At least five Wyoming state senators walked out of a scheduled joint legislative committee meeting Friday, after claims erupted that the meeting was a waste of taxpayers’ money and time.
Other legislators bristled in the wake of the walkout, saying the meeting was an attempt to be thorugh and share input.
“What are we doing today, other than getting another presentation on the source of appropriations for the differences in the bill drafts?” asked Senate Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne.
Nethercott is a member of the Senate Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee. Lawmakers in casual discourse call it the Minerals Committee.
Nethercott walked out after a brief rebuke of what she called a wasteful meeting and an "absurd process," as did Sen. Ed Cooper, R-TenSleep; and Senate Minerals Committee Chair Jim Anderson, R-Casper.
Later, Appropriations Committee member Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, and Senate Appropriations Chair Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, walked out as well.
First, The Dispute
Nethercott had protested the conjoined meeting Friday of the Joint Minerals Committee and the Joint Appropriations Committee, which generally meet separately.
She questioned why they would have to spend a day meeting together after the Minerals Committee finished its work earlier this week, by voting on a bill that seeks to help local communities get state grants for their infrastructure projects.
Nethercott noted that, conversely, the Joint Appropriations Committee — whose regular role is to review budget aspects of other committees’ bills — had announced through Salazar that it would not vote on that same topic until at least October.
“So now we are here in this absurd process with really nothing to do but look at each other and discuss financing options, which is the purpose of the appropriations committee,” said Nethercott. “So again I ask. Am I, a member of the Senate Minerals Committee — what am I doing here this morning? And is this not a waste of the taxpayers’ time?”
House Appropriations Chair John Bear, R-Gillette, parried, saying the Minerals Committee had taken action on the community grants bill Thursday.
That was “maybe a little premature,” said Bear. “But it was your last day operating alone, so I understand why the Minerals Committee would take action.”
Had the committee not finished its work in what Bear called a premature fashion, he added, “This could be more of a debate.”
Bear said the bill should still have input from the minerals committee Friday, however, though the meeting had turned into more of a “conversation.”
Nethercott said the Appropriations Committee had broken the directive from the Legislature’s Management Council by overstepping on the legislation.
Bear countered that Minerals Committee verged as well by working on the funding aspect of the legislation, but those concerns shouldn’t diminish the work going forward.
The Walkout
The spat stems from efforts to reform Wyoming’s economic development laws.
The Wyoming Busines Council is a publicly funded entity meant to boost economic devleopment in the state.
The entity came under fire in 2025, as some of the state House of Representatives’ most powerful legislators accused it of picking winners and losers in the business realm, with the taxpayers’ money.
Out of that dispute rose an effort to revive the more local-government-driven, now-defunct program of community consensus grants. Those are state grants to fund projects within counties that can show a sufficient number of its local communities signing onto that project.
The Management Council, which is the Legislature’s administrative arm, tasked the Joint Minerals Committee with building the governance aspect of that program this year, and the Joint Appropriations Committee with vetting the funding mechanisms.
Nethercott announced that the Senate Minerals Committee would not be participating Friday, in what she called an unusual and “unproductive course.”
Nethercott serves on the Management Council and helps craft its directives.
“I do believe the taxpayers have a better use of their time, including that of their elected officials,” said Nethercott, who soon left the meeting.
Fellow committee member Cooper also left, echoing Nethercott’s points and adding that he was “offended by the intrusiveness and overstep” of the Appropriations Committee.
Anderson soon left as well. He said he trusts the Joint Appropriations Committee can complete its duty toward the bill.
In The Wake
In the wake of those departures, House Minority Floor Leader Scott Heiner, a Green River representative who chairs the House version of that same Minerals Committee, derided the senators’ departures.
The bill is “an important piece of legislation, and by refusing to work together as a group, that just creates more divisiveness,” said Heiner. “With some people walking away from that opportunity to work together, that does not promote the general welfare of our great state. And I’m disappointed in that.
“Our towns are struggling with infrastructure. I’d admonish we work together.”
Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, who’s a member of the House Appropriations Committee, echoed that by saying he was “saddened” at the dispute.
Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, stood up for the departed lawmakers.
He said that being older, he’s not as easily offended. But legislators have an onus to “trust the process, and by doing that, you honor the institution.”
“I wouldn’t take too much umbrage, when we deviate from that, some people get their hackles up about it,” said Gierau.
Gierau emphasized that Salazar had announced at about 8 a.m. Thursday that the Appropriations Committee would not adopt the economic development bills that day, though Salazar said it may in October.
The difference in work paces left the Minerals Committee “finished” with its work and the Appropriations Committee still deliberating, noted Gierau.
He moved to adjourn the meeting.
The majority voted that motion down and the meeting continued.
Later, Bear said the conjoined meeting was also a transparent option, and in the past, many legislative plans unfolded “behind closed doors.”
Just A Little Context
Nethercott has at least two more years remaining in her Senate term before she faces election again.
Bear and Heiner lost their GOP nominations Aug. 18 and will not return for the 2027 lawmaking session.
Haroldson, who ran unopposed in the primary election, is favored to return.
Salazar’s term aligns with Nethercott’s and he won’t face re-election until 2028. Nor will Anderson.
Regardless of the work the Joint Appropriations Committee does this autumn, it will hand its efforts off in January to a different group of people.
Many members are not slated to return.
Those include Bear and Republican Sen. Dan Laursen (Powell), and Reps. Ken Pendergraft (Sheridan) and Scott Smith (Lingle).
Laursen and Smith didn’t run for their seats and Pendergraft lost his bid for nomination to Melissa Butcher.
Another member, Rep. Abby Angelos, R-Gillette, won her nomination to ascend to the Senate and may join that chamber — and be given new committee assignments — if she wins the Nov. 3 general election.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
