Wyoming lawmakers have had some time to rest and reflect on the 2023 legislative session. Several notable things happened this year - there were a lot of new lawmakers and the Republican party had some division between traditional Republicans and a newer, national party called the Freedom Caucus and there was a budget surplus rather than dealing with making cuts.
Wyoming Public Radio (WPR) spoke with the leaders of both the House and Senate to re-cap.
This interview is with WPR’s Kamila Kudelska and President of the Senate Ogden Driskill (R-Devils Tower). Kudelska started off by asking him how he felt the session went overall.
To read or listen to WPR’s interview with the Speaker of the House Albert Sommers (R-Sublette County) click here.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Ogden Driskill: I think really well. We've had some pretty good contention going into the session and we kind of laid out some expectations and markers for our body. And the truth is, we got by good all the way to the last two, three days of [the] session. And all in all, the body, everybody, treated each other with respect. I think it really showed in our work product. Everybody had good honest debates and were honest with each other about how they were feeling. I think we got by really well in the Senate.
Kamila Kudelska: The Senate didn't face as much national scrutiny as the House. But there was pressure, it seems, sometimes just with the whole legislature. What do you think of that national involvement in the state politics?
OD: The Senate was pretty focused on where it was at and what its vision was and where it went. And when you are fairly focused on where you're at, I think it gets a lot harder to get that same level of national scrutiny, because your body just tends to ignore it.
KK: So you're saying that the Senate had a vision or focus? What was that?
OD: It was focused really that they really wanted to deal with budget issues. And they wanted to deal with policy more than personality. And then we also took on some of our hard social issues. And the body agreed to allow me to kind of push those off till towards the end of the session. So we didn't have that divisiveness and contention early on in the session. We kind of held those bills back till towards the end.
KK: You keep on bringing up the budget. So this year, the legislature was dealing with a surplus rather than cuts. Can you talk about some of the things that you felt ended up well with the budget?
OD: We managed to put a substantial amount of money into permanent savings. And for the first time, which I was really proud of, we split those savings between the Permanent Mineral Trust Fund in education, which was something new. So we started laying a pretty good groundwork for a permanent education fund that has a growing balance, instead of funding it out of the general fund all the time. We also funded reserve accounts, which is just kind of a new idea.
KK: So can you explain a little bit more how those reserve accounts work?
OD: What those do is those will generate interest income off of …when they get to about seven times, then the interest income generates a pretty huge chunk of the deal, and we can use that money to level it out. So really, it's just another savings account.
KK: What are some pieces of legislation that passed into law that you're proud of, or most excited about?
OD: Well, for me, probably the number one was passing a follow up pieceto charter schools that really completed the school choice for charter schools. I think we've pretty well finalized, we're going to have at least two charter schools by this fall in Wyoming that are up or that are new. And so that legislation is always contentious, and it was a hard one. The House didn't like it. We spent a lot of time and did one of the nefarious substitute bills and kind of rewrote it. Got it stabilized. It really wasn't everything we wanted, but it certainly came a long ways and [I] really appreciate them working with it.
Probably our biggest failure and it absolutely is tragic, we had, I believe, between 16 to 18 pieces of property tax reform legislation out there. And in truth, when we got to the end, there were two pieces from the Senate left standing out [of] all of those property tax reforms. And, sadly enough, the Freedom Caucus killed the maintenance bill that probably was most substantial. For all of the Freedom Caucus people's chortling about the budget being bad and how tough things were, they managed to single handedly kill the only honest attempt we had at tax reform this year. Which I thought was ironic if you can't get everything you want, you'll kill everything in general.
I'm having some real heartburn with watching press that's coming out from them on the budget in general, and their answer seems to be if it doesn't happen their way exactly, then they'd rather take nothing than having something. They're just absolutely, “It's my way or the highway,” and I can tell you from my end, that's absolutely not how our founding fathers intended for government to work.
KK: How do you think we can move forward from the Freedom Caucus being like, “Our way or no way”? How do we try to make sure that we do get things done in the interim, let's say, because that's coming up?
OD: Oh, I think it's well on the road. It'll be interesting as elections come, but it's pretty clear with what happened, particularly in the House, that they just broke down and voted on caucus lines. And they don't have the votes to do anything to be effective. So all they can do is vote as a block, lose, and then cry about their losses. I have been pretty quiet about it. I haven't said much to the press, but I find it just exceptionally disappointing that they're unwilling to bend or work with other people in any other way. They're willing to take a loss for policy and a loss for the people of Wyoming, rather than to compromise on anything.
I go back to my charter school bill, and they were just up in arms about the substitute bills and how terrible it was where the bills went. I told them, I said, “Look, I got 40 percent of what I wanted, probably. I'll take 40 percent any day over zero.” And that's exactly what they took on every single one of their key issues. They took zero.
Probably the only areas that they actually managed to take home any wins was ironic. They managed to compromise probably on their abortion billwith me as they put rape and incest back in, which they told me was absolutely a no go and wasn't gonna happen. And they finally compromised. And while they actually got what they wanted, I don't think the results were what they wanted, but goes back to that old saying, “Be careful, what you ask for.” They got exactly what they asked for, they’re back in court. And it's probably going to drag it out. But they did learn on it or they could learn that you can actually sit down with somebody and work it out. And you still get a piece of what you wanted, rather than nothing, because they came very close to having nothing as they did on a number of other bills.
KK: And how do you think that will affect Wyoming and the people of Wyoming?
OD: Well, it's clear when you look at the way they do business, I think the people in Wyoming know what's theirs. It's what the Republican Party's done for the last three, four years, basically, since Eathorne has been in. We've seen this contentiousness and the truth is, if you take a good look backwards, they really have accomplished very little other than a lot of posturing and a lot of defensiveness with people. But in truth, what's been formed from policy from them really hasn't been much.
KK: So we are going into the interim, it's gonna come up here pretty soon, which means a lot of work on issues and solutions that could become bills for next year. Are there any issues during the interim that you are specifically focused on or interested in seeing?
OD: I think one of the ones that's really important, it's not my wheelhouse, but the Mental Health Task Force. I think we all see what's going on in the schools, in our communities, not just in Wyoming, but nationally. We have a mental health crisis. Are we going to come up with solutions? I certainly hope so. But you sure aren't going to solve anything by ignoring it.
Once again, I keep going back, I was absolutely shocked policy-wise that we have a 800 [988] Suicide Hotline billin Wyoming [and] we pull the funding out. And we still have all the Freedom Caucus, far right, try to kill a bill for suicide prevention that is not even funded. It makes no sense to me. And I really believe that's part of our problem in Wyoming. We got a faction of our people who are burying their heads in the sand on some of the real issues that are facing the state. I think we all know there’s only one real way to deal with issues and that's to deal with them head on and look at them and really be honest about what they are and what they're doing to us and look at possible solutions.
KK: And do you think that during the interim, the Freedom Caucus will maybe let up a little bit and be able to meet in the middle?
OD: That's gonna have to be up to them because they’re really, honestly, they’re a negative group and the other side is a positive group. That's how I see it anyway. And there's only one way to forward policy and that's from a positive standpoint. The negative standpoint to kill it is sometimes a lot easier. They want to be negative, likely there'll be very few bills getting introduced next year. And it'll be an interesting session because it takes two thirds to introduce bills. And it's clear that should they continue to text each other there and vote against bills on introduction, that there probably just won't be very many bills that get introduced. Ironically, it's not much of our problem. It's mainly in the House. Our side, we're split but we're certainly not split with decisiveness like they are.
