couldn't get it on the floor as a bill, it was drawered, it didn't make it to the floor.

So this year Senator Case brought it as an amendment and it only got nine votes.

I believe honestly, that if this was not an election year in a straight budget year, we would've been a lot closer.

I think, I actually believe that we're not that far away.

Now, we'll see over the next couple years, how budgets go and all that.

But right now we have walked away.

The State of Wyoming's walked away from billions of dollars in medical aid that could help thousands of people across the state.

And to me, it's unconscionable that we haven't done it, but we haven't.

And so we're gonna keep trying and we'll get there.

I believe we will get there.

- There before I let you two go, you're up, you're both from Jackson of course, real estate transfer tax was a bill that, I don't know, there was a lot of money, smart money, bet on a victory on that one, but it didn't go through, but there are certainly housing issues there and across the state, if you can't get that, but how do you fix those issues do you think?

- So the real estate transfer tax is close to my heart.

I think I've tried to run the bill through the revenue committee for six years about.

- [Bob] Talk about optimism.

- Yeah.

I'm the eternal optimist on that one.

I'm actually letting Representative Yin now carry that flag, but, it is true.

The housing issues that we deal with in Teton county are different just because of the scale.

The median price of a home is somewhere around 2.7 million.

That's not true in the other counties.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of housing issues throughout the state that need to be addressed.

And I think a real estate transfer tax is the county option.

The bill has never been about forcing people all over the state to pay real estate transfer.

It's where a county commissioners put it on the ballot and the people vote for it.

I think it has great potential to help deal with these housing issues, whether it's affordability or the quality of the housing, cause a lot of places it's about substandard housing that people live in.

Not that it's too expensive for people to buy.

So it's a fight.

it's another one like Medicaid expansion that you just keep trying and hope for success.

- But if it doesn't get through, how do you deal with housing?

And it's not, I mean, Jackson is the most extreme situation, but you go throughout the state, we did a story on Sheridan facing some serious issues.

- Absolutely right Bob, this was, 10 years ago, a Teton county only issue.

And we would talk about it.

Whether through Representatives work with the real estate transfer tax or other avenues, nothing.

Today, it is getting heard.

It is getting traction.

You spoke to the president in the last segment.

I think he from, especially with Northern Lincoln county in his district has gained a new appreciation.

As a matter of fact, he signed on with me to try to move some ARPA dollars and we didn't quite get that done.

We're hoping that maybe there will be something in the House, but either way, and even talking with the Governor yesterday, he knows that this is a problem in Lincoln County.

It's a problem in Sheridan.

And it's a problem here in Cheyenne and Andy hit on something that I think is really key on this is it's not just housing per se, but it's quality housing.

You know, it really is.

It's having a good housing stock for the middle class.

If we're going to ever diversify this economy, the way we talk about, we're going to need that.

And today it's evaporating and we need to take stock of that.

And so I think that we need a statewide effort, frankly, that's bigger than the state transfer tax I think, or the real estate transfer tax.

That's a piece and a piece that could generate millions just from our county alone, but, and I think we'd love to help, but now this is a statewide issue that is not going away.

And each year I notice now the lights come on, more representatives, more senators are starting to see it in their communities.

And so I think it's one that in the next couple of years, you're gonna see some real movement.

- Senator Gierau, Representative Schwartz, a pleasure.

Thank you for joining us.

- Thank you very much.

- Thanks Bob.

- Stay with us.

We will wrap up the program with discussion about a number of transportation issues and some other bills.

This is Capitol Outlook.

- Welcome back to Capital Outlook.

Again, I'm Bob Beck, from Casper we have Senator Bill Landen.

And from right here in Cheyenne we have Representative Landon Brown.

Pleasure having both of you with us, Representative I'm gonna start with you and I just want to quickly ask you about redistricting.

The bill is being worked on and we're not quite there yet, but I think it's been fascinating to watch all the discussion about Cheyenne, can you explain what you're hoping to get out of this bill?

- Yeah Bob, thanks for having me.

And I think all of Laramie County is in the same boat right now, we just want our representation.

You know, Laramie County has been one of the few counties that actually saw growth in the past 10 years.

And we're just looking for that rightful representation and a few of the plans that have been out there to diminish that representation of the one man one vote have been a little problematic for the Laramie County delegation.

So I stand along with the rest of my colleagues to make sure that Laramie County is fully represented.

Whether it's through the representation of that add three quarters of a Representative or that three quarters of a Senator.

- Senator Landon.

I was explaining that I'm the one who jinxed it.

I mentioned to the speaker on last week's program that, "Wow that's going smoothly and no problems whatsoever."

And you're having a little bit more debate in the Senate.

- Well we are, and you know, it was kind of expected, some of our rural districts out there who didn't like some of the tweaks that were provided under the 62-31 plan ran the amendment and it passed very decidedly.

And so now we're sitting on a 60-30 split House Representative versus Senate and we're gonna work that bill I think today and see what maybe comes out of that.

But it's possible that maybe the Senate will come all the way back to the 62-31 plan, might find out that we can't make the 60-30 work.

So it's been an interesting discussion.

- I was told this week, after it switched to the at county clerks have been active or reaching out to senators, could you enlighten folks on what you've heard?

- Well, you know, I served as as chairman of the corporations committee for a couple of years and really found out during those days that our county clerks out across the state are the rock stars of our system and they have been absolutely amazing, terrific.

And I bet Representative Brown can vouch for that too.

Hours up in Natrona County has been amazing.

And regardless of what plan, they have spent the hours it takes to work that through and find out if precincts are gonna work.

And if there's any splits involved where do we need to draw those lines.

So they've been so helpful in the process.

It's lots and lots of hours to finally get to something that we can hopefully agree on.

- And I think the big issue for the House has been these large districts, right?

And is where you have to go across several counties?

- Yeah I mean, that's a portion of it.

I think the biggest issue that the House faced was whether or not we wanted to look at even growing government and what came out of the corporations committee was not the most ideal for what most Wyomingites wanted to see which was growing government.

But what we saw was that 60-30 split just made it very difficult.

And mainly up in the Northern part of the state with the basin, we had a very hard time including pretty much anything with the basin not going hundreds of miles away.

So it's a difficult task but as Senator Landen mentioned, our county clerks were the out absolute rock stars spending countless hours, making sure that the lines that we were drawing were making it the best available for them and for the constituents to not have multiple ballots that they had to vote on when they go in for anything along those lines.

- Well, you're the chairman of the Transportation and Military Affairs Committee.

And you have an interesting legislation that honestly has slipped through the cracks a little bit.

And I don't think it's getting talked enough about, and that's dealing with some issues and allegations of sexual abuse in the National Guard.

You've got some legislation going through the system to address that, could you explain to folks what you're trying to do?

- You know, we do Bob, I'm really proud of that committee.

We received a report from our military department which we had requested just knowing what's going on out across the country.

About a year, year and a half ago, we asked the military department to take a hard look at everything.

They came back in November and gave us a report and the committee listened to testimony for an entire day.

And we actually scheduled an additional meeting in January to take up some of the issues that we heard and develop three or four bills that have made it through the process.

One of the bills that just arrived in the Senate has already gone through Representative Brown's House and that would provide for some additional help.

Some cooperation between workforce services and our military department to hopefully give a little bit more expedited effort to any sort of accusation or situation that might arise.

I think that's an important piece because it allows for workforce services to set aside someone that the military department can count on right away, if there's a EEOC complaint.

There's a couple other bills with it, annual reports, so that can keep a close eye on what's going on in the military department, but really proud of that work - Representative Brown we did some reporting on this very early on in the process.

And, you know, it was a little disturbing that there have been people who, and maybe you can explain this a little further, what the allegations were because there were some people that just frankly they're being dismissed and set aside.

And, I know when we tried to look into it getting some answers was very difficult, did you run into the same thing on the committee?

- You know, I think the committee, in my opinion was given the good information upfront.

I think that it was an unfortunate series of events that it took us to come to a committee meeting to in order to get that information.

I actually have one of my constituents is one of those that felt that they were dismissed.

And so, you know, I worked with the governor's office and I with the military department and I investigated on my own, but, you know sometimes that's not enough as well.

And sometimes people feel that they need to be heard on a larger stage, and they need to make sure that that they've gone through everything that they have the opportunity to.

I don't feel like, you know our military department is trying to hide anything.

I just think that they were kind of stuck between a rock and a hard spot when it comes to the federal side of things and what they're doing as far as the military but then also answering to the state side is ours.

And so as the good Senator and chairman has mentioned we're wrapping that up by making sure that they understand that they are a state agency and they do report to us as well.

- Are you confident this is gonna get to the problem?

- I'm not confident that it will get to the problem.

I do think that it gives us a few more tools in the tool chest to make sure that we're trying to address the problem as best as possible.

I do think that having that EEOC claim Representative out of the department of workforce services is a major step in the right direction but I'm not positive that it will solve every problem.

I think we're gonna continue to see issues but that's not just in the military department either.

I think that's what we do, is we continue to see problems bubble up and we attack them as we can.

- Senator?

- You know, I agree with the Representative.

I think this is something that needs to stay on the front burner.

It's a step in the right direction.

Some of the legislation, we were able to bring this session but we certainly intend to work very closely with our military department, keep an eye on this.

There might be some things we can do in the future.

You know, I think the the main thing that the committee was focused on is trying to create the best in environment we can for our National Guard members and for the rest of our military and give them the opportunity when there is agreements, you know, let's make it as expedient as we can for them and try to take care of our employees out there.

- You have another bill I think that slid through the cracks.

We've been so focused on these controversial things this session, especially over in the Senate that we didn't get a chance to talk about it.

And, I think it passed 30 to nothing is your amendments to stalking.

I was here when they passed the stalking legislation all those years ago.

And it was a very difficult thing to actually get passed.

And now we're seeing 30 to nothing.

Explain what your bill does, cause it's fascinating, these are today's times with electronics and all of that.

- Well, thank you for that question.

You know, I do think it's an ongoing effort and interestingly enough, Representative Brown the was the House sponsor of that bill four or five years ago.

We worked very hard to get some changes made to that section of our laws.

And we're not there yet.

This particular bill that's coming through is going to address the electronic surveillance piece which is unfortunately exploding in our society.

It's way a too easy for someone to hack into a telephone or to place a little device up underneath the car and stalk people out there.

And so that's what this piece of legislation would do is just make sure that everybody knows in our green books we consider that against the law.

You cannot surveil somebody without their permission.

- Yeah Bob, I think this is a fantastic step in the right direction.

I appreciate the good Senator allowing me to co-sponsor that legislation and carry it on the House side a few years ago.

And in the same way with this one, you know technology's exploding at a rapid pace.

And what we've seen is people use it for nefarious activities.

And we'd like to make sure that, you know if somebody's using that illegally, as we see that it's illegal we'd like them to be held accountable for it.

And this is again, another step in the right direction, will solve every problem?

Absolutely not, but it's a step in the right direction.

We'll continuously work for incremental changes to make sure that, you know, our victims are heard and that they're treated equitably.

- Bill isn't quite as successful was an attempt to get the fuel tax increased.

And what's the problem.

I look at that bill, I have never seen gas prices ever affected by a fuel tax increase, but is it a perception thing?

Why is it such a challenge in the House?

- You know it's interesting, Bob.

I can remember before I entered the legislature there was a 10 cent gasoline text that was added in in the morning that it went into effect on July 1st, I believe it was 2012.

All the gas stations in Cheyenne saw it go 10 cents a gallon up but then three days later they realized, "Oh that doesn't affect us."

And so brought it back down.

In my opinion I do believe that it's a vision problem.

I think it's an optics problem of even just adding the tax at the distribution level people don't quite understand what that means.

And so unfortunately that means that our roads are not getting taken care of the way that they need to.

We have diminishing assets right now and we really need to take care of them.

We've seen a couple of amendments to the budget, to ARPA funding over the past couple of days that have tried to bring on new roads to reroute I80.

The problem with that, that I have in my opinion is we've still got deteriorating assets elsewhere that we need to make sure we take care of and that gas tax would've gone to that.

- Yeah and you don't even get the chance to talk about it because I can't get it out of there.

- Right.

But it's a huge issue.

And you know, anybody that's driven the state and notice that we've got some concerns and I know the department of transportation comes to you it seems like every year, with some real serious concerns about all this.

- Well, you know, as chairman of the committee I can tell you it's the number one issue.

It's the number one policy issue for transportation.

And that is how do we shore up that infrastructure out there.

We're very fortunate to have the infrastructure bill passed by Congress, which gives us an opportunity that I hope we take full advantage of, but quite frankly, the Representative is right.

It's a single biggest piece of our economy in Wyoming is our roadways and our highways, the interstate highways.

And we have to get to a point where our generation can step up and help pay for that infrastructure out there.

- It seems to be a concern, is it probably not gonna come from a tax?

Is it gonna probably have to come from some other avenue or diversion, something like that?

- Well, you know, we considered a bill in the Senate but there were two vehicles that our transportation committee forwarded to this session.

And one was the gasoline tax.

The second one was to divert some of that severance tax diversion which we thought would give a a consistent source of revenue to the highway department not only to match that infrastructure money that's coming from the federal government, but also down the road to have a consistent source that we could we could go in and start fixing some of the highways.

That bill also failed in the Senate by a 16-14 vote.

So it was close, but at least we have, I think on the radar screen that the notion that, hey we've gotta do something going forward.

- Your thoughts?

- I completely agree.

And I think that the diversion was a good compromise, in my opinion, you know Representative Robert Mueller brought that forward and said you know, we've clearly got issues, we've clearly got something that we need to address here.

And instead of raising taxes which everybody is opposed to, let's look at using some of the current sources of revenue.

The 16-14 vote is promising in my opinion, I think that means that we actually have the opportunity to have the us discussion again in the future and maybe change a few minds.

- Senator, we have about 90 seconds left.

I want to ask, you've been in the Senate a long time.

I'm getting questions.

When I go home, coffee shops, the gym or whatever it is, is there trouble in the in the state Senate?

I'm curious your read what's happening over the there.

- You know, it has changed.

The last two or three years has I think been a little bit rambunctious in the Senate.

It used to be a quieter, more sort of thoughtful place.

And now we're kind of throwing some things around that are interesting to say the least.

I thought that the budget amendments particularly the one that reached down into the curriculum at the University of Wyoming, we just have never done that before.

Just, you know, some bills that leadership has chosen to bring forward that during a budget session we probably would not have in the past.

And so the House is gonna get to look at some bills that are passing the Senate right now that that really don't have a lot to do with the budget.

I would've preferred to maybe spend a little bit more time looking at the budget.

Yeah.

- Senator Bill Landen of Casper, always nice having you.

And of course, Cheyenne Representative Landon Brown, a pleasure.

Thank you for joining us.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- And thanks to all of you for joining us today on Capital Outlook, we have one more week of the legislative session coming up.

We'll have a last program for you.

And we'll also introduce you to the new host of this program.

That's all next week.

Join us then.

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