The Wyoming House of Representatives voted Thursday to convene a committee to investigate allegations surrounding the handing out of a campaign check to a member of the House earlier this week.
Several media outlets reported Wednesday that one of the owners of The Open Range Record, Rebecca Bextel, handed out a campaign check to a legislator while on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Rep Karlee Provenza of Laramie, who was on the legislative floor at the time of the incident, took a photo of the incident. It clearly shows Bextel handing Rep Darin Mcann what appears to be a check. To be clear, the legislature had adjourned at the time of the incident.
Rep Provenza brought the motion to create a 7-person committee, appointed by the Speaker of the House to look into the incident:
“I move that the House of Representatives convene a special committee to investigate whether checks were provided to members of the House of Representatives on the floor of the House and whether that action is a violation of the Wyoming State Constitution under Article 3 Section 42 or Section 43 or constitutes legislative misconduct as defined in Joint Rule 22-117. The special committee would investigate all relevant facts about this matter, hold public hearings and issue a public report.”
Article 3 section 12 of the Wyoming Constitution gives each legislative chamber the power to discipline its members. It does not, however, give it the power to prosecute or investigate members of the general public. Should that be required the matter would have to be referred to law enforcement.
Legally, there’s nothing that prevents an elected individual from campaigning or fundraising during the legislative session. That certainly happens every day. The legislative session had concluded for the day when the “check incident” transpired; so, technically, where Bextel handed Mcann a check is irrelevant. Technically speaking, that is.
But, optics are rarely concerned with such mundane details as technicalities. Provenza’s picture, without context paints a thousand words—a legislator being handed a check on the floor of the House. The innocence of the act wanes in comparison to what it looks like. And what it looks like is bad.
The check in question, according to Bextel, was a campaign donation from someone in Teton county. Instead of mailing it, Bextel chose to deliver it in person for the donor. If she had handed it to the legislator in the hallway, the parking lot or at a restaurant away from the capitol we wouldn’t be having this discussion and I wouldn’t be writing this--because, that happens every day in Cheyenne. But it happened on the legislative floor after the close of the day’s session.
For around two hours, the House debated Provenza’s motion to create a committee to look into the check incident. At one point a motion to table Provenza’s motion until a time certain was made by Rep John Bear. That’s a motion in both Robert’s Rules of Order and in what the legislature uses, Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedure to postpone action until a later time. Rep Daniel Singh had moved 2 amendments and time was needed to draft them. One amendment was to make the findings of the committee subject to the Open Records Act—that failed.
The other amendment, offered by Rep Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, would have adjusted some of the language in Provenza’s motion to specify that the investigation cover events that happened during the session. This one also failed.
In the end, the House of Representatives voted unanimously to create a committee to look into the events of Monday night after the session had concluded.
After the vote, Bextel provided the following comment to The Open Range Record:
“I look forward to answering any questions in the process of this investigation. Fortunately, it’s going to disclose that I was simply going to Cheyenne and delivering some campaign checks that a Teton County donor wrote a few weeks ago. We were trying to save the hassle with the mail. Obviously, that would have been an easier route. Since I don’t know Mr. McCann personally, the only place I can see him is at the capitol.
After the session that evening, as people were going home, I handed him a donation check from the generous Teton County donor. We didn’t even really have a conversation. I will continue to fundraise for conservative candidates in an effort to move our House and Senate back to the Constitution and Wyoming values. And next time, I’ll just ask somebody to step outside.”
Bextel will appear on The Open Range Record’s nightly news program “The Roundup” Feb 12 at 7pm.