The Wyoming Senate has killed the bill at the center of “checkgate,” but only because of the controversy surrounding it. Even if the idea is resurrected, housing goals in Jackson might not look different.
The consistent mission to build subsidized workforce housing in one of the nation’s wealthiest enclaves may mean higher taxes, said Jackson Mayor Arne Jorgensen.
“Our voters have consistently elected officials, myself included, who ran consistently on supporting this work,” he said, referring to deed-restricted housing. “If [mitigation] goes away, the desire in our community to do this work doesn't.”
Housing mitigation or higher taxes?
HB 141 sought to outlaw housing mitigation fees. Developers pay these in Jackson Hole to help offset the impacts like the new jobs that new homes or hotels create, which in turn create the need for more affordable housing.
Jackson Hole’s electeds first hammered out a policy to require developers to set aside or pay for some housing for the workforce in 1994. Since then, those fees have waxed and waned, while still producing nearly 30% of Jackson and Teton County’s affordable housing between 2018 and 2022.
Supporters point to independent “nexus” studies that give policymakers a range for fair, legally justified fees on those benefitting from developing in Jackson Hole. Opponents have argued that the principle of making one person pay for another’s housing is not fair. Some are opposed outright to the idea of affordable housing. That question is now in court after one family sued Teton County, saying mitigation fees for a family house in Hoback were unconstitutional.
That’s where Rep. Andrew Byron (R-Hoback) lives. He voted for the bill before it died in the Senate, having voted for a similar idea last year, and said he’s heard only from constituents who feel constrained by mitigation fees in Teton County.
Byron said these are already landowners or homeowners, himself included.
“I would want a modest house [for] my family in Hoback Junction on a small parcel of land,” he said. “We can’t afford to do it right now but [with] current mitigation fees I'd potentially have over $25,000 of additional costs,” he said.
To subsidize housing for those who haven’t had those blessings, Jorgensen’s idea of higher taxes is, however, also limited. He pointed to a possible tax on real estate transfers over a certain threshold, say $2 million.
But as recently as 2024, the Legislature has killed bills to do just that. The state also limits local taxes. And though the town can raise property taxes, that has proven politically tenuous.
Jorgensen said he’d jump to cooperate with lawmakers on a transfer tax.
“If we want to sit down in Cheyanne and have that discussion with the current makeup of the legislature or future makeup, I'm all in, let's go,” he said.
He also had a plea to lawmakers: “Stop making our job more difficult.”
“Tainted by a cloud of suspicion”
But making Teton County officials' jobs more difficult can be part of the goal, said Andy Schwartz, a lobbyist for the Town of Jackson and former member of the Wyoming House of Representatives.
“Bills that are attacking Teton County, fundamentally, it's almost like a sport in that they just keep coming,” Schwartz said.
He is among the bill opponents who want Wyoming’s most politically liberal and exorbitantly wealthy county to be able to tax wealth to help the non-wealthy.
That doesn’t often go over well in Cheyenne.
And this year, the bill had the votes, as Sen. Tara Nethercott (R-Cheyenne) said during the first reading on the Senate floor.
“This bill would have passed,” she said. “But it’s become something else entirely."
She and other senators said they wanted to vote for the “Fifth Amendment Protection Act,” but they were stopped by the controversy following a conservative activist handing out $1,500 checks on the House floor after it had adjourned. Bextel hosted a Cheyenne event before handing out checks where she and Teton County rancher Kelly Lockhart advocated for the passage of HB 141 among other topics, according to testimony from Rep. Liz Storer (D-Jackson).
“The reality is,” Senate President Bo Biteman (R-Ranchester) told fellow lawmakers before voting against HB 141, “that this bill, at least to a significant portion of the public, is tainted by a cloud of suspicion and mistrust.”
On March 4, the House Investigative Committee found that neither Rebecca Bextel nor anyone involved in the matter violated the Wyoming Constitution or lawmaking rules at the time. In other words, no bribery.
However, the findings went on, “the conduct that occurred on the House Floor was undesirable and must never occur again.”
While check-passing got the kaibosh, other signs pointed to the bill’s resurrection.
Sen. Mike Gierau (D-Jackson) acknowledged as much on the Senate floor.
“The good ideas,” he said, “they always come back. This is an idea that needs discussion.”
