Hageman visits Goshen County

GOSHEN COUNTY – Even though Wyoming is known by many for its renowned worldwide beauty and grandeur of the Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks; locals know that Wyoming is much more than that. Wyoming is not only a beautiful place, but it also has a unique culture and people. 

Wyomingites are a strong, hearty population of people who care about each other and want their voices to be heard.

Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman has been working hard on that goal as she ensures the people of Wyoming are being properly represented in Washington, D.C. She does this all while also working on keeping her campaign promises.

“I promised to host a town hall in every county, every year, and will have fulfilled that promise in half that time,” Hageman said when she announced her seventh series of town hall meetings at the beginning of June. “After over three weeks in the legislative session, I am excited to come back home and update Wyomingites on what we have done and the votes we have taken. 

“Under Republican leadership, we have held hundreds of committee hearings in addition to passing consequential bills,” she continued. “As always, I welcome ideas and feedback from all our town hall attendees and look forward to answering questions.”

On Thursday night, June 29, Hageman was back at home in Goshen County for a town hall meeting. Residents filled the Goshen County Fairgrounds Brand Room for their opportunity to listen to Hageman speak and to ask her questions. 

“I think it’s important for people to understand that the history of this world has changed dramatically in the last 100 years,” Hageman told the audience. “For 100s, if not 1,000s of years, things were pretty similar. In the last 100 years with the invention of air conditioning, vehicles, refrigerators, freezers, computers, smartphones and electric bicycles, along with all the other things, we’ve seen things that have changed the course of history.”

“We have a standard of living now, and a lot of that standard of living is because of the state of Wyoming,” she continued. 

Hageman said she does her best to remind those in Washington, D.C. our history and how important Wyoming is to sustain our way of life. 

Since she took office in January, Hageman has been focusing on several different issues, including the weaponization of the federal government, violation of first amendment rights and attacks on churches and parents.

“When I have the opportunity to challenge people for their bad decisions, I do it because I’m channeling all of you,” Hageman said. “I’m saying what I know many of you would like to say because these things need to be said. We need to be holding people accountable, and we haven’t done it for a long, long time.”

“Some of the things we’ve been seeing come out of the federal government are outrageous,” she continued. “We are exposing them because we’ve got to fix [these issues] and make sure that they can’t ever happen again.”

Through her work so far, Hageman said it has surprised her the number of people who are not necessarily constrained by the truth. Even if the fact is absolutely, demonstrably untrue, people will say it anyway. She has taken it upon herself several times to push back and argue against any questionable or false information.

A few of the bills Hageman has introduces include the REINS Act, HR 1 and HR 2.

She has also voted to overturn the ATF pistol brace rule, protect women and girls in sports and to instate a parents’ Bill of Rights. 

The REINS Act is a bill that reins in the administrative state and requires any regulation that has an economic impact of over $100 million to be approved by Congress before going into effect. HR 1 is a bill to protect the country’s ability to produce oil, coal and gas. HR 2 is a strong border security bill. 

Hageman has also been working on the subcommittees for water, wildlife and fisheries and Indian and insular affairs. On these subcommittees, she has been overseeing all 574 tribes and the five territories, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. 

“One of the issues that I’ve been dealing with on [the Indian and insular affairs subcommittee], is that the Bureau of Indian Affairs and our Indian Health Services have spent an awful lot of money, but it hasn’t been in bettering the lives of our Native American population in this country,” Hageman said. “For example, they have failed our native populations in terms of providing the health care that we promised to them. There’s a lot of just flat incompetence.”

They had an incident several months ago, she recalled, where they held a hearing to let Native American women testify about the brutal challenges, they have faced with the health services on their reservations. The women were from the Portland, North Dakota, Oklahoma and New Mexico reservations. The head of the Indian Health Services was required to be at the hearing; however, they did not show. 

“A couple of months ago, she came in to defend her budget and they wanted billions and billions of dollars,” Hageman continued. “When she showed up, I said, ‘I’m sorry, where were you? You needed to be here. Those women had stories to tell and you weren’t here to listen.’”

Furthermore, they are also trying to challenge/change the law that dictates that reservations cannot lease their trust land for longer than 25 years. Hageman explained this law makes it hard for the reservations to attract convenience stores, hotels, grocery stores and other businesses. A few people are really interested in building on a property and then only being allowed to use it for 25 years.

“I have met with tribes from all over this country and you know what they want,” Hageman asked. “They want autonomy. They want to be left alone. They want to be able to do with their property and their people what everybody else gets to do.”

“So far, the tribes are very pleased with having someone who is willing to listen and talk about taking care of themselves,” she continued. “[They] should have the ability to do that. They’re better at it than the federal government is and better than the Department of Interior is.”

After providing the attendees with updates on her work so far this year, she then took the time to answer numerous questions from the audience. 

“I’m honored to represent the state of Wyoming,” Hageman declared. “People are fascinated with our state. People are very jealous of the people who live in Wyoming and the opportunities that we have.”

“We really are what America could be,” she continued. “Just looking at this room, the number of people here who are raising food, energy producers, teachers, engineers, accountants and small business owners, this is really what America is. This is what we are. This is what we have to protect.”