CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - After 20 years in the Legislature, Wyoming Senate President Phil Nicholas made it official on Thursday that he won’t seek re-election after serving out his term that runs through this year.
“We know that nobody’s irreplaceable,” the Laramie Republican said, noting that other lawmakers have gained experience serving in a range of committees in recent years and will be ready to move up.
Nicholas has been a powerful fixture in the Legislature. He’s served as appropriations committee chairman in the House and Senate. He has been effective at securing funding for building projects and academic programs at the University of Wyoming, where he went to law school.
Nicholas is only the latest Senate veteran to announce he won’t be back. On Wednesday, former Senate President Tony Ross, R-Cheyenne, announced he also won’t seek re-election. Ross is the current chairman of the appropriations committee and, like Nicholas, is a lawyer in private practice.
Other senators who have announced they won’t return after this year are former Senate President Gerald Geis, R-Worland; Stan Cooper, R-Kemmerer and Wayne Johnson, R-Cheyenne. House Speaker Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, and Rep. Norine Kasperik, R-Gillette, also have announced they’re leaving after this year.
The departure of such veteran legislators means there are few left who remember how the state struggled through the last bust cycle in the 1990s - before coalbed methane production and other energy sources brought surging state revenues in the last decade.
Nicholas became House appropriations chairman in 2003, in time to help supervise the state’s investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in energy revenues in such programs as the Hathaway Scholarship program, which offers subsidized tuition at state community colleges and the University of Wyoming for resident students.
Recent years, however, have seen the state’s fortunes turn downward again, led by a decline in coal production. Nicholas has been among the first to warn that, with the decline of coal revenues, Wyoming will have to consider new taxes to continue to support public schools.
“That problem will require a recognition that another tax source is going to be needed, or another revenue source is going to be needed to replace coal lease bonuses,” Nicholas said. The only option, he said, would be the longshot possibility that coal lease bonus revenues start to flow again as soon as there’s a change in administrations in Washington.
Nicholas was a strong proponent of state savings during the recent good years when the state socked away nearly $2 billion in its so-called rainy day fund plus hundreds of millions more in a fund for school programs. He’s served on the panel overseeing the ongoing renovation of the state Capitol.
House Minority Floor Leader Rep. Mary Throne, D-Cheyenne, said Thursday she’s worked with Nicholas in the Legislature and has known him as an attorney since the early 1990s.
“We will miss his leadership, his independence and his breadth of knowledge about the state and state government, particularly the budget,” Throne said Thursday.
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