The questions before Wyoming’s Management Council should have been simple: Did a registered lobbyist serve as a legislative aide inside the Wyoming Senate during the 2026 legislative session, and who signed off on it? The answers are: Jordan Apollo Pazell served as a legislative aide while working as a registered lobbyist. It was Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott who signed off on the paperwork authorizing Pazell to do it.
This is not a small clerical problem. It goes to the heart of legislative access, internal rules, and taxpayer-supported operations. It also pertains to the public’s right to know who is being allowed behind the curtain at the Wyoming Capitol.
The rule is plain
Management Council Policy 96-01 governs legislator guests, legislator aides, high school interns and college interns. The policy says LSO provides official legislative badges identifying the person, role and sponsoring legislator, committee or caucus. It also requires the sponsoring legislator and the individual to sign a form acknowledging the badge conditions.
The plain-language rule states: individuals badged as guests, aides or interns may not be serving in any other capacity at the Capitol Complex, including lobbyists. That is the core allegation. A registered lobbyist was given legislator-aide access, and Senate leadership reportedly would not let Management Council investigate it.
During the 2026 Legislative Session, Pazell was a registered lobbyist according to the Wyoming Secretary of State.
The Senate knew how to condemn appearances
The contrast with the check incident is hard to miss. In February, the Wyoming Senate moved quickly to condemn the appearance of campaign checks being delivered on the House floor. Cowboy State Daily reported that all 31 Wyoming senators formally condemned the incident. Senate President Bo Biteman called “the appearance of vote-buying on the House floor or the Senate floor absolutely unconscionable.”
Nethercott, then Senate Majority Floor Leader and chair of the Senate Rules Committee, read the Senate’s official condemnation aloud. It condemned distributing campaign contributions to legislators during session while measures affecting the donor’s clients or interests were under consideration. The statement also said legislative integrity depends on public confidence that policy decisions are made on the merits, “not influenced by the timing of political contributions.”
As previously reported, concern was triggered after a photo circulated showing Pazell in Biteman’s office, while the Senate was on a break, eating pizza with Senate leadership. Pizza is not the issue; it is a question of access - and whether the Senate applies the same standard to itself that it demanded of the House. In the picture, Pazell is seated second to the left.
Management Council exists for this
House Speaker Chip Neiman told The Open Range Record he supported the motion to investigate because the issue raised concerns about a possible violation of state statute and Management Council rules. Neiman said the matter goes back to transparency and the voters’ right to know what is happening with their tax dollars.
Management Council is not a ceremonial side committee. Under Wyoming law, Management Council directs the activities of the Legislative Service Office and may make rules for the internal management of that office. Its policies govern legislative procedures, committee work, access, expenses and other internal operations of the Legislature.
Representative Scott Heiner, House Majority Floor Leader, who also supported an investigation, put the issue plainly:
We need increased transparency in government, and that should begin with legislature leadership. All votes by the Management Council need to be publicly displayed on the LSO website for all to see. For too long, the Management Council has operated behind closed doors, and that needs to change.
Both House and Senate Leadership need to follow established rules and procedures of government. If any rules were, or might have been violated, Leadership should be willing to investigate to maintain the integrity and decorum of the office.
According to Speaker Neiman, House members of Management Council voted 4-1 in favor of investigating the matter, with Rep. Mike Yin, the lone Democrat on the House side of Management Council, voting no. Senate members did not cast votes. The result was that the investigation did not move forward.
Biteman was asked. He did not respond
The Open Range Record sent Senate President Bo Biteman a request for comment on the Pazell matter. He was asked who Pazell was officially aiding during the 2026 session: Nethercott, the Senate President, Senate leadership generally, or multiple senators. He was also asked whether Pazell had access to the Senate floor, Senate chamber, caucus discussions, leadership meetings, internal documents, or other nonpublic areas and materials.
In addition, Biteman was asked why Senate members of Management Council did not cast votes on the House members’ motion to investigate. As of publication, Biteman had not responded.
Biteman is the Senate President, not a bystander. The allegation involves Senate access. The reported photo involved his office inside the Senate chamber, and the blocked investigation involving Senate members of Management Council declining to vote. As was previously reported by The Open Range Record, additional photos show Pazell inside the Senate Chamber.
Now Biteman is running for Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat. That makes the transparency question more politically relevant, not less. He wants Wyoming voters to send him to Washington to hold the federal government accountable. Before voters do that, he has a simpler question to answer at home: why would Senate leadership not investigate itself?
Nethercott’s signature
Nethercott signed the legislator-aide acknowledgment for Pazell. Management Council policy places responsibility on the sponsoring legislator. Legislator aides are not floating Capitol ghosts. They are sponsored, badged, and signed in.
A 2023 Casper Star-Tribune story republished by the Gillette News Record reported that Pazell was the managing principal consultant of Oquirrh Mountain Strategies and that Nethercott’s 2022 secretary of state campaign paid the firm $4,000 for advertising and miscellaneous expenses. The same article identified Pazell as a spokesman for marijuana initiative organizers, including Compassionate Options Wyoming, Wyoming NORML and the Wyoming Libertarian Party.
That prior campaign relationship makes the unanswered question even more important. This was not an unknown volunteer wandering in off the street. Pazell had a documented political and campaign connection to Nethercott, public involvement in Wyoming ballot-initiatives, and, according to the Wyoming Secretary of State, lobbyist status at the time he was allegedly signed in as an aide. If Senate leadership believed public confidence mattered when checks were passed on the House floor, why would public confidence matter less when the allegation involved a lobbyist/aide inside Senate leadership’s own orbit?
A standard, or just a slogan?
When CheckGate unfolded, the Senate had no trouble finding its moral voice. Biteman called the appearance of vote-buying unconscionable. Nethercott read the condemnation, and all 31 senators signed on. The Senate Rules Committee promptly began working on a new chamber rule addressing campaign contributions during session and in areas controlled by the Senate President.
If no rule was violated during the pizza incident, an investigation would clear the air. If a rule was violated, an investigation should have exposed it, but refusing to vote does neither. It leaves the public with silence, suspicion and the growing impression that the Senate knew how to condemn the House, but not how to examine itself. It is a test of whether accountability is a campaign slogan - or a standard Biteman is unwilling to apply when the pizza box is sitting in his own office.