Complaints dismissed against Wyoming lawmakers who revealed ‘Checkgate’

CHEYENNE—State lawmakers who first spoke out about campaign checks distributed on the House floor did not break any legislative rules by doing so, the Wyoming Legislature’s House Management Council concluded. 

Reps. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, and Mike Yin, D-Jackson, faced multiple written complaints in connection to their roles in the controversy, Speaker Pro Tempore Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, said Wednesday on the floor. Haroldson chaired the five-member House Management Council, which handles legislative complaints, as it reviewed those against Yin and Provenza. 

Traditionally, the House Speaker would chair, but Haroldson said he was brought in since Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, was involved in the incident.

In its review of the complaints, Haroldson said that the House Management Council determined, among other things, that neither Provenza and Yin violated any legislative rules. Provenza first alerted the media to the fact that a conservative activist had handed out checks to lawmakers on the House floor. Yin first raised the issue publicly two days later during a legislative debate. 

The council also found that Provenza and Yin’s constitutional rights to freedom of speech superseded any legislative rules. 

“It wasn’t legislative misconduct,” Haroldson said on the floor. “But it doesn’t mean there wasn’t pain that came out of it.”

More specifically, Haroldson said, the council found that Provenza “seriously impugned the integrity and general order of the Wyoming House of Representatives,” by notifying the media instead of opting to use an internal, confidential process, known as Joint Rule 22-1.

“One of the things we have to understand, we have a constitutional right, but sometimes our constitutional rights also bring other people into harm’s way,” Haroldson said. “And the decisions we make are incredibly important.”

After adjournment Wednesday, Yin and Provenza told reporters that they stood by their decision not to use the Legislature’s formal process. 

“I think everything you see, since all of this has fallen out in the public, is just a validation that it would have been a complete disservice to the people of Wyoming if I trusted leadership to do this job,” Provenza said. 

Both lawmakers called the allegations that either of them broke the rules a “deflection” from the check-passing incident. 

How we got here

Rebecca Bextel, a Teton County GOP committeewoman, handed out campaign checks to four Republican lawmakers on the House floor on opening day of the 2026 session, Feb. 9, after the body had adjourned. Those lawmakers and Bextel say they did nothing wrong by doing so.

While the controversy dominated the session — spurring an executive order, legislative rule changes and two separate investigations — a House special committee determined there was no wrongdoing, though it concluded the conduct “was undesirable and must never occur again.” A criminal investigation by the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office is ongoing.

Provenza took a now widely circulated photograph of Bextel handing a check to Rep. Darin McCann, R-Rock Springs, with Rep. Marlene Brady, R-Green River, standing in the background with a check in her hand. After receiving a copy of the photograph, WyoFile and the Jackson Hole News&Guide substantiated what it appeared to show using security footage, interviews with lawmakers and a social media post by Bextel in which she said she had delivered “lawful campaign checks.”

Two days later, Yin brought the checks to the House’s attention when a bill that would have prohibited housing mitigation fees was being introduced on the floor. 

Yin’s comments spurred a rebuke from Neiman and Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, a former leader of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. Both received checks — but not on the House floor. Don Grasso, the Teton County donor, named 10 politicians that the checks were intended for. He told journalists he intended the checks to be mailed, rather than hand-delivered.

Since news broke, Bextel, several Republican lawmakers and members of the Wyoming Republican Party have criticized Provenza and Yin’s actions. By mid-February, those criticisms escalated into ethics complaints. 

Complaints

According to Legislative Service Office records, a total of four complaints were submitted against Provenza and Yin, all of which accused the two lawmakers of breaking Joint Rule 22-1. 

First adopted by the Legislature in 2011, Joint Rule 22-1 provides a formal process for members of the public, or lawmakers, to file ethics complaints. The rule requires the complaint be kept confidential until it is either dismissed, referred for a formal investigation or “other final dispositive action.” 

Rep. Tony Locke, R-Casper, filed the first complaint on Feb. 17, in which he alleged that the actions by Provenza and Yin constituted “ethics violations” and “triggered an unprecedented degradation in the decorum of the House of Representatives.”

“Had the original allegations of Representatives Provenza and Yin been handled pursuant to the Joint Rules adopted by the Wyoming House, the body would be in a much different place today,” he wrote. 

Locke’s complaint mirrored remarks he made on the floor during the session, including on the heels of the investigative committee releasing its findings. That day, Locke said it was “the wrong thing to do to our people” to go to the media instead of leadership. 

“We need to respect each other more than to try our neighbors and our people in this room in the court of public opinion, where you know that the intellectually dishonest will pile on and absolutely will ensure these people are considered guilty until proven innocent,” Locke said. 

Grasso, the Teton County donor, said Locke was also one of 10 individuals he intended to receive a campaign check. When asked by a reporter earlier in the session, Locke declined to comment on whether he received a check. He did not testify to the House investigative committee and never admitted to receiving one.

In a Feb. 23 letter, Provenza pushed back on Locke’s complaint. 

“My decisions relating to what I saw on the House floor were intended to protect our body against degradation. Our body helps make the laws that govern our state and promote the welfare, success, lives, liberty, and property of our people,” Provenza wrote. “My actions, as alleged by Rep. Locke, do not constitute legislative misconduct.”

The next steps

After the complaints came in, Haroldson said a subcommittee required by the rules and composed of himself, House Majority Floor Leader Scott Heiner, R-Green River, and Rep. Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie, met last week to discuss what to do with them.

Haroldson said he took over for Neiman because of the speaker’s connection to the checks. As House Minority Floor Leader, Yin would have also been on the subcommittee but couldn’t since the complaints were also against him. 

The subcommittee dismissed the complaints against Yin, but further considered those against Provenza. 

Haroldson updated Provenza and Yin on Friday about the complaints. Provenza said in an interview Wednesday Haroldson asked her to apologize instead of going further with the ethics complaint process. 

In an interview, Haroldson confirmed that he made the request, but that he didn’t “anticipate or expect her desire to apologize for exercising her rights.” But he told reporters if Provenza had said she wasn’t trying to hurt anyone and only wanted transparency, “I think we could have closed this chapter.” 

“The people who complained would have heard the fact that, ‘Hey, her intention wasn’t to create problems,” he said.

At the end of the day, Haroldson said “no one can make someone apologize.”

“I did not do anything wrong,” Provenza told reporters Wednesday. 

Provenza said she refused to apologize and that she didn’t know what was going to happen with the complaint after her conversation with Haroldson — whether an investigative committee would be formed, if the complaint would be dismissed or if she would be punished.

Both Yin and Haroldson confirmed that House Management Council convened to further discuss the complaints against Provenza after the subcommittee consisting of Haroldson, Heiner and Sherwood met.

Yin was allowed to take part in this discussion, along with Reps. Neiman, Bear, Heiner and Haroldson. The group decided that Provenza did not break the rules.

Provenza didn’t find out what House leaders decided until Wednesday morning, when Haroldson spoke on the floor.

Provenza said she was taken by surprise when Haroldson spoke about the details of the complaints on the floor. Yin said the move was highly unusual. 

“I’ve never seen a dismissal for an ethics complaint in the eight years that I’ve been in the Legislature be read out on the floor,” Yin said. “It’s never, ever, ever happened.”

Haroldson said he made the decision to go public because lawmakers are receiving calls daily from their constituents.

“Before we went into recess as the Legislature, we felt that the best course of action is to clear both of their names,” he said in an interview. “But at the same time, have a conversation of, ‘Hey, we can do better than this in the future.’” 

Yin and Provenza said the fallout from the check passing was because of other lawmakers’ actions, not the two Democrats’ decision to take it public. Provenza said she went to the press because she “knew it would have to be corroborated,” and “the people that received the checks would have to be approached.” 

“There’s been a constant effort to try and deflect and make this about my actions, to take a photo and share it with the press, instead of the fact that the Speaker took a check in his office and that members of this body took checks on the House floor,” Provenza said. “It is a dishonest attempt to try to take the heat off of them and make me look like the bad guy. And I don’t think that the public supports that idea at all.”

Comments as session concludes

Before Haroldson broached the complaints on Wednesday, Rep. Joe Webb, R-Lyman, asked to speak to the body about a personal matter, as permitted under legislative rules. He prefaced his comments with a disclaimer that his “words are not directed towards any individual here or throughout the state,” but rather a “collective statement.” 

Webb’s voice was filled with emotion. He said during his 16 years in law enforcement and throughout his life, he has wondered how other people could choose to hurt one another.

“I acknowledge I’ve hurt people,” he said. “We’re supposed to forgive. We’re supposed to take the high road. I’m trying. But I will admit I’m not fully there yet.” 

He discussed unintended consequences resulting from “some actions,” but didn’t expand further about what actions specifically. 

Webb, who Grasso intended to receive a check, confirmed that he received the campaign donation from Bextel. Testifying candidly in front of the House Special Investigative Committee in February, he shared many text messages between Bextel and himself, answered every question and gave a strong statement at the end denying any insinuations of bribery.

On the House floor Wednesday, he shared his own family’s experience from the last few weeks.

“You haven’t seen my wife in tears,” Webb said. “She was here this whole session, but could only muster up the courage to come into this chamber or this area, into the gallery, twice.” 

“As we return home, I want to wish every one of you, every person throughout the state that has condemned me or anybody else, every person at home that has condemned me or anybody else, the very best in life,” he said. 

Neiman acknowledged Webb’s remarks in his final address Wednesday to the chamber, saying he had “no more respect for anyone than” Webb and what he “shared this morning.”

“I’m going to try to explain some things to my people at home that I don’t think I really should have had to explain, but I’m gonna,” Neiman said. “And that’s alright.”

Neiman said he didn’t bear any lawmaker any “ought or any grudge.” He said he offered “full and complete forgiveness” for anything that he perceived being “wounded by or challenged with.”

“That’s water under the bridge, ladies and gentleman,” he said. “And I’m not gonna hang onto it.” 

Shortly following Neiman’s remarks, the House adjourned sine die. The 2026 legislative session had concluded.

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