- The 68th Wyoming legislature has gabbled into session here at the Wyoming Capitol in Cheyenne, and there's new leadership in place as well.

We'll meet the new Speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives, Chip Neiman.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

Join us for "Capital Outlook."

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- Welcome to "Capital Outlook."

We're speaking today from the Wyoming Capital, and I'm pleased to be joined by the new Speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives, Representative Chip Neiman of Hulett.

Greater Hulett.

- We'll call it that, - Greater Hulett just outside of Hulett on the Belle Fourche River there.

- Yeah, small town guy in the Speaker's chair, which is fairly common in recent years.

Anyone who thinks that it's only Cheyenne, and Casper, or Laramie, or Gillette that dominating the leadership of the Wyoming legislature, that's been proved wrong.

- Yeah.

- You haven't really been in office very long compared to what a typical Speaker of the House might have been.

Your first year in office was 2021.

- That's correct, Steve.

Just beginning of my third term, yeah.

- How do you explain your rapid rise to the leadership compared to what might be expected?

- It's a great question.

I wish I knew more of why things have happened the way they've happened.

I never really sought political, you know, adventure or being involved in the political process.

- What drew you to it eventually?

- It was actually just being a little bit more involved early on.

Before this all started I had never even knew what a precinct committee man was.

Never got involved in the party politics at home or anything like that.

Always voted as a Republican.

I was raised Republican.

Very conservative roots.

My mom and my dad, my grandparents, they always, you know, were interested in politics.

Here, I'd have to go back and think here.

It's been about eight years ago, seven to eight years ago, a gentleman that was a precinct committee man, JW Knuckles and Thea Knuckles came to me and said, "We're gonna be not running for our precinct committee position," and wondered if I would be interested in joining, my wife and I, would be interested in being committee man and committee woman.

And, I said, "Well, what is it?

You know, what is that?"

- What is it?

- "What would you do?

What would that would responsibility entail?"

And they said, "Well, you'd serve your area.

You'd have to run for election.

You'd have to be on the ballot, and campaign, and put your name in, and then you would help serve, and support, and work with the local GOP party and the county party.

And I said, "Well, if you believe that I would be able to fill that capacity and do a good job," I said, "I'd be glad to help in any way that I can if you think that would be beneficial."

And so Joni and I did.

We put our names on the ballot and we won.

And it's just, I mean, when we went to my first meeting in January, when she and I went, it was so foreign to us.

We had no idea what you guys were even talking about, you know?

- But these committee men and committee women are important positions- - Oh, yes.

- That don't get thought about all that much.

And I noticed around Wyoming and looking at the ballots, a lot of them are vacant.

- Oh yes.

- The state needs more people on both parties to fill these jobs.

- And I think that's the big thing, you know.

And I was as much to blame as anybody else.

I just wasn't involved in the process.

I didn't know even they existed and what their purpose was.

And it's the grassroots.

In our GOP party, those precinct committee men and women are the folks that we elect in our local areas.

We serve 1313, which is outside of Hulett right there, more of a rural area.

We're supposed to be the ones that share what's going on in the party, take information or take input from the folks in the area.

And that is truly the grassroots.

That's the beginning of where we get that information and what drives the narrative for the state party.

And so it was a very interesting, illuminating opportunity that we got involved in.

And then it just took off from there.

It just went crazy.

I got asked if you'd be willing to run for Vice Chair.

And I said, "Well, I don't even know what I'm doing right now."

I said, "I just got started."

And they said, "Well, no big deal.

You know, Vice Chair's a great place to get your feet wet.

You can go in there, and just kinda listen, and pay attention to what your chairman and your other people do and learn."

And then I said, "Well, I would be willing to do that."

It would be, you know, whatever.

I guess it was just being willing.

It was just being kind of a mind that I was willing to help and serve in any capacity that they thought was gonna be useful.

- But you must have taken to it as well.

You found that work was interesting?

You enjoyed it?

- Yeah.

- You felt you were getting something done?

- Well, and I think it was just the idea that I never really knew about the party and the impacts of the party.

And, you know, Republican was always just conservative, you know.

If it was an R, we just thought that they would be somebody that was, you know, pro-second-amendment, pro-constitution, smaller government, parental rights, pro-life.

And that was what you just figured.

If they were Republican, you didn't put a lot of thought or effort into it.

And that was just, you expected that of them, if they wore the R, and it's more than that, - Then, the opportunity arises to actually run for legislative seat.

That was your idea again, or did others encourage you to do that?

It was actually others encouraged me.

When I got elected, then, as Vice Chair, immediately out of the gate there, thinking that this would be a great place to kind of get my feet wet and get under me, well, then my committee chairman had a heart attack, and I became the Committee Chair almost immediately.

So then we dealt with COVID.

That was going on.

And I remember I was running committee, you know, county conventions remotely.

- Yeah.

- And that was quite an experience in dealing with that.

And then kind of the whole process of kind of developing the relationship with then your representative and your senator.

You know, I mean, I just didn't do that.

I mean, I was just never in a situation where I had to really have that relationship and stuff.

And then that's when it started to see developments in that way.

And then I was approached by several people in the local party and they said, would I be willing to run for the House of Representatives?

And, I mean, kinda shocked me.

I hadn't really contemplated that, but they said, "Well, we really believe that you would do a good job."

And they said, "Chip, we believe that you'll listen to us, and that you'll reflect our views and our values, and you'll be fair."

And so we'd like for you to run.

- So you won the primary?

- I did.

- And then in your district, across many districts in Wyoming, if you win the primary, that's the big hurdle to get over.

- That was it.

I didn't have a challenger in the general.

- You find yourself in office then?

- [Chip] Yes.

- How'd that grab you the first few days?

You have some preparation time.

- Yeah.

- But it's pretty quick, isn't it?

- It is.

It's very quick, and it's pretty surreal.

I mean, just, you know, the whole overwhelming.

You know, and even go to, when I spoke yesterday, it's still that same feeling that when you stand in that chamber up there, the weight of the responsibility of what you've just taken on and said that you would take responsibility for is huge.

And I'm sure there were.

I didn't see any other representatives out there that looked like they were just really taking in, and it's coming to home to roost, the gravity of the situation and the reality of the decision you've just made, and the responsibility to nearly 10,000 people in your district that you have now to go on to speak on their behalf and to represent them.

It's a very humbling honor.

I just never really get used to it.

- I'm interested to hear you talk about your district.

I tend to ask guests on "Capital Outlook" about this.

There are all kinds of districts in Wyoming.

Some people, it's the city limits of the town they live in.

- Sure.

- Some, it's a chunk of the town they live in.

But you're in one of these big, geographically dispersed areas.

Where do most people in your district live?

Or can you even say that?

- I would say, you know, I serve all of Crook County in northeast Wyoming, and basically the northern one half of Weston County is House District 1 as it stands right now.

So my line goes all the way down to just the outskirts or right at the edge, or just barely into New Castle, Wyoming, all the way over, takes in Upton, then goes in Hulett, Moorcroft Sundance, Pine Haven, Osage, Beulah, Aladdin.

- All the big towns - And all the big towns, you know, so, you know, the population is lower than the elevation on all those towns, you know, and agriculture is the probably the biggest driver of our economy, the timber industry.

- You know agriculture.

- I do.

I have a little bit of experience with agriculture.

I can talk to you a little bit about ranching, and that's what I've done all of my life.

- A lot of ranchers in the legislature.

Have you thought about this?

What makes that a good background for public service, do you think?

- I think being from a greater agricultural background, I think it makes us more aware of our environment 'cause if we don't take care of our environment, and take care of our livestock, take care of, you know, our forage and our land, then we go out of business.

And I think we can- - What do you mean?

You Republicans are all anti-environment, aren't you?

I mean- - Oh yeah.

They spin it that way.

They'd like to make us believe that and tell everybody else that we're all about pillaging, and plundering, and raping the land, destroying it.

- Well, they're different opinions about things, of course.

But a lot of people would say that the farmers and ranchers are the people who truly practice conservation because there's really no choice.

If you don't, you can't make a living.

- If you don't do a good job of practicing conservation, you don't stay in business long.

If you overgraze your property, you lose your ability to produce.

We are stewards of the land.

We are there to manage that land in a way to help it, to produce food and fiber for this state and this nation.

And if we don't do a good job of it, we lose our job.

- You had a leadership position before speaker, correct?

- Yes, sir.

I was the Majority Floor Leader for the past two years.

- Majority Floor Leader.

- So that's some preparation for what you're doing now.

There are representatives and state senators, you look at the directory, who've been in office for decades who never get into the leadership track.

It's just not for everybody.

What made you think that this particular extra duty in the House would be good for you?

- I don't know if I looked at if it would be good for me.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- I think I never really thought about how this would help me move up the ladder or anything like that, or how it would be positive for me.

I guess my attitude always was how can I, and what can I do to help serve the people of the State of Wyoming?

I had the support of, evidently, the majority of the people of the caucus, which the majority floor leader is elected by the Republican caucus.

- By everybody, yeah.

- And so we have to go forward and present your ideas and what you believe, and ask for their support.

And my election was very tight.

I mean, I won by one vote to become the Majority Floor Leader, and I was a freshman when I ran for that position.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- And I was asked by other members of the body if I would be willing to serve in that capacity.

And again, I said, "Yeah, if you guys believe that I have something to offer, I'm glad to offer it."

It's an attitude of service, and it's I just want to help, and I want to be somebody that is productive.

And I have, you know, ideas about what I believe are important and things that are gonna move the state ahead.

And I want to do everything that I possibly can to help those things happen.

And, evidently, it resonates with, evidently, more than half of the people in the body.

- We've got a big state here.

- Yes, we do.

- And you're probably envious of some of the members who get to go home frequently.

- Having this discussion with Senator Roth when we were getting the pictures taken.

- Yeah, he gets to sleep in his own bed every night.

- He sleeps in his own bed every night.

I have not slept in my own bed.

And it's gonna be probably at least two to three weeks, now.

- Yeah, and then who knows.

It is winter time, and we're having nice enough weather now, but that can change anytime.

- Absolutely, and traveling from Cheyenne to Hulett is an experiment.

- Can you get there from here?

I Guess you can.

- There is a road that will get you.

You can get there from here.

- So it just adds to the demands of it in a way that I think maybe the average voter doesn't think about all that much.

One thing that comes up in just general sort of discussion about someone who hasn't had 20 years of tenure before rising to the leadership positions is that it's so complicated that you have to have a lot of knowledge and roots in the system to figure it all out.

But how are you dealing with all that?

Is it just a lot harder to be the Majority Floor Leader, to be the Speaker than you thought it might be?

Or have you found you've taken to it well enough?

- It's a challenge.

- What does the speaker do that a regular representative doesn't do?

- Well, you know, and there's been people that have said, you know, that it's simply making sure that the floors are swept and the lights are off when you leave.

Well, I can assure you that being the speaker is far more complicated than that.

And I would have to say that any previous speaker would confirm that.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- You are challenged with the responsibility of setting up committees.

You're challenged with the responsibility of naming chairmen that are gonna move legislation, that can work with the body and try to reflect the views and the values of the people of the state in the previous elections, and identify those elections, and see where the state of Wyoming's wanting to go.

You're responsible to make sure that the legislation is introduced.

I mean, I almost hate to say it, but, kind of, you know, picking winners or losers, and sorting through those things, and getting legislation based on timing, and those things that, you know, are important.

You're charged as speaker to, I believe, work with your senate, and the counterparts, and with the governor to try to bring a cohesive air or attitude towards the body so that we can be productive and that we can get along and work together.

I mean, that's been a challenge the past few years.

I've seen it for most of my tenure.

- And you said you're sort of uncomfortable using the term winners and losers, but the fact is somebody has to make these decisions.

There has to be an agenda, and somebody has to lead the setting of it, and that's where you find yourself.

- Yes, and I think there's an air of trust that I think because of that position, they're expecting that they can trust you to do the right thing.

- Even if they don't necessarily agree with all of it.

- Even if they don't necessarily agree.

And, you know, and I tried to make that point in my speech yesterday.

It's being charged with being fair, and being able to listen, and not just, you know, to run along, and drive this agenda, and force things down people's throats.

And while we have the votes, I mean, if you look at the conservatives right now and the way this last election went, we have the votes to do that.

But that's not good for the long term.

We need to have good relationships, and to try to cultivate those relationships, and work together to get things done for everybody's benefit so we can have a positive outcome.

But my charge right now is to reflect what the people said.

They gave us a clear direction that they want to go.

And I wanna respect that.

And I believe the rest of the body sees and understands that.

And I'm gonna do my best to help do that.

- Think about the best friend you've ever had, or the person in your family who's the closest to you, or the person that loves you the most, or vice versa.

Do you know anybody who agrees with you about everything?

- No, - I don't.

- I don't always get along with my wife, but we still work together and love each other.

(laughs) - And so, kind of, that gets gets to the point.

I mean, I guess if everybody agreed on everything, we might not need to have the legislature.

- Well, you know, and I also mentioned that in my speech, you know.

In Proverbs it tells us that iron sharpens iron.

And if we look at it as, it's not an attack, but it's an effort or it's an opportunity for us to be able to see from a different perspective, but to weigh those and debate those issues and make sure that we have that opportunity for learning from each other, but I always go back to how I got here, how I got to the dance, who I listened to and my foundation, you know.

And my faith is where I'm at in this, and it drives me to be that type of a person to respect others and to work together.

- Even Wyoming PBS can't be in two places at once.

So I flipped a coin and watched your opening ceremonies yesterday.

And I'm not trying to embarrass you or anything.

You were in a public place when you did it, but you were moved by the moment.

You've hinted at that already today.

I think anyone watching, regardless of how they might feel about a particular position or positions that you've taken, would see that you're a serious person who's planning to give his best to this job.

Safe to say - That is my commitment to the people of the state of Wyoming.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- I love this state, and I love its people.

And I will do everything in my power to make sure that we do our very best to make sure that...

I don't think for my generation.

I mean this right now, I'm okay.

We'll work through this.

We'll make it work.

My prayer, my desire is that we make good decisions for the next generation.

I got to recognize my grandchildren in those galleries yesterday.

And I have five grandchildren that are depending on us right now for what they're gonna get to walk into, how their lives are gonna be different.

And I hope to have great-grandchildren.

And I want them to have opportunities that we have been able to enjoy in this beautiful state.

And I just love what Wyoming brings to our nation.

I love that we bring energy security.

I love that we have these spaces.

I mean, to coin a phrase out of the movie "Jeremiah Johnson," "These are some of God's finest sculpturings."

You know, and we look around our state.

I'm blessed to live by the Devil's Tower.

I get up in the morning and can look up the Belle Fourche River Valley, and see that monument, first national monument, and just...

I mean, and I think many times we don't really take full stock of what we have here because when I have hunters come to the ranch, or tourists that come through, or people that are visiting or whatever, they are just astounded by what they see, and how beautiful our state is, and what we have to offer here.

And we're seeing it too.

And it's having a real effect.

We've got other states.

People are voting with their vehicles.

They're moving to Wyoming.

- There's some impacts to that that are challenging for Wyoming.

It's property taxes is one that I think can be traced in not every case, but in some cases to outta state people with a lot of money moving to Wyoming, buying property at a high price where someone like you who's lived in the same place or where I've lived for a long time, it has an impact then on you, and on me, and on those people.

And they really didn't do anything except just live in Wyoming.

- Right - Property tax probably gonna be another big issue, looking forward to the next couple of months.

do you have a particular rationale or philosophy on how we might best deal with that?

Because I think last year there were more than a half dozen different bills taking a different approach to it.

- Yeah.

- What are you thinking about that in 2025?

- We're gonna see bills coming from both chambers.

I mean, I already know a bills coming from President Biteman's Chamber.

I know a bill, in fact, I introduced, you know, a property tax reduction yesterday.

So we're gonna hear that start working through revenue.

And we're gonna try to address these challenges that we're seeing because we base all of our taxes on fair market value in Wyoming.

And so when you start seeing people move in and paying far above appraised value for property- - [Steve] Is that still fair?

- Oh, you know, and is that fair?

And to me that is being taxed on unrealized income.

I mean, the only way that you're gonna be able to enjoy that income is you have to sell your property.

Then what are you gonna replace it with?

It's had a direct effect on the people of our state.

And property taxes are a critical part of that.

And the questions I keep getting asked are, "My property taxes went up 30%.

My property taxes went up 50%.

Did I get 50% better roads?

Did I get a 50% better education?

Where's the money going?"

You know, and we've done some breakdowns since 2019 and seen about a 62% increase across the board on people's property taxes, you know, on residential property taxes, and it's just indicative of where we're at as a state and what other people are seeing, and they're wanting to come.

And so that has to be addressed, you know.

We've talked about acquisition-based, you know, taxes.

We're talking about trying to control that by putting, you know, caps on, which we did last year, and slow that rate of growth.

We're looking now at putting on some limitations on, you know, 50% reduction on your property taxes up to a certain point, which is in an effort to try to spread out that everybody would have some help.

We don't want to, you know, pick winners and losers in that.

But, you know, it's also there's folks on fixed incomes that are just having everything squeezed out of 'em just by the way that we do things.

So it is a front burner, you know, issue that we're gonna be dealing with in this legislature.

And I hope we can do a great job.

And I think we will.

- We're here on a couple of hours before the governor's giving his state of the state address later today.

We interviewed him last week.

He talked about some of his supplemental budget requests that he's making.

How do you view those as the speaker of the house, as a legislator compared to the governor?

Is the governor a good?

Do you view him as a partner in legislation as someone missed making a recommendation?

Is he an adversary, an opponent?

How's Governor Gordon been to work with during your tenure?

- Well, I don't look at the governor as an adversary.

I think, you know, you look at our process.

I mean, there's three parts of this.

I mean, you know, anything that we pass in the house has to have, you know, a cooperation and work in the Senate.

And then if ultimately it has to go to our governor's desk, and if he decides to veto it, then it has to come back to us.

And if we have that...

So there's a partnership.

There's a cooperative thing that we have to accomplish here to get legislation passed.

And so I want to work with our governor.

I want to do things that are gonna be positive and help our state move ahead.

I do look at the supplemental budget as, to me, a supplemental budget.

We just passed a budget last year.

- Right.

- And supplemental budgets are supposed to be things that come in that were unforeseen, things that you didn't really anticipate, plan on, or things like that.

And I think right off the top of my head is these fires that we had in our area up there and all and throughout the state.

We depleted our funds to take care of that.

That's an emergency.

That's an unforeseen thing that we didn't anticipate when we left last year.

Those are the kind of things that I wanna see.

- And that's something he's recommended.

- And he's recommended that and to make sure that we do that.

And, now, the nuancing of that, I'll let that to my appropriations chair to try to work that out.

I think we have to keep a weather eye on where that money's gonna be coming from and the long term expenses for the state.

I look at some of this information right now and this CREG report that just come out when we're showing a decline.

And so we've gotta be very aware.

We don't wanna be spending money we don't have to spend, but we want to make sure that we are very, very purposeful about taking care of the emergencies, making sure that we're refunded in those places so that we can be ready for next year.

I hope and pray that we have more moisture than we know what to do with around here and everything is well.

But if we don't, we have to be prepared for that.

And so those are emergency things, supplemental budget, and we'll make sure that those are taken care of.

- You mentioned the CREG report, and I like to not gloss over things that the average viewer might not fully understand.

This is the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group.

Group of economists and others that try to put their best forecast looking forward to where the state's gonna be fiscally.

And they aren't always right.

And it's almost an impossible job.

But what they're showing now is that it isn't quite as rosy as it had been.

And it's happening at the same time that all this COVID relief money that came to Wyoming is essentially gone now.

So the governor mentioned that as well.

Additional challenges looking forward.

We have a budget in place through this year and on end into next, but you can never stop thinking about it, even if we're not in the so-called budget session.

Every session in a way becomes a budget session.

- Oh, absolutely.

And it gives us, I think, a very, very good snapshot of where we need to be thinking.

And they always try to be, you know, conservative as they possibly can because I too would love to have more than what we anticipated.

- Yes.

- You know?

But I think that that's what we have to do.

In my business, and I think going back to your first question, why would a rancher, why would people in ag be valuable to the legislature?

Well, we're in business to stay in business, and we need to be very, very purposeful about how we make decisions.

Can we afford it?

Can we not afford it?

Do we need to wait a little bit?

Do we need to put some money away?

Do we want to take on debt?

Can we see what's the next step?

Are we gonna be able to service that debt?

Thankfully, Wyoming has not been in that situation.

We've got a lot of money that we've stockpiled up.

But when we start running these numbers and stuff, if we aren't aware of what's going on and how we're spent, I'm seeing numbers right now that in potentially four years, if things stay on the level plane that they are right now and things don't change, we're gonna be deficit spending in our school education funding.

And so, those are things like, in my business, I have to decide what I'm gonna invest in, and what I'm gonna focus my energy on, and how I'm gonna pay for it because I don't get to go to you and ask for more money if I make a bad decision.

- This never-ending sort of balancing act between the here and the now, which in legislative service, you're just consumed with what's gonna happen at the committee meeting or what just did happen.

- Right.

- Versus- - The long-scope, yes.

- What's history gonna say about what we did?

- Yeah, and I want history to say that we were very mindful of the future, and that we were prudent about our decision making, and that we took all these things into consideration so we can do a great job for the people of the state.

- Well, speaker Chip Neiman, House District 1, I appreciate your willingness to come out here.

We record these in an early hour on a weekday, and that's nothing new to you.

But still it's a willingness to participate.

It goes back to your willingness that you mentioned in your job in general.

And I appreciate you coming on.

Nothing says you have to be here, but I'm glad that you were.

Thanks for being with us on "Capital Outlook."

- I appreciate the opportunity, and it's been a pleasure.

Thank you very much.

- Thanks.

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