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Legislative Leaders Debate Tax Relief, Visions For Wyoming’s Future

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Legislative Leaders Debate Tax Relief, Visions For Wyoming’s Future


When Senate President Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, and state Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, met on stage at the Wyoming Business Alliance’s Governor Business Forum in Laramie on Thursday, it was a collision of outgoing and incoming visions about what Wyoming’s state government should look like.

Driskill is at the end of his term as Senate president while Bear will likely be the next chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, the premier committee for drafting the state’s biennial and supplemental budgets.

Driskill will still serve in the Legislature until at least 2026, but it will be up to the next Senate president to determine his committee assignments.

Bear and Driskill disagreed on many topics Thursday, but agreed they share a desire to do what they believe is right for Wyoming.

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“We can butt heads as long as they’re not bloody, and this is how you get to better policy,” Driskill said. “At some point in time you find yourself to the middle.”

Rep. Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie, was also part of the panel discussion. She and Driskill said they want to see policy driven by Wyoming problems rather than national headlines, an approach many have accused members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus of taking. Bear is the former chairman of the Freedom Caucus.

The Role Of Government

Bear believes Wyoming government can do better than it is and wants to help advance President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda in the state.

He said he believes Trump’s administration will have a significant positive impact on Wyoming’s coal industry, while Driskill was a little more pessimistic. 

“I think the election was really clear that there’s a rejection of this climate cultism that says we can’t have carbon at all,” Bear said. 

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More specifically, he believes Wyoming voters passed a clear mandate in support of the Freedom Caucus agenda judging by the results of this year’s election. The Freedom Caucus will take over a majority of seats in the Wyoming House this session.

Sherwood takes a slightly different approach, seeing the state’s budget as a reflection of the Legislature’s shared values.

Next Year’s Budget

Gov. Mark Gordon also unveiled his $692 million supplemental budget Thursday during the forum, which he promoted as being both fiscally conservative and serving the public’s needs. It will be up to the Legislature to decide how much of this budget it wants to approve.

The Legislature will oversee a relatively strong fiscal outlook entering the 2025 session thanks to a Consensus Revenue Estimating Group (CREG) report released in October showing an expected $122 million overall revenue surplus compared to what was forecasted for the state in January. 

Bear wants government spending limited to constitutionally mandated items and what the Legislature feels is most needed to help residents.

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Driskill mentioned how the Legislature made $400 million in cuts when he was on the Senate Appropriations Committee. He believes a commonly promoted narrative that the “sky is falling” in Wyoming is false and that the state is in a relatively strong financial position.

Comparing the Wyoming government to the debt and spending of the federal government, he said, is not one in the same.

“Folks, the sky is not falling,” he said. “Wyoming has more money per capita in savings than any other state in the nation.”

Driskill said the correct way to use surplus money is not to send it back to taxpayers, but put it into savings to help the state balance its needs during leaner years. This has generally been the approach of the Legislature over the last few decades.

Over the past two years, the Legislature has put nearly $3 billion into savings partially thanks to a large uptick in investment interest income. It’s Driskill’s goal for 50% to 60% of the general fund spending to funded by investment income.

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Driskill said he isn’t worried about being able to support the state’s short-term needs and that supporting the needs of Wyoming’s children and grandchildren is who a large savings account will benefit.

“That’s what I look at when I put money into savings,” Driskill said. “It’s not for me, it’s for the future generations and I want to have something left with that wealth that Wyoming has.”

He also mentioned how the Legislature performed some fiscal maneuvering in order to put federal COVID-19 funds into savings rather than using it for its intended immediate use.

From left, state Reps. Trey Sherwood, John Bear and Senate President Ogden Driskill debate tax relief and their visions for Wyoming’s future Thursday in Laramie at the Wyoming Business Alliance’s Governor Business Forum. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)

The Role Of Government

Driskill also argued that business corporations usually don’t make cuts during profitable years, but rather make investments in their business, and said the Legislature should take the same approach.

“Let’s not cut ourselves in a prosperous time,” Driskill said, receiving applause from the audience.

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Although Driskill said that businesses are simply looking for a stable and predictable government when they move to a state, Bear countered that putting more money into the economy is not a destabilizing measure.

Bear said unlike a business, the government takes money out of the economy and produces no physical products.

“The more money we take out of the economy is less money that you all can invest in things like housing for your workforce,” he said.

Driskill mentioned how a TerraPower nuclear reactor in Kemmerer has been opposed by some conservatives in Wyoming because billionaire Bill Gates is behind it.

Driskill doesn’t share those concerns and said the Legislature shouldn’t be turning away any business as long as there’s a fair playing field and it doesn’t negatively affect the state.

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“I don’t care who comes, I want investment in Wyoming, I want jobs in Wyoming,” Driskill said. “If it means it’s Bill Gates, I welcome him. If it’s Warren Buffett, Rocky Mountain Power — if they want to play fair and play good, I welcome them.”

Driskill believes the government can invest in economic growth by offering grants to private industries.

“I’m one of the ones who does believe government has a role,” he said.

Property Taxes

Bear believes the voters are clearly demanding property tax relief, a solution he said could be engineered by making budget cuts. He said the taxpayers have already given the state a generous amount of money over the last few years due to the rising property taxes.

“Now, it’s time to give a little bit of relief in that area,” he said.

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Although Driskill agrees rising property taxes is a significant issue for Wyoming, he doesn’t believe tax cuts should be paid for by taking money out of the general fund, where a significant portion of the account is funded by mineral revenues. 

This is the same reason why Gordon vetoed a bill that would have provided tax relief last year because of its dependence on the general fund, which the governor saw as using one sector of the economy to unfairly subsidize another. He defended that veto again during a press conference Thursday.

Driskill also doesn’t want ultra-wealthy residents who only live in Wyoming a small portion of the year to receive these same cuts.

“I think he needs to continue to pay a fairly high rate on his $30 million house,” he said of this demographic, also drawing a short applause. “I want relief to go where it needs to go.”

Bear wants tax cuts levied across the board not just for residential taxes, but also for other sectors like agriculture and minerals that would be paid for by making governmental cuts in other areas. He mentioned how Wyoming still has the most state employees per capita in the nation.

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Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.



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Casper veteran David Giralt joins race for Wyoming U.S. House seat

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Casper veteran David Giralt joins race for Wyoming U.S. House seat


CASPER, Wyo. — David Giralt, a Casper-raised military veteran and conservative Republican, has announced his candidacy for Wyoming’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The congressional seat is being vacated by Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman, who launched a campaign in December for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by retiring Sen. Cynthia Lummis. […]



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Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate

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Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate


It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.

WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026

Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.

CLASS 4A

Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)

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CLASS 3A

Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)

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CLASS 4A

Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)

Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic

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Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)

CLASS 3A

Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.

Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)

Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)

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Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)

Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)

Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)

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WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 1 Scores 2025-26

 

CLASS 4A

Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)

Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)

CLASS 3A

#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)

#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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CLASS 3A

Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)

Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)

Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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Submit a Score to WyoPreps

 

Wyoming Boys 4A Swimming & Diving State Championships 2026

4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne

Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com





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Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers

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Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers


Controversy has engulfed Wyoming’s state legislature after a conservative activist was photographed handing checks to Republican lawmakers on the state house floor, in an incident that has highlighted intra-conservative divisions and the role of money in the Cowboy state’s politics.

The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.

“You have a person from the richest county in the country coming down to Cheyenne to hand out checks on the house floor,” Provenza said. “I have never seen something so egregious.”

Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.”

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Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”

Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor, who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they’d open a criminal investigation.

Bextel declined to answer questions from the Guardian. Brady, McCann and Bear did not respond to requests for comment.

Neiman said he considered the criticism a “wraparound smear campaign”. He said: “It never once crossed my mind that this was bribery.

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“These legislators, myself included, are now guilty until we can prove that we’re innocent. How is that right in this country? Isn’t that a little bit backwards?”

The scandal has highlighted long-standing divisions in Wyoming’s Republican party, which in recent years has seen a growing divide between old school, more moderate conservatives and a harder-right Freedom Caucus.

Several former Republican lawmakers forcefully condemned their colleagues for accepting the checks, and a local Republican party branch called for the lawmakers’ resignations.

Ogden Driskill, a Wyoming Republican senator, told the Guardian he does not consider Bextel’s actions to be illegal, but that “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should”.

Bextel has spent years pushing against housing mitigation fees in Wyoming, and Driskill noted that she distributed the house floor checks just days before a bill she had publicly supported was set to be heard. Bextel was registered as a member of the press, not as a lobbyist when she delivered the checks.

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“Ethically and morally, it’s bankrupt to a massive degree,” Driskill said.

Neiman said that he and other legislators who received checks have supported similar bills in the past: “Bribery is paying somebody to do something they would not otherwise do.”

Nationally, the 2024 election cycle saw record-spending from the mega-wealthy, as well as dark money groups. Wyoming followed the trend, in a tense red-on-red primary season.

For those gearing up to campaign this year, Teton county, the richest in the US, and Bextel’s picturesque home turf, is an essential stop. Its extreme wealth gives it a foothold on the national level as well. Palantir chief executive Alex Karp and Donald Trump attended an annual Republican leadership fundraiser at Jackson Hole in 2024, and JD Vance attended the same one in 2025.

Bextel pulls dollars from Teton county into the Freedom Caucus side of Wyoming’s conservative split. She hosted no-press-allowed meet and greets earlier this year benefitting leading candidates for Wyoming’s governor and open US House seat.

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In an interview with the Open Range Record, a media network she co-founded, Bextel said controversy around the checks was solely because she was making “even playing field” in Wyoming against the state’s more moderate Republicans, who she calls “George Soros” candidates. She said that she will be sure to keep raising money – just away from the legislative floor.

“I guess I’m gonna ask all the gentlemen and gentleladies to step outside the Capitol while I hand them a check,” Bextel said. “Let me be clear: I’m doubling down.”

But it’s not just wealthy local donors putting their weight behind the factions. Last election cycle, out of state groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anonymous and often inaccurate mailers.

“These actors, especially from the far right, they like to push the bounds of the norms,” said Rosa Reyna Pugh, an organizing and advocacy consultant at Western States Center, an Oregon-based non-profit focused on democracy in the western United States. “They like to see what policies they can kind of push, and see where they can play a piece,” Reyna Pugh said.

While Neiman and Driskill fight politically, they do agree on one thing: summer will bring an expensive and brutal campaign season.

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“You’re going to see more dark money than you’ve ever seen. We’ve done absolutely nothing to enforce it. Our secretary of state has not even made a slight attempt to deal with it,” Driskill said. “You’re going to see lots and lots of outside money and I think you’re seeing it on both sides.”

As national questions swirl around pay-to-play politics and profiteering in the Trump administration, Provenza wants better for the Cowboy State.

“We should not be aligning ourselves with how the federal government is conducting itself or how federal elections conduct themselves,” Provenza said. “We owe something far better and more honest to the people of Wyoming than that.”



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