CHEYENNE—Rep. Steve Harshman mulled doing something he’d not done in his 22 years of serving in the Wyoming Legislature after a fellow lawmaker behaved in a way that undermined the entire statehouse, the Casper lawmaker said.
“I thought about bringing a motion to reprimand a fellow House member over the weekend after I read a guest column in an online statewide newspaper,” Harshman said on the House floor Monday morning.
The Wyoming Constitution allows both the House and Senate to discipline members for contempt or disorderly behavior.
The column in question was written by Rep. John Bear, a Gillette Republican who previously chaired the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
Several news outlets published the column, in which Bear accused non-Freedom Caucus lawmakers of being “lobbyist-legislator hybrids.”
Without naming names, Bear took aim at budget amendments brought by Reps. Harshman, Elissa Campbell, R-Casper; Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander; Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie; Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie; and Pamela Thayer, R-Rawlins.
“Meanwhile, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and our conservative allies are working hard to cut wasteful spending while maintaining the constitutional functions of government,” Bear wrote.
To date, the Freedom Caucus has worked to cut money for public schools, maternity care, wildfire recovery funds, affordable housing grants and state dollars intended to leverage private and federal funds for energy projects, among other things.
Harshman, a former two-time speaker of the House, stopped short of bringing a disciplinary motion. Instead, he invoked a House rule that permits members five minutes to address a personal matter on the floor.
“For the representative from Campbell County to sit down, write and submit an article to a statewide paper that states that members of this House are lobbyists is to impugn the motives of the members and accuse members of being financially interested in their vote,” Harshman said. “That’s a serious accusation.”
Harshman acknowledged he has also made mistakes on the floor. In 2021, he apologized after cursing then-Rep. Chuck Gray in a hot mic moment.
“It’s important to remember who we are and what we stand for in Wyoming,” Harshman said. “Words matter, so behaviors like these damage the collegiality of this body and the respect for this institution and the entire state of Wyoming. And here in Wyoming, we’re better than that.”
After Harshman concluded his remarks, there was no further discussion on the floor.
“OK, members, moving on,” Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, said, before the House shifted to introducing Senate files.
Meanwhile, the Freedom Caucus quickly took to social media to double down.
“We are disturbed by the blatant disregard for the First Amendment embodied by a growing number of lawmakers in Wyoming who seek to silence criticism and dissent through reprimands and lawfare,” the Freedom Caucus wrote on X and Facebook.
Harshman was not the first lawmaker to rebuke Bear’s accusations.
As the House discussed a budget amendment Friday to make $40 million in wildfire recovery funds available through grants as opposed to loans, Provenza spoke up.
“This is a compromise and that’s often what this body has done. And there’s a lot of value and weight in that at times. That doesn’t make me a lobbyist. That makes me a representative of my community,” Provenza said.
“That makes me a representative of Wyoming’s western heritage. That makes me a representative of the people of the [agricultural] communities that are going to benefit from this,” she said.
Another statement of Bear’s also got pushback on the floor earlier this session.
In a press release titled, “There’s a new sheriff in town,” Bear accused Gov. Mark Gordon and two past Joint Appropriations committees of failing to follow a state law governing spending.
Harshman challenged Bear’s fidelity to the law during a debate on a bill to drain the School Foundation Program, starting with approximately a $25 million cut for the 2026 fiscal year, by pointing out that the state’s constitution requires Wyoming to fund public education.
“And then the court order will take over and raise property taxes on everybody, and I wonder how many will be held accountable for this vote,” Harshman said.
“This ain’t about no little plastic badge or anything else,” Harshman said, calling out Bear mythologizing himself as a sheriff. “This is a real deal.”
Bear did not respond to Harshman’s comments on the floor.
Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify the budget cuts proposed by the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. —Ed.
The achilles heel of our Republican form of government. Unless you’re independently wealthy, those running for office gotta aggressively dig up donners to finance their campaigns. PACs provided over $11M in 2024 to Wyoming campaigns, and I doubt they did this for solely altruistic reasons. Wearing nascar style stickers anyone?
Freedum Caucus members are trying to destroy Wyoming. They obviously have very little knowledge of how governments operate and continue to show the state with their ultra conservative nonsense how to destroy our ranches, farms, hospitals and schools.
The entire staff at WyoFile continues to do an outstanding job covering state wide issues that have a profound effect on all.
Rep. Marshmallow has an uphill climb as he is taking on not fellow Wyoming legislators, but a national organization determined to rule our state. According to the State Freedom Caucus Network (SFCN) website, statefreedomcaucus.org, there are at least 11 Wyoming legislators taking orders from this out-of-state group. While the SFCN lists Bear, Knapp, Heiner, Haroldson, Ottman, Winter, Allemand, Smith (Scott), Strickland, Singh and Pendergraft as under its control, it slyly mentions there are also others who wish to remain “anonymous.” The Freedom Caucus members’ move to slander and denigrate Harshman and others via social media is straight out of their Washington DC led playbook.
My question is why Wyoming folks have rolled over and played dead so quickly? Why are we complacent when an outside group barges in to call the shots? How does letting a cadre of DC elites lead us by the nose benefit our state? During the last election, the rumors they started against well-respected legislators were petty and uncalled for. We can slide down this slippery slope of slurs, greased by Freedom Caucus “staff and strategy” -their website text- or we can demand our elected representatives conduct themselves in a way that adheres to our Wyoming custom and culture of civility.
It would be nice to know how much each of these Freedom Caucus has earned in ”consulting fees” (or whatever they call the payoffs each earns for advancing these laws) from these national groups.
SFCN isn’t the only out-of-state organization that seeks to control our legislature. There’s also ALEC, whose corporate-funded boilerplate bills get far too much play in Cheyenne. The Wyoming Republican Party, also, takes too many orders from the national party rather than rejecting the party agendas which are harmful to our state. We need to become feisty and independent again. I’m glad to see there’s still some pushback on these interlopers.
“lobbyist-legislator hybrids” found under the word Politician in the dictionary.
This is bi-partisan in Federal State and Local governments.
Thanks for keeping us informed.
This is what one party rule looks like. Disgusting behavior.
No one, namely the government, stopped them from saying what they thought. The first amendment doesn’t protect you from criticism of the stupid things you say.
That’s not how it works. Send these clowns back home.
The moderate GOP is still living in Peter Pan world. If you think that by tsk-tsking, the Freedom Caucus will start abiding the rules, you are wrong. Playground thugs who team up to steal lunch money and peek under skirts do not care about the rules—they never did. Stomping your foot and proclaiming you are gonna go tell the principal doesn’t work either—cuz the principal hired them.
John Bear lacks a basic understanding of the 1st Amendment, specifically our protections of free speech. Two points:
1. Steve Harshman did not violate Bear’s 1st Amendment rights. Bear spoke his mind, and Harshman responded. Bear was not brought before the law nor charged with any crime. He was called on the carpet for saying something stupid.
2. Even by Bear’s flawed definitions, Harshman’s response should also be protected speech.
PLEASE, just stop.
That accusation is rich coming from Bear, who is, in effect, the lobbyist for the wacky ideas of the billionaire heir to the Goretex fortune
Thanks Maggie for the great reporting. Thanks also to Representative Harshman for standing up for democracy. John Bear, I feel sorry for you. All you can do is run down everyone else. The playground bully. I’m tired of you telling everyone else how bad they are. How about telling all of us what positive ideas you have for Wyoming and how you’re going to get there in our democratic republic.
We must realize there is no such thing as a freedom caucus. A better description is a freedom cult.
Wyofile, why not post the true story instead of the half-truths. Most of us already know the truth about the Harshman’s and the Larsen’s and the Nicholas’ in Wyoming. John Bear wrote a great article. It was a pleasure to read.
Karen, most of us know how to pluralize a noun, so I think we are capable of understanding the true story.
Ms. Wetzel; ” Most of us already know the truth……” maybe you could enlighten us with “the truth”, cause frankly I don’t know “the truth” , and perhaps there are others that don’t know as well.