Wyoming Senate President Bo Biteman on Wednesday announced the appointment of the five senators the upper chamber is sending to smooth out $170 million in budget differences between the Senate and the state House of Representatives.
Those include four Republicans and one Democrat: Biteman, Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, Senate Appropriations Chair Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, and Sens. Gary Crum, R-Laramie, and Mike Gierau, D-Jackson.
The Senate applauded the announcement Wednesday morning.
“Thank you, we shall return with honor,” said Biteman.
He had told Cowboy State Daily in a Monday interview that he wanted team players for the budget joint conference committee, and that the Senate contained many people who fit that description.
On the House side, Speaker Chip Neiman announced Tuesday evening that his five negotiators — all Republicans — will include himself, House Appropriations Chair John Bear (Gillette), Majority Floor Leader Scott Heiner (Green River), and appropriations members Reps Abby Angelos (Gillette) and Ken Pendergraft (Sheridan).
Neiman said the conferees will work with the Senate and will also "diligently work to defend the House position."
The first conference committee is not a “free committee,” which means it must focus on tweaking amendments or proposing alternative amendments that offer compromise between the two chambers’ positions.
If that committee fails to gain consensus, Biteman and Neiman will appoint a second joint conference committee that can haggle with any portion of the budget.
The Legislature has 20 days to complete its work. That leaves five days remaining from Thursday.
A March 5 budget submittal would leave the Legislature a gap to return after a hiatus and override any potential vetoes by the governor, if it wishes.
The unofficial and tentative deadline for the two chambers to submit a final budget was March 6, but the House used an extra session day with a rare Saturday meeting last week.
Unpack These …
Four of the five negotiators Neiman chose are known members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which is a group of Republican House members who recently made headlines for backing a series of cuts that some call necessary to avoid imminent deficit, and others call punitive and nonsensical.
Angelos told Cowboy State Daily last year she is not in the Freedom Caucus.
Still, her voting record often aligns with the group.
The House negotiators have a combined legislative tenure of 21 years, with Neiman, Heiner and Bear all having served five years each and Pendergraft and Angelos each having served three.
Upper Chamber
On the Senate side, Biteman is sending a broader spectrum of negotiators, ranging from Salazar, who voted in favor of numerous cuts and denials during the Joint Appropriations Committee’s January budget-planning marathon, to Gierau, who opposed those votes on that same committee.
Biteman voted with Salazar against adopting Gov. Mark Gordon’s $10.13 billion budget draft as a starting point for the Senate’s budget proposal, voting instead to keep the Joint Appropriations Committee’s $9.65 billion draft.
They lost that vote, with 20 Senators — including Nethercott, Gierau and Crum — voting for the governor’s draft.
Still, voting for the governor’s draft as a starting point may not reduce altogether to spending preferences, but strategy approaches as well: detractors of the JAC’s cuts have called some of them counterproductive.
Crum often votes as a moderate.
Though a Democrat, Gierau will depart on both spending and non-spending votes from the Senate’s other Democrat, Sen. Chris Rothfuss of Laramie. Gierau also serves a unique region, Teton County, which has a more elaborate economy and policies to address it than any other region in Wyoming.
The Senate’s negotiators have a combined 37 years of Legislative service. That’s nine each for Biteman, Nethercott, Salazar and Gierau.
Crum is a freshman, having served one year in the Legislature.
Of the 10 negotiators, four are not on the Appropriations Committee.
Those are Neiman, Nethercott, Crum and Biteman.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
