The Wyoming House of Representatives broke from debate Wednesday night to have a raw exchange about the Capitol check-passing controversy that has plumed into a criminal bribery investigation.
Rebecca Bextel, a state committeewoman for the Teton County GOP who was also registered to attend the legislative session as media, handed checks out on the House of Representatives floor Feb. 9.
House Minority Floor Leader Mike Yin, D-Jackson, announced Feb. 11 she’d done so. He urged his colleagues on the floor not to vote in favor of introducing a bill Bextel had championed, saying the “optics” would be bad.
The bill cleared introduction with those who’d reportedly received checks voting in favor.
Bextel went public, saying these were lawful campaign donations and that detractors were targeting the bill’s function — which seeks to curb affordable housing mitigation rules.
One week of public controversy followed.
“Maybe this is the best time to just air it all,” House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, told the chamber late Wednesday during a debate on whether a seven-person investigative committee he appointed should continue its investigation into the matter.
“All I have is my honor," he said. "It doesn’t pay to lie — because I have to explain it to Him.”
Committee chair Art Washut, R-Casper, had informed the House Monday that the committee wanted to pause its work because Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak announced a criminal investigation into the matter Saturday.
Neiman, whom the checks’ original donor had named as a person for whom one was written, said he would not wait for Kozak’s investigation to conclude to tell the House how he received that check.
“When I heard that this thing could potentially run on for a year, it made me heartsick,” said Neiman. “We owe it to this chamber to see to it that that doesn’t happen.”
After his speech and an emotional floor discussion, the House voted 37-21 in favor of requiring the committee to continue its investigation.
Handed It Off To His Wife
It was early January when Bextel contacted him to ask if he was going to run for either state House or Senate, Neiman said. His answer was he’d thought about it, and he'd heard a $75,000 campaign was mounting against him, he said.
He told her his address, the name of his candidate committee, “And I never thought nothing more of it. That was the end of that conversation. Weeks went by — I never thought about it.”
On Feb. 9, the first day of this year’s legislative session, Neiman was in his House Speaker office with his wife, Joni.
Bextel walked in, Neiman continued, and handed him a check dated Jan. 20 which was made out to his campaign committee, he said.
“I handed it to Joni, I said take that home, and I said put it in my campaign account,” Neiman said, adding that he thanked Bextel and she left.
“Not one time did it cross my mind that I did anything wrong,” he said. “Never even dawned on me. I’d basically forgot about it.”
Neiman went on to note that he had voted in favor last year of a bill, Senate File 40, matching the one Bextel championed this year, House Bill 141. Even before Bextel entered the floor Feb. 9, he cosponsored HB 141, he added.
“Why would I need to be bribed to do what I already did a year ago?” he asked. “There are so many parts to this, ladies and gentlemen, that are just — they don’t fit, and this stinks.”
He also said he’s angry at the way the controversy unfolded, because House members in the past would take their conflicts to leadership, not directly to the media.
Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, took the controversy to the media.
She snapped a photograph of the check-passing that happened Feb. 9 on the floor, which by Neiman’s account did not involve him. The photograph shows Bextel handing Rep. Darin McCann, R-Rock Springs, a check while Rep. Marlene Brady, R-Green River, looks on with what appears to be another check in her hand.
Provenza told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that she sent the photograph to the media and not leadership because in her view, “This was such an egregious violation of the public’s trust, and I wasn’t sure I trusted leadership to handle it appropriately,”
By Feb. 12, Provenza successfully moved the House to have Neiman appoint an investigative committee, to investigate the check-passing incident in public hearings.
On the House floor this week she bristled over that, saying she didn’t know at the time that Neiman was involved.
‘I’ll Go To My Grave Knowing I Didn’t Do Anything Wrong’
Neiman continued his statement Wednesday evening:
“But now I got people at home that are angry at me, because I’m taking ‘bribes,’” he said. “I’m not. I took a campaign check for $1,500 from a gentleman that believed in me.”
That was Teton County donor Don Grasso, who told Cowboy State Daily that his secretary sent Bextel the checks with the understanding that Bextel would mail them, and that he disagreed with the act of handing them out on the floor.
Grasso told Cowboy State Daily he’s a proponent of the free market and has sought to back Wyoming Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates who may need help fighting their campaigns.
“I’ll go to my grave knowing I didn’t do anything wrong. Not a thing,” said Neiman. “But you can’t un-ring that bell now.”
He said he’s gone out of his way to be a fair and respectful House Speaker, and believed members would be able to trust him with their conflicts.
He also said the legislators involved now have to “climb back out of a hole that they didn’t dig — because not one of them did anything wrong.”
The optics look bad, he said.
“It was unforced error. But there’s not a legislator in this House that did anything wrong. Because I’ve looked at the rules. And I’ve looked at the law,” said Neiman. “There was no bribery. … We’ve got a donor that wanted to help support candidates that he aligned himself with because we’re pro-gun, pro-life, pro-small-government conservatives.”
He said he kept the facts to himself so he wouldn’t harm his committee’s work, because he trusted the committee to do a good job.
“And now they’re not going to get to do their job,” said Neiman, rolling his eyes, “because we’ve got a criminal investigation now, that could potentially take a year.”
Neiman said it could have been handled better, but no one gave him the chance to handle it as leader of the House.
“This is (political) fodder, I can’t even imagine. The media’s just going crazy," he said. "But I’m going to stand on the truth. I have nothing to hide.”
He voiced heartbreak over past legislative leaders' disappointment in the situation.
Things Got Emotional
A cathartic, and at times emotional, round of exchanges followed.
Earlier that night the House had adopted a new rule mirroring the Senate’s, barring intentional giving or accepting of campaign donations in the regions of state buildings the House controls, and barring House members from soliciting or accepting by affirmative act, campaign donations during the lawmaking session.
A round of emotional debate unfolded.
Rep. JT Larson, R-Rock Springs, said he appreciated Neiman telling what happened.
“I think that story should have been told a lot sooner, but I appreciate you telling it now,” said Larson.
But, he added, when Yin went public with his “optics” concern Feb. 11, “there were members that were quick to throw that member under the bus.”
Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, R-Cody, had registered a formal protest against Yin at the time, saying the claim that someone handed out checks on the floor amounted to an allegation of bribery and was “defamation.”
Nobody rose to substantiate Yin’s claim.
‘And It’s Gross’
McCann said Neiman had shown “true leadership.”
McCann said that as for him, he has texts dating Jan. 21 showing that he was an intended check recipient at that time. He questioned why no one simply confronted him Feb. 9 on the floor to say, “Hey dude, maybe this isn’t the best place to do that, take it outside.”
McCann derided Provenza’s decision to take the photograph instead to the press, whose members he called “complicit and culpable.”
“You guys in the moderate side have no idea what it’s like to have an aggressive and malice press against you,” said McCann.
Rep. Julie Jarvis, R-Casper, interrupted and gestured to the third-floor gallery overlooking the floor.
“I believe there’s a woman up there, daily, that does that, and not a single one of you say anything,” said Jarvis.
McCann conceded that he had seen the attacks on Jarvis, “and it’s gross.”
Former state Rep. Jeanette Ward watches Jarvis’ work from the third-floor gallery and posts about it often on Facebook.
McCann told Cowboy State Daily in a post-publication text that he didn't realize Jarvis was talking about Ward. He thought she was talking about a site that makes caricatures of politicians.
Ward countered Jarvis point in a Thursday-morning text message to Cowboy State Daily, saying she posts about Jarvis for transparency reasons, and said Jarvis' record — which Ward cast as not conservative enough — is a fair topic for scrutiny.
For Jarvis to equate "my actions in sharing her public voting record" to House members parrying criminal allegations is "incomprehensible," said Ward.
Minority Party
Rep. Joe Webb, R-Lyman, whom Provenza has named as receiving a check on the House floor, called it a “stupid, innocent mistake” and said he did nothing wrong.
Webb said he received a text harkening the check weeks before session started: Jan. 22.
Rep. Lee Filer, R-Cheyenne, urged House members to stay focused on the debate about whether the investigative committee should continue its work.
Jackson-based Rep. Liz Storer, one of only six Democrats in the House, defended Provenza and Yin.
“Sometimes it’s a little hard to be a member of the minority party here, and my colleagues stood up for something that they felt didn’t look right,” said Storer.
She noted that Yin and Provenza were not the first ones to use the word “bribery.”
Rodriguez-Williams was.
Meanwhile …
Provenza remained focused on the technical aspects of the investigation.
She pointed to the Wyoming Constitution’s Article 3, Section 44, which says people can be compelled to testify in bribery cases, but if the testimony of a person compelled to testify testimony incriminates him or her, that person can’t be prosecuted for bribery because of it.
She warned that the committee's witness-calling could confer immunity onto people.
Consequences To What I Did
Yin said he’s weathered consequences for speaking out, and there are House members who will no longer speak to him. He challenged people to consider how much malice he endures as a Democrat in Wyoming.
“I really do wish that the sheriff had never opened an investigation,” said Yin, adding that’s created problems and slowed the process.
Neiman shook Yin’s hand.
House Appropriations Chair John Bear, R-Gillette, countered Yin’s speech, saying Yin brought everyone a “surprise” and political outburst Feb. 11 — “while we were trying to debate a bill.”
Bear said his relationship with Yin started to suffer as early as last year, when he brought an amendment to that session’s housing mitigation bill.
Bear also criticized the sheriff's decision.
"It's clear that the sheriff has made this a political thing as well," said Bear. "And it puts the chairman (Washut) in a very tough spot."
Bear urged the investigative committee to continue its work anyway.
Kozak did not immediately respond to a Thursday-morning text message request for comment.
Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, chided Bear for ascribing motives to the sheriff.
Bear told Cowboy State Daily in a text message Thursday morning that he received a check Tuesday between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. in the third-floor hallway, and was not aware he was receiving a check in advance.
Bear has maintained throughout the check controversy that he did not receive a bribe, and did not receive a check on the House floor.
No rules barred the practice of taking or giving campaign donations in the Capitol as of last week.
The Senate adopted its rule against the practice Tuesday, and hours later, Gov. Mark Gordon issued an executive order banning the practice for buildings in which state business is conducted.
The House adopted a rule against the practice Wednesday night, ahead of some members’ emotional exchanges.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
