(Riverton, WY) U.S. Congresswoman Harriet Hageman made an impromptu appearance at the Town Hall meeting held last Saturday at the Riverton Holiday Inn.
Conducted by Senator Tim Salazar and House Representatives Pepper Ottman and Sarah Penn, issues presented and discussed during the 4-hour meeting included Election 2024, state and federal government issues and spending, property tax relief/reform, food, oil and gas prices, public funds leaving Wyoming through outside investment firms, food safety and the Food Freedom Act, RPD wages, recruitment and retention, schools, education and the library system, mental health, COVID-19, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) oil, legislation against China purchasing U.S. property, and the war in the Middle East.
At the behest of Salazar, Ottman, Penn, and those in attendance, Hageman gave an update on current issues and affairs in Washington D.C. that affect Wyoming citizens, and was able to take some questions from the audience.
“I will give you some idea of what’s going on in Washington, D.C, but the fact is, these are the people (state legislators) who have the biggest impact on your lives and should have the biggest impact on your lives,” Hageman said. “These are the ones that are accountable to the citizens of this great state and should be the ones that are empowered to make the decisions that impact your lives every day. Not us. But the problem is, we’re the ones that are impacting your lives, and not in a very good way.”
A House Shut Out and No Speaker
Hageman expressed her frustrations with the Senate shutting down bipartisan efforts, and that, for the first time in U.S. History, there was no Speaker of the House. As one of the original co-sponsors of House Resolution 771, Hageman said that she stands with Israel, that there were 414 supporters of the bill, and that it was “clearly a bipartisan issue to address this terrible, tragic situation,” she said.
Hageman also said that President Biden has been “tapping into” Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) and selling SPR oil to China. “It (SPR) is now well below 50 percent capacity,” Hageman said. “It takes nine years to fill our SPR oil…nine years. We are down to 17 days of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve…and we have war breaking out in the Middle East. We passed a bill where over 400 people…Republicans and Democrats alike…we came together and passed a bill to prohibit him from selling our SPR oil to China. The Senate hasn’t taken it up.”
Hagemen said the House also passed two bills specifically addressing the issue of China and foreign interests purchasing and owning property in the United States.
“One of them is a straight bill that China cannot own property in the United States,” she said. “The second is that maligned actors around the world cannot own property within the United States (Iran, North Korea and Russia)…that one is targeted to lands that are around sensitive areas such as military bases, food manufacturing plants…we passed those bills on a bipartisan basis, and the Senate has not taken them up. They have taken up very few of the bills that we have passed…”
“We have passed 70% of the funding for next year’s budget out of the House of Representatives with four of our Appropriations bills,” Hageman continued. “We already passed Appropriations bills on agriculture, FDA, defense, homeland security, and the state department. The Senate won’t take them up because they want to ram Omnibus down our throats coming in December, and we’re trying every which way that we possibly can to prevent that from happening.”
COVID-19
Regarding COVID-19, Hageman commented about the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic as being able to demonstrate that the virus was lab-created, with the findings as “being investigated and disclosed right now…I can absolutely tell you that it absolutely came out of the Wuhan lab in Wuhan, China,” she said. “We have to stop lying about that and we have to stop letting other people lie and try to gaslight us into believing it was something else.”
Law enforcement, community safety, and health
Riverton citizen Karen Johnson asked about local law enforcement funding, recruitment and retention, mental health, and community safety. Hageman said that they were state and local issues.
“I’m very cognizant of not getting the federal government involved,” Hageman replied. “Except that we have become involved, because so much funding comes from the federal government. I would rather see lot grants under the states so that the states can make their own decisions with their communities and counties to address. I know we have a mental health crisis in this country; one of them is because of the government itself, and I’m not talking about individuals; I’m talking about (bad) policies. They fund a lot of Washington, D.C. before the money ever gets to where it needs to be. That’s why I want the money to come to the states in the community so that you can address the issues you need to.”
HD 34 Representative Pepper Ottman: Property Tax Reform
House Representative Ottman said there were attempts made to pass several property tax bills, and distributed a list of legislation that they had worked on, but had died (or was “killed”) in committee, including: Homestead exemption for a primary residence, property tax exemption for the elderly and veterans, increased assessed property value amount for veterans annual exemption, tax exemption on agricultural repair parts, property tax refund for rental properties, property tax holiday, tax holiday for schools, residential property classification tax code and constitution (no 2/3rds majority), creating a property tax relief authority, property tax mill levy adjustments, and personal property tax exemption.
“All of these bills that were killed in committee? It wasn’t Democrats who did it,” Ottman said. “So you need to know what your representatives are doing…me, and everybody else. Get online, look at these bills and find out what’s going on and why. That is what you need to do because if not, the same people will continue to do the same things.”
“You can see that there were attempts by your representatives to pass some property tax bills,” Ottman continued. “What I’m fighting for is not relief as much as reform, so there are a few things I did not vote for because I want reform to happen, not just a little bit of relief. There was discussion on every one of the bills…I’m not a tax expert, but what I will say is that we had a tendency in the House this year to say, ‘Maybe that’s not constitutional.’ With as many lawyers as we have, in the legislature, we should know what is not constitutional.”
Senator Tim Salazar: Buy Local Food
“One of the reasons why I’m bringing this bill on China is that I don’t want to see the Chinese purchase our ag land in Wyoming,” Salazar said. “Other states are already addressing it. We need to address it here. It’s a national security issue. I’m concerned about our food safety. That’s why we’re bringing the Food Freedom Act amendments. I’m concerned about the price of food, it’s going up, like our fuel costs. Buy local food. It tastes better, it’s better for you, and it’s less expensive. I want to see our local producers grow. I think we’re headed in the right direction as a community. I don’t know that we’re heading in the right direction as a nation on these issues…”
Election 2024
Salazar said that there is a new Secretary of State and that he would be working with the county clerks “to make sure that 2024 would have less issues than the previous elections,” he said. “I know that in the budget session, there are going to be proposals made. Representative Ottman is on Corporation and that’s where some of these elections issues are going to be addressed.”
“If there was one message I wish I could give to the people, who sit in the legislature, it’s that all government derives its power from the people. We work for you, not the other way around.”
HD 33 Representative Sarah Penn: A Spending Problem
“We really don’t have a revenue problem so much as we have a significant spending problem,” said Penn. “There’s a lot of money going to things that we should not ask taxpayers to be funding…so again, it’s activity by you. Educate your circles. The people still have the power. It’s easy to get overwhelmed…it’s so easy to say ‘Whatever, I’m going to leave it up to those who I elected…there’s nothing I can do.’ There are things that you can do…you can still stand up and say, ‘I’m not okay with that.’’ Keep your elected people accountable. You show up to those city council meetings and you show up to those county commissioners meetings, even though it isn’t fun. I don’t like doing it, either. But if we don’t, then we are going to continue in this spiral in the wrong direction. We’re here so you guys can keep us accountable, but I’m going to throw that back to you a little bit; I need you to be accountable for what the duty of a citizen requires.”
Getting involved as a citizen
Penn encouraged citizens to go to Wyoleg.gov in order to be aware of what’s going on in their state government.
“Most of these bills, we never even got a chance to vote on because they were killed in (revenue) committee, on the House side,” Penn continued. “So you can go and see who our members of the revenue committee are and how did those guys vote? That’s the part of being engaged as a citizen…that’s big for me, is citizen engagement. That’s the reason I’m here today…I wasn’t happy with the the things that were going on in our state our country, so I started trying to find people who I thought were going to be good representatives to stand with the things I felt were important, and I really struggle with that. Not because there’s not good people out there, but mostly because they’re not people out there that care enough to be willing to do this…to come here and sit through this and recognize what the issues are and fight for it, so thank you for that. There is more work to be done.”
“We have to get back to the very foundation of our government. This government is you…not me, you. You’re the government. You’re the ones who get to decide. You’re the ones who should be talking to these folks about your priorities. What is your interest? How do we protect our schools? How do we protect our communities? Yet we have stockpiled so much power back in Washington DC that when you have a catastrophe like losing a speaker, it affects so many people in so many ways. That’s a paradigm that needs to change, and I understand that. I get that; I want to work towards that…but there are some things that we have to do in Congress to be able to fix it, and we also need to make sure that we’ve got people right here in this state who can take that mantle and run with it…who are going to pursue the best policies for the state of Wyoming, that are going to protect it…these three up here are those people. I have worked with them for years…they have stepped up at a time where it is not easy to represent you and represent your interests.” – – U.S.House Representative Harriet Hageman