Bondurant resident Bill Winney is one of the more recognizable faces at the Wyoming Legislature even though he’s never been part of the body as an elected official.

Winney is steadfast in his desire to be involved in Wyoming politics, so much so that he’s testified on almost every topic that’s come up at the Legislature over the last 15 years.

He’s now making his seventh attempt to win a seat in the Legislature over the last 14 years, running in the Republican primary for Senate District 14 against House Speaker Albert Sommers, R-Pinedale, and Kemmerer resident Laura Taliaferro Pearson. This is his first time running for the Senate.

Winney may have had an easier path to victory if he ran for the House in District 20, with two newcomer candidates looking to fill Sommers’ role, but he told Cowboy State Daily that he believes the Senate is a better place to try and enact property tax reform.

A 30-year Navy veteran, Winney was in charge of large-scale budgets while working as a program coordinator at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

Upon retirement, Winney could have easily devoted his time to more leisurely pursuits, but said “it wasn’t in my heart” to do that. Instead, he’s been closely observing and participating in the Legislature since 2005.

Winney has spent most of this time attempting to draw a bridge between his Navy and federal government experience and a multitude of Wyoming topics over the years at the Legislature. Simply put, if there’s a bill being considered by a committee, you’re likely to see Winney give his input on it.

Winney credits himself for helping convince legislators to pass multiple bills into law, such as rangeland studies and computer science programs since he testified for the first time in 2009.

“A private citizen in Wyoming, if you speak well and speak from the heart and speak from experience, you can affect what they do,” he said.

He was officially recognized by the Legislature for his participation in 2019.

Too Much Spending

Integral in Winney’s campaign is a belief that Wyoming state government is spending too much money. Winney said it’s not that any single department or program is wasteful as a whole, but more that the government could be spending its money more wisely.

“There’s a lot of places they could cut spending if they just took a good hard look at what they’re doing,” he said.

Winney was in charge of making many fiscal decisions during the six years he spent working at the Pentagon. He also wrote the equivalent of laws for the submarines he was a commander on.

He cited the example of a local school district in Sublette County his wife worked at spending $25,000 on a set of reading and literacy books it never used.

“That’s money that came out of taxes and it did nothing,” Winney said. “How do you get down into that level of detail? I’d like to try and do that.”

Winney still supports local control and wants school boards to be property trained so they know where to look to prevent future incidents like that.

“It’s the part and parcel of bureaucrats, superintendents, principals, vice presidents to know how to do things and get the school board to want them to do,” Winney said. “How do you get the school board to be able to recognize it?”

Property Taxes

Winney said most retired Wyoming residents don’t get cost-of-living pension increases like he does with the Navy that have doubled in 20 years. As a result, when their property taxes increase, they don’t have extra income to cover the bills. He’s already seen this happen to a few former Teton County residents who had to move to cheaper residences further south.

“We have to remember that if we push elders out of their homes, they’re going to end up in the elder care facilities, which is a lot more expensive in the long run,” Winney said.

If elected, Winney said he’d look at putting inflationary caps to help curb the rising property taxes the state has been dealing with the last few years. He also firmly supports a constitutional amendment going before the voters this fall that, if passed, would separate residential property as a separate form of taxation in Wyoming. This would allow for a reduction of the assessment rates in the state.

Although Winney didn’t have much to criticize about his two opponents, he was disappointed by the lack of interest from a slim majority of legislators this spring in calling a special session to override Gov. Mark Gordon’s vetoes. One of the most upsetting vetoes for Winney was on Senate File 54, a bill that would have provided 25% property tax relief on home values worth up to $2 million in Wyoming.

Sommers had been one of the most vocal in opposing the special session effort at the time, arguing that it wouldn’t be worth the time and effort spent convening when the bills could be brought back again next year.

“I thought the response particularly of the House leadership was underwhelming,” Winney said. “I thought the House and Senate should have come back into session and they kind of faded out on that.”

During his time as speaker, Sommers has had a relatively cold relationship with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a group of farther right House Republicans. Winney said the Freedom Caucus gets a “bum rap” and their members are actually much more dynamic than other groups of the Legislature. He supports their fiscal approaches, but said the group’s members also have a tendency to get “a little doctrinaire.”

“Spending — that’s a big deal for those Freedom Caucus guys, but I think it should be a big deal across the broader part of the Legislature,” Winney said.

Other Issues

Winney also wants to look at cost-of-living pension increases for retired state employees and to make emergency medical services classified as essential in Wyoming.

“Our EMS out here, people can be an hour or more away from some kind of trauma care,” Winney said. “That’s going to be a tall order but I got it.”

Certain Republicans have opposed pension increases, saying the state can’t afford it. Sommers said this could be easily remedied by pulling money from savings.

“We can’t afford to not do that,” he said.

Pearson is a sheep rancher and school bus driver who has often testified before the Legislature over the last few years on a variety of issues, consistently expressing farther right views.

Pearson said the people of Wyoming are “fed up” with the way the state is being run.

SD 14 also encompasses the new TerraPower small nuclear plant that will be built in Kemmerer. Winney said he wants to pass legislation to help better support the facility. Because of his past experience working with submarines, Winney has strong knowledge on the topic of nuclear energy.

“There are folks that are anti-nuclear out there and I’ve found that they typically tell only one side of the story,” he said.

On education, he believes there hasn’t been enough focus on providing scholarships for students to attend community colleges or receive vocational training.

Winney’s Chances

Winney has run in every election cycle in Wyoming since 2010, six times for the Legislature and one time for Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2014, only winning one contested primary and no general elections.

His closest race came in 2020 when he lost to former Independent state legislator Jim Roscoe by 366 votes.

Winney said he plans to engage in more door-knocking, mailers and text messaging to make his seventh bid for the Legislature the charm.

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

Recently, I went to East High to talk to an AVID class about what I do for a living.

Being a class full of teenagers, none of them were particularly interested when I, a middle-aged guy with a “get off my lawn” beard and “I don’t like haircuts” style got up on the little stage-like platform in Mrs. Martin’s class.

Such is the way of teenagers, no matter the generation.

Most schools in Laramie District 1 have an Advancement Via Individual Determination class to teach kids things like time management, what’s required to get into secondary schools (colleges, universities, etc), and to broaden horizons a bit.

The East High AVID class, for example, volunteers at the animal shelter making toys for the dogs and tours area universities and colleges to get a feel for campus life.

So standing on the stage and introducing myself, I told this group of ninth graders about myself. I drive brand new cars, supplied by manufacturers, and then write about those cars.

I take photos of questionable quality and sometimes do videos that are often ranked as “worst car reviews on YouTube” by commentators.

I mentioned that, in order to give other YouTubers a chance, I have to cover my glamorous magazine-ready face with hair to tone down my appeal some.

Given my drip, the kids probably thought this was pretty sus.

But they soon began to perk up, learning that I’m not just some guy with some job they’d consider boring. Which was a pretty proud moment for me, as I’m pretty sure my ninth grader son would consider professional skydiving or an X-Games pro to be lame.

Once things warmed up, and Mrs. Martin gave the ultimatum for the class to start asking questions, my presentation got more interesting. I was asked how I got into writing.

My answer was that I’ve never NOT been writing. It’s just taken on different forms.

I just so happened, about a decade ago (or so) to have found a way to parlay that into driving vehicles. It was a natural evolution from being a truck driver, in my mind.

I talked about how my college degree isn’t a match for what I do as a job. I use computers, sure, but a Computer Science degree doesn’t really teach journalism or writing skills.

I know automotive journalists who have journalism backgrounds. They are very good at writing up things that read like they should be in print. I’m better at writing things that are more colloquial, as it were.

That’s my fancy way of saying I like to use first person and try to insert funny bits so I look smarter.

The questions kept coming. These kids seemed genuinely interested in how I got started, what kind of things I do every day, how a freewheeling freelance gig person does it, and so on. Many of them were pretty good.

“Do the car makers pay you?” Nope. Publications that print my stuff pay me. The automakers give me vehicles in hopes that I can get them published to a large audience. Plus I don’t wreck up their vehicles, so they trust me not to be “that guy.”

“How long do you have a car for?” Press loans vary in length, but are usually about a week.

Sometimes a little longer, sometimes shorter. I generally put between 100 and 200 miles on a vehicle while I have it. Mostly doing everyday things, but also including fuel economy testing and sometimes special uses like off-road, towing, etc.

“How many cars have you driven?” Hard one to answer. I settled on 1,000-1,500 since I average about 100 vehicles per year and also go to events and unveilings where I might get to drive more.

“What is the coolest car you’ve ever driven?” Also a hard one.

Vehicles are designed for different purposes, so I can’t say just one was the coolest.

Favorites that I’ve driven include a McLaren, a BMW i8, an Alfa Romeo 4C, a specially outfitted Jeep Gladiator from RMT Overland, several side-by-side UTVs, and things with “SRT” and “Hellcat” in their names.

I judge vehicles based on what they’re used for and have a particular bias towards off-road-ready setups and speedy roadsters.

And especially for those that range into the ridiculous category, like a family-sized SUV with over 600 horsepower or a luxury car with a price tag equal to my house. Or, in the case of the first three on my list, cars that are pure adrenaline pumpers that are made way too small for someone of my size.

“What did you want to do for a job when you were in high school?” This question was a great one. I wanted to be a writer.

At the time, I thought I would write science fiction and fantasy. Isaac Asimov and JRR Tolkien were my literary heroes. What I learned with time was that I’m far better at writing opinions than I am at writing fiction.

Fiction, for me, takes a lot of work. Writing about things I love, like cars, is pretty easy by comparison. It took many years of frustration and working a myriad of non-writing jobs to learn that.

The overall experience was a good one. And the resulting thank you cards sent to me were a nice bonus.

One ninth grader wrote “Thank you for coming and talking about your job. I didn’t care very much about cars before now. I do a little bit more.” Nice! Mission accomplished so far as I’m concerned.

Another wrote “That was a lot of fun to listen about your job. The only problem I have is English, but I’m gonna try hard to get better at writing to get a job.” To which, I would say, being able to write well is not necessarily a prerequisite to journalism. I’ve been an editor before.

“I would enjoy having a new car every week because I could not be able to decide what car to buy.” Fair enough. I think I know some automotive writers who would fall into that category. They own extremely impractical vehicles as a rule.

“I would like to try to do car racing for a bit and I like hearing about cars.” Girl after my own heart there. She should try rally. The last bit of real auto racing left.

“Thank you for not trying to use slang during your presentation.” He’s correct. I didn’t use any of the slang words in the title of this article while talking to this AVID class. That would’ve been cringe.

It was special to have the chance to show these kids that imagination can reach beyond the standard list of professional careers or stretch an existing one into something more.

Back when I was their age, there were no presentations to show me that one could think beyond the established.

Thankfully, we’re getting past telling kids that working with their hands is bad, that thinking for themselves is bad, and that college is the only option for them.

The world is more open and accessible than ever. And they have unprecedented opportunities thanks to that.

I think more of us adults should participate in opportunities like this to show kids what’s out there. The world needs writers, plumbers, engineers, teachers, cooks, and small business owners.

We should be showing these kids, who are so close to being thrown out into the adult world, that it’s not all unfamiliar and scary. That they can get somewhere based on their own dreams and ideas and that perseverance pays off.

Bucking hay can turn into bagging groceries which becomes carpentry that turns into truck driving and becomes automotive journalism. Every path is unique and no job is exactly like another.

So long as it’s not a career in politics, I think kids should be encouraged to work hard and run with their dreams. Because the world needs more workaday dreamers.

Aaron Turpen can be reached at: TurpenAaron@gmail.com