Driskill, Bear Throw Down With Accusations Of Lying, Wasting Tax Money

The 2025 legislative session may be winding down, but the mudslinging between leading members of the Wyoming House and Senate is in mid-session form with accusations of lying, “disrespecting staff” and wasting tax money. 

State Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, and Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, got into a heated exchange over the weekend about the way this year’s legislative session has gone.

Driskill was the Senate president last session, while Bear is the House Appropriations Committee chairman and chairman emeritus of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, largely credited for spearheading growth of the conservative group that took control of the House in the last election.

Bomb Throwing

It all started when Driskill made a Facebook post offering, “Congratulations to the so-called Freedom Caucus.”

“They killed 22 Committee bills without a hearing,” Driskill wrote. “Disrespecting staff and legislators time- wasting your tax dollars—SAD!”

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus holds a majority of seats in the House and all of the leadership positions.

This session, the House has killed 30 committee and task force bills before they reached the chamber floor and 13 bills before they got to a committee for a hearing.

Conversely, the Senate killed one committee bill before it ever got a hearing and seven committee and task force bills before it could be considered on the floor for all senators to hear.

Committee and task force bills are created over the course of the interim session, which involves 3-4 meetings over the course of the spring, summer and fall, and many hours of staff time. 

“All that time spent on those bills was wasted,” Driskill told Cowboy State Daily.

While Driskill was engaging in a back-and-forth on the post with conservative commentator David Iverson about Driskill’s record of killing bills when he was Senate president, Bear decided to chime in, commenting, “That’s what happens when your management team has committees work on gambling bills all summer.”

Driskill responded that Bear’s comment was “a blatant lie.”

Taking Sides

Bear then rifled off six committee gambling bills that were advanced last summer in the House. Although Driskill wasn’t a member of any of these committees, he was the chairman of the Management Council that approved the topics committees would decide over the summer.

“By you killing their work you wasted the time — hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars and flushed it away,” Driskill said. “Way to show disrespect of Representatives, Senators and staff.” 

Driskill also mentioned how gambling is a more than $1 billion industry in Wyoming, which he believes needs to be more regulated. He called Bear’s actions “irresponsible and a direct waste of taxpayer dollars.”

“Where were you when this all was discussed publicly?????? As usual lie, distort and disparage,” he said.

At this point former House Speaker Albert Sommers piped up and took Driskill’s side, saying he didn’t remember getting any negative testimony about hearing gaming bills during the Management Council’s spring meeting where it decided topics.

Bear then changed subjects, saying the Senate’s recent killing of the supplemental budget was a much greater waste of staff time. The crafting of this budget alone takes a significant number of meetings each December and hundreds of hours of staff time.

Driskill said he had no comment to this remark, but supports the Senate leadership’s “decisions dealing with snakes,” in reference to House leadership, and said the budget would have gone differently if the Freedom Caucus could be trusted.

To that, Bear responded with a crying with laughter emoji.

The two then exchanged a few more insults before the conversation ended.

What 'People Really Care About'

In a conversation with Cowboy State Daily on Monday morning, Bear said the bills passed reflect the will of the Wyoming people. He bases this off a poll the Freedom Caucus conducted last summer.

“What did pass is things that the people really care about,” Bear said.

Bear believes Driskill and Sommers, who were in leadership positions from 2023-2024, were far less responsive and connected to the wishes of the people than the current leadership. The desire for change, Bear said, is why the Freedom Caucus made massive gains during the 2024 election.

“Ex-President Driskill still doesn’t understand that,” Bear said. 

Driskill Explains

Driskill told Cowboy State Daily that he found it insulting how many committee bills died when considering the Freedom Caucus made it a top priority to pass its “Five and Dime” bills at the start of the session.

He also questions the need for having an interim session if most bills coming out of it end up being killed.

“They killed bills that will help our economy and help our state in the long term,” Driskill said. “All they’re concerned with is getting reelected and adding more members.”

Specifically, Driskill cited the House Minerals Committee killing a bill brought by Sen. Ed Cooper, R-Ten Sleep, establishing regulations for the storage of nuclear fuel by advanced nuclear reactor manufacturers.

Driskill said this bill dying will directly hinder a project that BWX Technologies was planning to pursue to build a potential nuclear fuel factory in Wyoming.

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