Formal complaints have “maybe” been filed against two Democratic representatives who brought to light an incident where lawmakers received campaign checks on the House floor, House Speaker Rep. Chip Neiman (R-Hulett) told reporters on Friday morning.
Rep. Mike Yin (D-Jackson) first voiced concerns during debate on a bill that would block local governments from imposing fees on development for affordable housing. Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie) took a photo of the incident and sent it to reporters, who corroborated the allegation that Rebecca Bextel, a conservative Jackson-based fundraiser, had distributed $1,500 checks from a Teton County donor on the floor after the House of Representatives had adjourned.
Neiman declined to elaborate on the complaint or complaints but suggested the issue had to do with Yin and Provenza’s not reporting complaints first to leadership.
The complaints follow the first meeting of the House Special Investigative Committee on Thursday, where Bextel, lawmakers and witnesses testified.
The questions
Neiman spoke in his office to a handful of reporters during a wide-ranging, hour-and-a-half press meeting before taking his place at the head of the house floor. He responded to a question from Dawn Marquardt, a reporter with the Open Range Record, which is co-owned by Bextel, who handed out the checks on the House floor and in lawmakers offices.
“Is there going to be anything that happens to Provenza and Yin for what they did?” Marquardt said. Marquardt testified before the investigative committee that she was with Bextel when she delivered the checks. Bextel and recipients say, and photo exhibits showed, the checks were made out directly to recipients or their reelection campaigns.
“We're looking into that,” Neiman said.
“Do you have complaints, I guess, filed?” Marquardt asked.
“There are some complaints,” Neiman said.
A different reporter from the Cowboy State Daily asked who filed, to which Neiman said, “I won’t share that.”
Asked if it was against both Yin and Provenza, Neiman said “maybe.”
“I think based on [Joint Rule] 22-1, but we're working through that. We'll see. We're still compiling those,” he said, referring to a joint process rule of the House and Senate for filing ethics complaints privately with chamber leadership.
As suggested in questions during the investigative committee’s meeting, those complaints could be because Yin and Provenza didn’t go to House leadership first with their concerns.
Yin and Provenza both declined to comment on complaints, and in texts, pointed to subsection (j) of the rule that states all records, findings and proceedings “including the filing of the initial complaint shall be considered confidential information.”
The complaint can become public once it’s dismissed, referred for formal investigation or “other final dispositive action.”
Provenza previously told WPR after the hearing, “It’s really interesting that I keep getting asked about following rules when I use my First Amendment rights.”
The state of the Capitol
Though he declined to elaborate on the complaints, Neiman offered his thoughts on what “Checkgate” says about the state of the Capitol.
The drama, he said, is political backlash against the Freedom Caucus’ efforts to control state spending. This is the further-right bloc’s first budget session with a majority in the House.
“There's a lot of folks out there that [are] running around like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs,” he said. “Every time they turn around, they're going to get pinched, because up until this point nobody challenged anything.”
He blamed the media and the public for suggesting or jumping to conclusions, saying House members and their family were losing sleep “at the fact that their spouses are being hung in the press for no reason.”
Neiman said he accepted a check from Bextel in his office at the state Capitol building. He pushed back against those who suggested it was improper.
“I didn't even contemplate that that was some kind of a bribe,” he said.
He pointed to his consistent support of the bill being investigated as connected to the checks, which would ban certain development impact fees that fund affordable housing in Teton County. He and other check recipients supported an amendment last year, also championed by Bextel, that sought the same outcome.
The House has since adopted a rule that bans members from knowingly accepting any campaign donations during the legislative session, or year-round in the Capitol and at interim committee meetings.
Neiman also criticized the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office for announcing a criminal bribery investigation of the incident via Facebook following reports of the incident. He said he has yet to be contacted in the criminal investigation.
The House canceled a continuation of its investigative committee on Friday.
