- The General Session of the 67th Wyoming Legislature has adjourned for the year.

Today, we'll speak with Governor Mark Gordon, State Senator Chris Rothfuss, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Megan Degenfelder.

Join us now for "Capitol Outlook."

(patriot music) - [Announcer] This program is supported in part by a grant from the BNSF Railway Foundation, dedicated to improving the general welfare and quality of life in communities throughout the BNSF Railway service area.

Proud to support Wyoming PBS.

And by the members of Wyoming PBS.

Thank you for your support.

- We're very happy to be joined today near the end of the Wyoming legislative session by Governor Mark Gordon.

Governor, thanks very much again for making time for us.

It means a lot to us.

- Steven, it's wonderful to be here.

And thank you for your service during this session.

- We are here today right at the end of the legislative session, the closing hours.

They'll be back tomorrow for some final functions, but most of the legislative work is now done.

Late last year, you released a list of priorities that you had, initiatives that you hoped the legislature could consider when appropriate.

Some spending priorities for the revised supplemental budget, reflecting this huge influx in revenue that the state is lucky to have.

With adjournment right at hand now, how's your scorecard been?

- Well, I think it has been pretty good.

The budget, supplemental budget we recommended, when we did the budget a year ago, we had no idea that we would see the prices in mineral commodities that we saw.

That was a great godsend.

But in addition to that, we had the IIJA, the ARPA funds, and a number of other federal measures that came on board.

My first priority, which I think I articulated at the State of the State, was these times are not here to stay, we need to be thoughtful about when those challenges come when our revenues aren't gonna be as good.

We put about 1.4 billion away in savings.

I've heard from a lot of people, "Well, why did you do that?"

- Why did you do that?

You didn't do it, but why was it done?

- Well, we did that, it was a lot of my recommendation, but we did that with the eye towards in the future we know that the prices on oil and gas and coal continue to be challenged.

We anticipate, nobody hopes that the war in Ukraine keeps going, but that's one reason why we've seen the rises that we have, and so when those fall off, just like we have always done, we have these boom and bust cycles, we're set up now to be able to weather that bust cycle better.

- That's what's been interesting about the session, as I have observed.

You, of course, were instrumental in putting Wyoming's money to greater use than it had been during your time as treasurer.

You made these recommendations.

I think everyone would agree.

And simply as an investment strategy that has paid off.

This year, there was a little bit more of that, am I right, and putting money from some accounts that had been more or less static to income-earning possibilities so that some, rather than just having the money there to fall back on, could actually... - Right.

- Earn money for the state to be used in a planned way.

- Well, and your memory is quite good.

I passed a constitutional amendment a few years ago that modified our ability to be able to invest not only our permanent funds, but other funds we call Amendment A funds that now can be put to better use.

Back in that time, we had about a billion and a half that we had put on the table earning very little, and we set it up so that we could invest them a little more aggressively and get some more return.

There's a bit of attention because I'm a conservative and feel strongly that our Permanent Mineral Trust Fund, our Common School Trust Fund, our so-called permanent funds, which are, in a way, well, they're called inviolate.

You can't go back in and mine them.

They're intended to produce earnings that will help offset future costs.

What the legislature did this year, and I think it's somewhat wise, I do have some concerns, we used to have these things called spending policies.

I call 'em earning reserves.

We raised the earnings reserves so that we can invest much more like an endowment.

My concern, I think that's wise, because we'll be able to get a better return, we'll be able to get more money, that'll save taxpayers more ultimately, but my concern is, it's not off limits.

It's set up much more like a trust, but when you have trustees, they have a fiduciary responsibility.

And let's say the trust is for kids.

Trustees can make wise judgments about how much money the kids would get.

In this case, the kids are running that trust.

So I worry about their ability to keep themselves in control.

- Which could become more worrisome if the happy days we're experiencing now fiscally changed in a few years.

- Absolutely.

- The expectation, I think I'm right, is that the good times that we're experiencing now should last for a while longer, correct?

- That is correct.

And we certainly know there's a limit to the federal dollars.

Those will drop off '24, '25, '26.

They have to be spent.

That's good for the economy because we're doing construction, we're doing a lot of things that can help sort of build that economy and economic momentum.

That's one reason why I've been as anxious as I have to make sure that we're diversifying our economy, or that is, not to leave behind coal, oil and gas.

Those are mainstays for Wyoming's economy.

But to be able to diversify into other areas.

We now have financial services.

We've done a tremendous amount on bolstering our tourism economy.

Agriculture's done very well.

We're now seeing a real upsurge of manufacturing as well.

In fact, it was really encouraging this year to find out that this is a 50-year high for economic diversity in Wyoming, and hopefully, we keep that going.

- Well, the first rule of economic development always is said to be protect what you have and build from there.

And you're saying that's what you're seeing now.

We're not abandoning anything.

We are trying to expand from it.

- Absolutely correct, yeah.

- When we interviewed Governor Freudenthal a couple of weeks ago, he was talking about his new book, he recalled a time when he had been called to testify in front of the Joint Appropriations Committee, and he said he sat there for eight hours being grilled, he was a Democrat and it was a Republican majority.

As he said, they were of the other faith.

I think he quoted Al Simpson when he said that.

He said they played a game of stump the governor is how he called it.

It's a long, it's years and years ago now.

Have you ever been called before to testify on a bill yourself?

- I have, I introduced the budget.

There's always a tendency to try to stump the governor, to try to figure out how to catch the governor.

And luckily, I know enough about how all these legislators are that I can kind of work through this.

And really, quite frankly, the last two budgets that we've presented have been as clean and clear and understandable as any.

Prior to that, we used to talk about all the coffee cans and the tips and drips.

They're still there in many ways.

But we've kind of highlighted those so it's a little harder to say, "What don't you know about the budget?"

- A question I've asked several guests on our "Capital Outlook" season this year relates to the difference between trying to budget when there's a lot of extra money or when there's no extra money.

And opinions have differed on it.

Some people have said, "Well, in a way, it's kind of easier to do it when we know we have no choice but to cut back."

And others said, "Boy, I'd sure rather do it when we have options."

How do you view that?

I mean, either way you have to do it.

- Yeah, I've been through the best of times and the worst of times.

And with the worst of times, and I think this is what people would say, there really are no options.

So you have to say no, and no is a firm call.

It's not easier.

I remember the choices we had to make during COVID when we lost a third of our revenue.

For the first time in our state's history not a single well being drilled in the state.

- Rig count zero.

- Rig count was zero, first time in our history.

And we had some very difficult choices to make.

Now, I think what we were able to do was to kind of manage through that without huge impacts to populations.

But I'll tell you, the one that continues to hit me was the choice we had to make that we could no longer offer in-home services for seniors.

We've now restored those, but it was very tough at the time to make that call.

- But you felt in some cases there's no choice.

- There was no choice.

- Not much choice except bad choices.

- Exactly, the Department of Health is our largest agency.

You cannot cut the budget without having to deal with some of the very important programs in the Department of Health.

- You're not a legislator, but the governor of Wyoming works pretty closely with the legislature.

Unlike, say, the White House, you can walk right down the hall and see what's going on.

You can confer with legislative leaders, committee chairs, if you need to.

Do you find yourself doing that very often?

"I want to have a quick word with you, Mr.

Chairman."

- Yeah, I do.

And I appreciate that because many of these legislators, this is what I love about Wyoming, we're very personal, and many of these legislators are friends.

I've been to brandings with 'em.

I've gone to their stores.

They've come to visit me.

And so it is more like walking down the street to talk to a neighbor.

This has been an interesting year in that so many of our legislators are either in their first term or their second term.

And they follow a legislature that was, if you look at Phil Nicholas and Hank Coe and Eli Bebout and others that had served so long in the legislature, this is a very inexperienced legislature.

And this session has taken a little bit for them to kind of get up to speed.

And it has been actually helpful to be able to call them down from time to time to say, "Hey, what are you thinking on this?

Why are you doing that?"

- What are your expectations from the legislature when you lay out some recommendations or budget priorities?

And obviously, you don't do it intending for those to be ignored.

Did you find that they, the lawmakers, at least took up and considered the things that you wanted them to consider?

- Yeah, yes, absolutely.

When it comes to the budget, of course, it's the governor's responsibility to try to sort of put that out.

I'm really happy that they took the suggestions we made quite seriously.

There's always a certain amount of give and take and we wanna put some funds there that you wanted to put there, all of that.

I have to say, I have an enormous respect for the separation of powers and I do believe that the legislature has the responsibility to appropriate and to set the laws.

It is the executive branch's responsibility to make sure that we execute those laws to the best of our ability.

And so I try to let the legislature do what they need to do.

There are a couple of disappointments this year.

I'm particularly disappointed that the bill we had worked on on tribal, the ability for the government to negotiate tribal relations, was misunderstood.

It made a valiant run and then ran into a block.

But I think it was largely a block that was established from a sort of false narrative about what we were up to and trying to get accomplished.

- I wanted to ask you about a bill that seems particularly interesting to me in terms of you, and that's the crossover voting bill that got a lot of attention.

It's gonna pass, it's been changed a little bit, but it essentially means, it makes it much harder for a member of one political party to register to vote in the primary election of another political party.

Realistically speaking, what that tends to mean in Wyoming is that Democrats vote in the Republican primary.

Frankly, in Wyoming, across Wyoming, that's often where the only action is in the primary election.

If you want to vote, participate, it's not just at the state level, it's local elections, too, where you may know the people there.

It was perceived by some that you benefited from that in 2018, although I think it's been analyzed repeatedly.

I'm not sure that's ever been established that you did more than someone else might have.

What was your impression of that bill and did you take any position on it?

- Yeah, well, Steven, what I'd say is a year ago in my State of the State I said it's important that Republicans vote in Republican primaries, Democrats vote in Democrat primaries.

When I was growing up, we had, and you probably remember this as well, a very strong Democrat presence.

I was the first Republican governor to repeat after another Republican governor, and I don't know, it was several years going back to Hathaway.

It went Hathaway, Herschler, Sullivan, and Geringer and then back to Freudenthal and then to Mead and then finally to me.

So it was a robust process back and forth.

And I think one of the challenges for me, and I feel very strongly about this, is that, unfortunately, recently people tend to think about the highest office that's on the ballot and that's the one they're looking for.

If it's the president, by golly, that's the one we're gonna vote for.

If it's the governor, we're gonna do that.

Or the senator or whatever.

The offices that mean a lot on the local level are things like the sheriff, the coroner- - The county commissioners.

- The commissioners, absolutely.

Those are the races that count a lot.

And so my hope this session was that we would have a clean bill that came through that delineated a process that people could understand and didn't feel like they could be disenfranchised.

I think there are some potential flaws in this bill which weigh heavily on my mind.

We're talking about this really a day before the session ends, and I haven't really quite come to ground on where I am.

But I do wanna say that it is sort of fascinating to me that there's this mythology around how much Democrats influence the Republican primaries.

In my case, that would've accounted, if that had been true, somewhere in the neighborhood of 9,000 some odd votes- - Smaller than the margin by which you won.

- Yeah.

- You won by more than that.

- Yeah, I won by more than 9,000 votes, but that crossover vote was way, way below what that would have been.

So that's been more or less debunked.

If you look at last year's results where there was the specter that Liz Cheney would benefit greatly from crossover voting in the Republican primary.

She obviously didn't.

And so how big an issue this is is a little bit unclear.

And then the last thing I'd say is that right now it's somewhere around 7% that are registered Democrat.

So at this point, why would you switch back out of the Republican Party to become a Democrat?

Because you were already in the Republican primary.

So I don't really know how much this benefits either party, but I will say, and this is something that Secretary Buchanan and I felt very strongly last year about, we need to have a more robust political process.

We need to have good give and take.

And the state I grew up in was one where we had those good conversations.

- One last thing.

We're nearing the end of the session.

and this is when the governor can become particularly involved in the legislative process, and that's with the veto pen.

- You bet.

- You did it a few times in recent days, the line item veto, which is a tool that some.

the Wyoming governor always wanted, but didn't always have, you put it to use, without delving in too deeply into the the details of what and why.

What's your rationale in looking at a budget bill, for example, and deciding how you're gonna evaluate a particular line item yes or no?

- Well, this budget was so close to the one we recommended that there really weren't that many that we needed to do.

The particular thing that I try to carry forward as we evaluate, particularly the budget bill, are they legislating in the budget bill?

That's unconstitutional.

Are they overstepping into what is properly the executive branch's role by being overly prescriptive in how those funds should be spent?

The legislature's meant to appropriate the funds.

The executive branch is meant to execute.

And there is a division there that needs to be respected.

And so that's always a conversation that we have back and forth between our branch and theirs.

And they have the ability to override and they have the ability to, well, they can at times sustain that as well.

- I wanna thank you for being on the show with us.

You were on our first "Capital Outlook" of the season.

You've now been here in the last.

You're the busiest man in Wyoming this afternoon and have things to do besides sit here and talk to us.

I wish we had more time, but I appreciate it very much, sir.

- Thank you, Steven.

- A great pleasure.

- Best wishes to you and thanks for being with us on "Capital Outlook."

- Thank you very much.

- Continuing on "Capital Outlook, I'm joined now by the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Chris Rothfuss, Senate District 7?

- Nine.

- Senate District 9- - Ballpark.

- From Laramie.

Thanks for being with us.

- Happy to.

- Not everyone in the Wyoming Legislature is a conservative Republican, but most of them are, and that's been a part of your reality as a lawmaker from the beginning.

- Yes.

- You've been in how long now?

- This is my 13th year in the Legislature.

- 13th year.

And I'd say... You probably agree that regardless of how long your tenure in the Senate continues, that reality isn't gonna change.

- Probably not soon, regrettably.

- How do you stay positive, stay engaged, stay on task in this minority position that you're always in?

- Well, obviously, there's a lot of work to do and a lot of people to represent around the state, because even though there's an overwhelming majority, certainly, in both chambers in terms of the count of the Legislators, the reality is, statewide, at least a quarter of the population in Wyoming at any given time is looking for minority representation.

So, there is a strong role for the minority.

We need to be there, and we need to look for ways to advance those values, those progressive values, and try and build, try and help people.

And that's really what we're about, putting people first.

- There are only a few of you Democrats in the body this year, so most of the legislation you're working on is proposed by Republicans, sponsored by them, carried by them, amended by them, voted by them, passed or defeated by them, but you sponsor bills yourself each year.

This year, I think you had three, is that right?

- I think I had five or six.

- Oh, really?

- Not too many of them made it to the floor.

Some of them were on the contentious side, like corner crossings and a constitutional right to privacy.

Those were frowned upon and immediately put in a drawer, so they didn't see the light of day.

But others, for example...

There was a piece of cleanup legislation related to school facility leasing that I brought, and I think it passed both chambers without losing a vote.

So, certainly, there are things that can get done regardless of what party you are, but when you wade into the contentious territory, and it's the national headline type territory, it's a different level of scrutiny.

- And it wasn't only...

The only contentious bills weren't from your side of the aisle.

There are lots of those, and some of them flew, some of them didn't.

Some of them might be launched again.

How do you set priorities for yourself each session?

Did you arrive this year, or do you arrive each year with things that you wanna make sure happen if you can, or want to prevent from happening if you can?

How do you weigh that?

Does it depend primarily on what's happened in the interim, or is there more to it than that?

- There's a lot going on, and obviously, as Minority Leader, I'm trying to track everything from the budget to all of the bills that are coming forward.

The reality is, going into each legislative session, you take a look at, are there going to be resources available?

What is the mood of the Legislature?

What are the changes based on the most recent election, and what can we expect?

Coming into this legislative session, on the upside, we had revenue.

That was an unexpected surprise where we weren't going to have to be talking about cuts.

It was great to come back to a legislative session where it wasn't all about, "Who can we cut, how much, and when?"

So, that was nice.

That was a positive.

At the same time, in previous years, there was always a spirit of trying to build and trying to move things forward.

And over the last few years, that's been in decline as this national focus on those partisan, rancorous, headline news type pieces of legislation took the focus away from just solving the problems for the people of Wyoming.

So we spent an awful lot of time, and I knew we would, wading into the quagmire of the fist-shaking bills where somebody at a coffee shop somewhere has something to complain about, and we needed to talk an awful lot about it.

And a lot of legislation regrettably passed this year.

- We had a guest on the show earlier who said, "This is the kind of legislation that is imported to Wyoming "whether it's particularly relevant or not, "but it gives people a chance to be outraged."

Do you look for chances to be outraged as a Legislator?

- No.

So, this is something that has just been hyper focused upon in recent years.

Social media enrages people.

It creates this divisiveness and ability to fight with one another and create drama and crises where they don't exist, and then to heroically show up in Cheyenne and try and solve these problems that, once again, I'll reiterate, don't exist, and then have something to write home to your constituents about that you did these things.

The reality is, none of that legislation does anything for the people of Wyoming.

It doesn't provide jobs, it doesn't provide security, it doesn't provide food, healthcare, roads, anything that really matters.

It's just feeding this fighting frenzy, and it's unfortunate that we spend any time on it.

We have real issues that we should be working on, trying to solve, and I can tell you the Minority Party has been strongly focused on those issues.

- Let's talk about a couple of these bills that got some of this type of attention.

And forgive me in advance, but I wanna hear what you think about some of them.

- Sure.

- One of them has to do with making it much more difficult for voters of one party to re-register in order to vote in the party of the other, or the primary election of the other party.

And typically, I think it's understood that it's Democrats who might switch in order to vote for a Republican that they would consider to be more moderate.

Governor Gordon is said to have benefited from this.

Superintendent Degenfelder, possibly, as well.

What arguments did you make in the debate on this bill?

- Well, there's a few.

First, it's my belief that every voter has the right to vote in every election that is of consequence to them.

That's the appropriate way to have a democracy and enable people to be citizens.

The idea that literally, the top priority of the Wyoming GOP, right?

Their central committee.

The top priority at this point in time is to ban crossover voting... Really shows a skewed set of priorities that's out of touch with the voters.

I received a tremendous amount of contacts from Republicans saying, "Leave this one alone.

"It really doesn't matter.

"Let's try and focus on the issues."

And I share that viewpoint with them, that the idea that in a legislature that is the most partisan skewed towards the GOP in the country, both chambers super duper duper majorities, that somehow the biggest problem we have is that the election system isn't turning out right because it doesn't elect partisan enough Republicans is truly absurd.

I mean, if that's what...

If that's all you've got to focus on and all you've got to worry about, then you're clearly not in touch with the needs of the voters.

The other aspect of it, realistically, is it's one thing to limit membership in your own party, but the legislation that has passed limits membership in other parties.

Whether it's the Democratic Party, the Libertarians, the Constitution Party, you're not allowed to change and register for them, which is a clear and obvious violation of the First Amendment Right to Assembly.

And I offered amendments, honestly, in good faith on a couple of occasions to make their awful bill constitutional, and they refused it.

So, my hope and expectation is that if that is signed by the governor, it will be immediately enjoined by a court recognizing that it's unconstitutional.

- It struck me that while it would make it more difficult, it wouldn't necessarily prohibit it, particularly.

If I'm a moderate Republican candidate who might like to have votes from Democrats, I could announce a month ahead of time, "I'm running for this office," or whatever the- - Absolutely.

- And I don't...

I'm sorry to say I don't know exactly what the buffer period now even is, but announce it before then, and it might even get more attention than it would otherwise.

- Well, I think the logical outcome for this is, in any district where the overwhelming majority are Republicans, majority population Democrats that would typically switch over and switch back, will just switch over earlier.

To assume otherwise is just to assume that these are ridiculously uninformed voters.

So, what will happen is that the voter roll numbers will be even more disparate from the vote counts.

And right now, you have roughly 25% of the people voting statewide voting and supporting Democratic candidates in the election, and yet, the registration rolls are more like 12, 13%.

With this legislation, I would expect to see that number go down 10%, 9, 8.

And I'd encourage Democratic voters to go ahead and cross over, if it's the appropriate thing to do.

Why not?

You're entitled to the elections that matter to you.

That's your constitutional right.

And just because one party wants to preclude you from expressing your vote doesn't mean they get to.

- Oddly enough, one of the objections raised by some was, "Well, now this will mean there'll be a lot of Democrats "registered as Republicans all the time," and that that was viewed as a negative by some.

Well, we'll see what happens there.

Let's talk about the chemical abortion bill.

I was in the house this morning, and watched that concurrence get signed.

Some small changes were made in it.

What were those, and did you have any role in that debate?

- So, the small changes that were made was there was a prescriptive list on specific chemicals that would be precluded.

There was a recognition that many of those drugs are used for other uses that are not necessarily associated with an abortion, and so the list was removed.

At the same time, realistically, this gets to the fundamental debate, first of all, that in Wyoming, according to Article 1, Section 38 of our constitution, each individual resident citizen of Wyoming is supposed to have freedom to make their own healthcare choices.

This is literally a healthcare choice, clearly, unambiguously.

We saw the trigger bill last year was enjoined immediately by the court.

I would expect this chemical abortion bill, which tells doctors and patients, effectively, what they can and can't do...

I would expect that to be enjoined and challenged immediately as well.

- What's at the basis of the debate about whether this type of procedure, or an abortion in general, is or is not healthcare?

I heard it talked about a lot.

- Right.

Honestly, it comes down, more often than not, to personal, religious, philosophical views, and this is why it should be constitutionally protected.

I have no interest... And I've said this time and again on the floor.

I don't want to change anyone's mind.

I don't feel any compulsion to have anyone else agree with my views, my constituent's views, or anyone else's views.

These are personal choices, and it's reasonable that they be personal choices closely held.

And that's why it's important that they stay between the individuals and the healthcare providers.

The idea that the Wyoming Legislature knows better than your doctor is absurd.

We've got one healthcare provider in the Legislature.

That's the only person... Or, excuse me, in the Senate.

That's the only person I'd go to for medical advice.

And yet, the other 30 of us seem more than willing to step up and tell you what you should do with regard to your healthcare choices and what is and is not associated with your healthcare.

- You get elected, you become experts in things, all of a sudden.

- Experts at everything, as it turns out, yeah.

- Medicaid expansion was viewed at the beginning of the session as maybe having a better chance as a bigger bill.

It turned out it didn't, but there was some change in policy.

Tell us about that.

- Yeah, we did manage to pass a wonderful piece of legislation which continued a practice that came out of the ARP Act, ARPA, and at the federal level, there was a requirement that postpartum Medicaid coverage for the mother be provided for a full 12 months.

We have only 60 days as our tradition, but the feds require that 12 months.

It turned out to be an incredible benefit for the mothers, and the children as they were born, and really supported better healthcare outcomes.

So we brought legislation this year, House Bill 4, which provided a continuation of that year-long postpartum Medicaid coverage, and that will probably be the most significant thing we did this session to the benefit of our public, because it's gonna help mothers and newborns in a way that really, nothing else we did or could do is going to affect.

- And the interesting point that Representative Harshman made earlier on our show... And he changed his mind about Medicaid expansion after some years.

And he said, "I came to look at it," meaning Representative Harshman, "as a pro-life position, in a way, "so that a mother who might be tempted "to leave the state to have an abortion "might feel better about staying in-state, having the baby, "if she knew that the coverage "at least was going to extend for a while."

It's an interesting argument.

It didn't persuade enough lawmakers on the bigger Medicaid picture, but it was a transformation of a sort for a prominent Legislator.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And that is true.

It's striking to see Legislators vote for these anti-abortion bills, claim to be pro-life, and then turn around in the next vote and vote against a bill like House Bill 4, which has unquestionable value when it comes to a pro-life philosophy.

It's more meaningful, certainly, than these abortion bills, which will change nothing.

These bad abortion bills that we're passing are not going to change anyone's life, but these beneficial support pieces of legislation certainly can enable someone to feel like they have what it takes to potentially bring a newborn into the world and have sufficient support to raise them in Wyoming.

- You didn't sponsor that bill, did you?

- No, I believe that was a committee bill, if I'm not mistaken.

- Committee bill?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Great bill, though.

Tremendous.

- Yeah.

Let's talk for a moment about library books in schools.

The versions that I saw were full of ambiguous, impossible-to-define terms such as "unacceptable," and "obscene," and "improper," and it just begs challenge, even legal challenge, when legislation passes with those words in it.

How did those bills fare?

What were your positions on that issue?

- Well, fortunately, those pieces of legislation I think have all met their demise, which is a positive.

Once again, the Legislature's role is not morality police.

At least, it shouldn't be.

We see ourselves, too often, as some righteous organization that can tell people what to do and think.

It should not be our role.

So when we see legislation that tries to establish what books people can read, what thoughts they can have, what they can learn in classrooms, where that's being forced down by folks with no educational background, and certainly no experience in curriculum development, that's the legislation stepping well outside of its lane.

I also honestly don't share the same views, and I know that many constituents have differing views on what is and isn't appropriate material.

And the irony is that you have many of these same Legislators espousing parental choice, that the parent needs to be more involved, the parent needs to get to decide.

Well, here's a case where you really have that opportunity as a parent.

Just engage with your children and learn what they're reading, and if you don't like what they're reading, maybe the parent and the kid can have the talk, instead of the state legislature.

- A common turn of phrase among Legislators on educational issues, "We support local control."

- Right.

- But there are numerous occasions on which the Legislator seems willing to at least engage in issues that would supersede local control.

- Well, I'll just say this.

When I started in the Legislature 13 years ago, we did support local control.

We do not support local control anymore.

We say that still, but it is just rubbish.

At the end of the day, we do to local school districts, local counties, and municipalities what the federal government does to us, force down one-size-fits-all solutions without necessarily taking sufficient feedback or vetting, based on our specific interests that are probably suitable to our own district, or whatever else we're representing.

It would be great if we could get back to local control and recognizing that the folks that are closest to the people should be the most involved in those direct decisions, and recognizing that different municipalities and different communities have different values and different priorities.

We do everything we can to quash that individuality.

- And in those local control issues related to schools, there are local officials who are elected.

- Dually elected, absolutely.

Directly elected by local school districts.

There are 48 school districts in the state, each of which has its own board, and those trustees on those boards know their communities certainly better than the Legislature does.

- And they're all nonpartisan elections, besides.

- They are.

They're nonpartisan elections.

And so, again, it...

The question of, "Who would you rather have "deciding what is appropriate curriculum for your community, "the Wyoming State Legislature or your local school board "that is literally talking to folks in the community "on those topics on a daily basis," it's only reasonable that you would want to support local control, but it's the idea of, when you have the power, you tend to use the power.

And we've been, I think, very poorly behaved on that front in recent years.

We've pushed down far more than we've relieved pressure on local communities.

- I sat in on some hours of committee meetings in Florida, Bay of Watson, more of it online.

You cast a lot of "no" votes.

It's just gonna be inevitable.

But you cast a lot of "yes" votes as well.

I heard you do it this morning.

So you far left, crazy liberal Democrats have some pragmatism about you as well.

You mentioned, in fact, a bill that you sponsored, which was not a partisan issue at all.

It was something that needed to get taken care of.

So, you would resist, and I would imagine you'd like voters to resist, the idea of thinking that everything that happens is some sort of knockdown, drag-out ideological fight.

There are those, but that's not all of it.

- No, it's an important point.

What makes the headlines tends to be the contentious issues, for good reasons, but 95% of what we do has nothing to do with party or partisanship.

It has to do with, "What's a good solution for trust law?"

"What's a good solution for local recreational districts?"

"Here's a flaw in statute that we need to clean up."

And so, you end up building coalitions with other members of the Senate and the House that have nothing to do with the party line.

And honestly, that's when we legislate the best.

When parties are out of it and don't have influence, and when we just get together as people and focus on solving problems, we do a pretty darn good job.

I'm still very proud of the Wyoming Legislature's capacity to solve problems when we're actually focused on the problem itself, rather than the politics.

- When a bill passes one house, goes to the next house, and if they're not in agreement, it often, usually, is assigned to a conference committee to work that out.

Are you on any conference committees this year?

- I've got a couple of conference committees.

One is associated with school expulsion policies, and I'm hopeful that we'll just go back to the education bill committee on that one.

It was a good bill when it came out of education committee, and I think they did some damage to it down in the House, so we'll see how that one goes.

And then I chair the Blockchain Select Committee.

- You do?

- Co-chair that.

And we have a bill that needs some minor tweaks in terms of the conference committee there, and we'll get that cleaned up in no time.

Should have that done by the end of the day.

- So here's a Democrat chairing a committee.

Now, it's not a standing committee, but it is a committee that's going to resolve legislation again.

- Yeah, so that committee, that Blockchain Select Committee, has probably passed, I don't know, 30, 35 pieces of legislation over the past five years since we created it, and a lot of that legislation is first of its type in the country.

We really are the national and, to some degree, international leader when it comes to digital asset regulatory structure and statutory construct.

So, it's an area where I focus a lot of my time.

And again, this gets back to, "Here is a policy arena, actually, that is..." There is bipartisan support nationally, and there is bipartisan opposition.

So it doesn't line up well with party lines, and as a result, we can get together, and we can actually solve problems- - Yeah, you don't hear - And do what's best.

- A lot of... You don't hear a lot of cable TV screaming and shouting about this.

- No.

Well, it's interesting.

I mean, at the national level, our Senator Lummis is working with Senator Gillibrand, bipartisan, leading the way in a good piece of legislation that's largely based on the work that we've been doing over the past five years.

So, here's a case where I work closely with Senator Lummis's office, bipartisan manner, and we get a lot of really good work done.

And I love it when we're able to set aside party labels and actually just focus on solving problems.

- Well, as a not quite lone voice in the wilderness, what constitutes a successful legislative session for you, or do you look at it in those terms?

- I do.

First of all, are we cutting key programs that support people?

That's one of the big check boxes, and that's a high priority.

Prevent cuts to our core programs, such as K-12 education, higher education, healthcare.

Are we losing grounds in those spaces?

And this session, we did not.

This session, we made maybe not as many gains as I would've liked in every area, but we gained ground in every one of those areas, and I'm very happy to see that through the budget.

At the same time, how much damage have we done to individual liberties and freedom in the state, or how much ground have we gained?

I wish I hadn't started just now with damage done, but that's really what it comes down to, is over the last few years, we shifted from my early career where we were a libertarian leaning, rugged individualist state in terms of the philosophy to the last few years, where we really have been looking for ways to restrict individual rights and freedoms and persecute certain groups of people, isolate minority populations.

And it's disappointing to see that trend and that transition, so as I look at the legislative session now, we started with 20 or 25 bad bills that hurt people.

How many are left at the end of the game?

- How many?

- About three.

- Three?

(Chris laughs) Senator Rothfuss, Minority Leader, the Wyoming Senate Democrat from Laramie, District 9... - District 9.

- Thanks for being with us on "Capital Outlook," and best wishes to you in your legislative career going forward.

- Appreciate it.

Happy to be here.

- Coming up, Wyoming's new State Superintendent of Public Instruction reflects on her first few weeks on the job, which coincide with the launch of the legislative session.

- I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

Welcome to "Capitol Outlook."

We're joined today by the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state of Wyoming, Megan Degenfelder.

Superintendent, thanks for being with us this morning on "Capitol Outlook."

- Thanks for having me, Steve.

- How much interaction have you had with legislators here in your first few weeks on the job?

- I've been very involved with this year's legislative session.

I think with my previous experience in the legislature as a lobbyist and having lived all across the state and being a lifelong Wyomingite, I've really developed relationships with many of those in the legislative branch.

So we've really been able to hit the ground running and work together in a very meaningful way and so it's been a great experience working with the legislature.

It really is a partnership and that balance is really great between the two branches.

- Have you testified on any bills, for example?

- I have, yes.

- You have?

What were a couple of those?

- Sure, so the charter school bill is one that we've been very involved with.

There was-- - [Steve] I promise we'll get back to that.

- Okay.

The charter school bill, of course, there's been various others that we've supported or spoken in support of changes.

Those include support for our military families, career technical education, transgender sports.

There's quite a list that we've been involved in some behind the scenes and others testifying in public.

- It's customary to seek the input of the superintendent on legislation.

- Absolutely.

- It happens.

- Yes, of course, yep.

We do work together quite well.

When you think of a lot of these bills, they directly impact the agency that I lead and they impact the entire state and so having just run a statewide campaign and really being elected by all of the people, I think it's a really good balance that we work together on these issues.

- Was there anything heading into this legislative session legislatively speaking that you hoped would happen or did you approach the job that way here in your first couple months?

- Well, of course, we're always hoping to hit the ground running on my initiatives.

That's really important.

You don't wanna let one legislative session go to waste in this short four year term and so school choice was a really important one for me and out of that came the charter school bill, which we've really been a part of and then now looking forward, it's really about setting up the interim, that partnership with the joint education committee and what topics that they research and make decisions about and then those that my staff and myself we can move forward that maybe don't directly involve the legislative branch yet.

- You've mentioned the charter school bill a couple of times.

Let's begin with this.

What's a charter school and what isn't a charter school?

- That is a great question because I think we've seen through this process that there's a lot of misinformation out there and states do charter schools differently and so I think what's really great about Wyoming is that we take an issue like charter schools and we make it our own.

We do it the Wyoming way and so what was really important with this bill was to create a framework in which charter schools can be authorized by an independent authorizer that's made up of experts that's not political that understand what makes a good or bad charter school and which one should be authorized.

- So it's a public school?

- It's a public school, yes.

I think that's very important to note is that we're talking about charter schools that are part of the public school system and so that leads to the second component that was really important to achieve and that was equitable funding and accountability.

So being part of that public school system, these students they are guaranteed and equitable funding for their education per our constitution and so making sure that that funding is adequate and equitable to our traditional public schools and that that accountability piece is in there as well.

We don't wanna be picking winners and losers in our schools, but this really what it does is within the current public system allows for greater specialization, greater choice for parents that can still be within the public system.

- A charter school differs from my nephew's K five school, for example, how, how might it be different?

Different kinds of charters.

- So there's another board.

There's a separate charter board for that school and so they're gonna have all of that local control ability that a traditional district would have, so that's around policies and procedures with the school, that's around deciding curriculum and textbooks and so all of that is really important in driving a charter school and so it really just gives a lot of more autonomy and what I like to see is charter schools that are very specialized.

Maybe one could pop up that's focused on career vocational education for students that are not planning to go that college pathway and so really there's a lot of neat things that can happen with charter schools.

This bill is the first step to even allow them to be possible in Wyoming.

Charter schools are just another piece of our public education system.

Gone are the days where we can have a one size fits all model for education.

All of our kids learn differently and so that if we can have this specialized education and if parents and families can have the ability to make choices of where best meets those needs, that's really what we want in Wyoming.

- What was the bill and how did it fare?

- So the charter school bill has had many amendments this session.

It really has been a collaborative process across all legislators and both the House and the Senate and so we're looking at that charter school bill being passed and having those components that I mentioned but with one caveat that there will be a four to five year moratorium before additional charter schools can be authorized.

- Several bills came up this year that involves K-12 education necessarily would or will involve your department.

We can talk about some of those.

One that got a lot of attention was the idea to use the recognized terminology transgender students and we're typically talking about boys, biological birth boys who may through either surgery or medication or in some cases simple self re-identification might wanna participate in girls athletics.

What are the key issues here and is your department, your office take a stand on that bill?

- So I'm the coach of the University of Wyoming Women's Rugby Team and so for me, my number one priority for my girls is their safety and the fairness and access to opportunities within the sport, so fundamentally, I do believe in protecting girls sports and the original intentions of Title IX.

Now that's not to say that our transgender students shouldn't have the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities and sports.

Our transgender students, they matter and I understand that this bill could have some frustrations and the eligibility commission process could have some frustrations, but it was important for me to work on that because it's the most fair process that I can think of and so in working with legislators on this bill, I supported the bill and worked on a way that we can make sure that eligibility commission is housed in the right place and those decisions are based on science and facts and not on politics.

- Again, what was the bill, how did it emerge in its final form, and how did it fare?

- Yes, so I believe it just passed third reading yesterday, so we'll head to the governor and so essentially what the bill does is it places a ban on transgender women in high school sports, excuse me, I believe it was amended to include junior high sports just yesterday on the floor.

So based on what happens, what we see in courts and in Title IX, it will go to an eligibility commission.

This eligibility commission is appointed by the High School Activities Association and is meant to determine eligibility based on science, based on maybe hormonal levels, really facts around the case that the High School Activities Association does every day determining eligibility, fairness, safety and so it would go through that process in order to see if a child is allowed to compete.

- How relevant do you think it is so far in Wyoming or is it more of a proactive approach or is it more of a corrective approach?

What have you learned about that?

- It's a little bit of both.

I think it's proactive, but we are seeing some instances around the state and as I traveled and campaigned this summer, there were school districts, school board members that had indicated that they needed support on this.

This really is a statewide issue and fundamentally, I do believe in local control.

I think in most issues we want local school districts to make those decisions.

In this particular case, those decisions impact other school districts in our cross-state competition and so that's where this does need to be addressed at the state level And, again, we're working on this in a Wyoming way that we make sure that all kids are recognized, but we do it in the fairest way possible.

- Among the other issues that was legislatively addressed this year, discussed, debated, had to do with some book controversies regarding school libraries primarily and it's full, unfortunately, and I think unavoidably of words such as obscene and improper and unacceptable and things that are hard to define, but still that didn't stop the legislature from wanting to dig into it a little bit.

What was the legislation that's proposed, what did you think about that, and how did it fare?

- Sure, so there were several bills that sought to address some of these issues that we're seeing in libraries.

I don't believe any of them were successful, but I am dedicated to working on that in the interim and seeing how we can at least provide guidance at the state level around appropriateness in books.

Of course, I'm a strong believer in local control and the ability to select books and curriculum is expressly given to our local school districts in our constitution, but when we start to see sexually explicit material in library books that are available for students that are under the age of sexual consent, then that's where it begins to be problematic and so my plan moving into the interim is to develop statewide guidance that really sets that threshold of appropriateness and provides guidance for library policies for our school districts because again another area where districts have been reaching out of we would like guidance on this, what are the best practices and that's the role of the state that that we need to play and so I'm committed to working on that issue.

There's plenty of places for sexually explicit materials to be available for adult readers, but K-12 taxpayer funded schools just simply aren't the place.

- Megan Degenfelder, State Superintendent of Public Construction for the state of Wyoming.

Thanks for being with us today and good luck.

- Thank you.

- This ninth edition of "Capitol Outlook" is the last of this legislative session.

I wanna thank the three videographers who worked with me to get the show on the air here at the Capitol and at our PBS headquarters in Riverton, BJ Clubhouse, Kyle Duba, and Steven McKnight.

My thanks also to the guests who appeared on the show.

It's a long list and I'm going to read it so that I get it right, beginning first with Governor Mark Gordon, State Superintendent Megan Degenfelder, and former Governor Dave Freudenthal, also the Speaker of the House, Representative Albert Summers, and the President of the Wyoming Senate, Senator Ogden Driskill, and Senator Chris Rothfus, Representative Mike Yin, Representative Steve Harshman, Representative Amber Oakley, and Senator Evie Brennan, Representative Martha Lawley, Senator Bill Landon, and Representative Art Washut, Senator Dave Kinsky, Representative Bob Nicholas, Senator Tara Nethercott, and Representative Lloyd Larson, and from Hewlett High School, Legislative Page Jesse Driscoll.

Whether you viewed "Capitol Outlook" online or the air or on cable, your eyes and ears are appreciated.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

"Wyoming Chronicle" returns next week.

Thanks for watching "Capitol Outlook."

(triumphant music) - [Narrator] This program is supported in part by a grant from the BNSF Railway Foundation, dedicated to improving the general welfare and quality of life in communities throughout the BNSF Railway service area.

Proud to support Wyoming PBS.

- [Narrator] And by the members of Wyoming PBS.

Thank you for your support.