In a deeply red Wyoming, there aren’t many swing districts or areas where Democrats have a legitimate chance of gaining seats in the Wyoming Legislature.
House District 33 in Fremont County is one of the few exceptions, swinging from blue to red to blue and back to red since 2012.
The district includes the Wind River Reservation, which historically tends to lean toward Democratic candidates. The rest of the district is much more conservative and favors Republicans.
The candidates for HD 33 — incumbent state Rep. Sarah Penn, R-Fort Washakie, and Democratic challenger Ivan Posey — are aware that theirs is usually a swing district. And each is making appeals to voters of the opposite party along the campaign trail.
“The only way that the people of Wyoming are going to get things done is by a cooperative effort,” Posey said. “Sometimes the roar of the divisiveness overshadows the voice of the people and sometimes nothing gets done.”
Who’s Penn?
Penn is a nurse practitioner who’s running for reelection to a second term in office after going unopposed in this year’s Republican primary. In 2022, she knocked off two-term Democratic legislator Andi LeBeau in a somewhat surprising victory.
Penn is a member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and expresses staunch conservative views. She’s running for reelection as a way to continue advocating for the working-class people in her district.
“I have seen a government who pursues a status quo in spite of citizen outcry, one who values the dollar more than the liberty of the people,” she said. “The people were once an annoyance. They need to reclaim their priority position, and I would like to help facilitate that.”
Penn has made health care her primary focus since taking office, sponsoring a number of bills that seek to reduce government regulation. She has remained consistent with her campaign promises to support parental choice in education decisions and oppose vaccine mandates and abortion rights.
As a member of the Health, Labor and Social Services Committee, Penn occasionally promoted or expressed verbal support for various right-wing COVID-19 and vaccine-related theories during meetings.
Penn said her experience on this committee taught her that it’s possible for stakeholders who disagree on issues to find common ground and work toward the betterment of Wyoming residents.
During her time in the Legislature, Penn brought legislation seeking to expand restrictions on pornography and a bill requiring that all blood donated from a person who has received a COVID-19 vaccine to be specifically labeled.
Neither of these or any of Penn’s other bills came close to passing, but that could change for the upcoming session if she’s reelected, as the Freedom Caucus had a very successful primary election.
“We are reaping the fruit of fiscally irresponsible policy and people feel it,” she said. “They realize that a course correction is urgently needed, and they have responded in kind.”
If reelected, Penn wants to help Wyoming “focus on true health” by directing money toward educating and empowering people to make healthier decisions, which she believes will decrease health care costs to the state and cut down on diseases.
She also wants to continue improving government transparency within the government to allow more public participation and “continue to stand up to protect our families and children by promoting decency and common sense.”
Penn for the most part doesn’t believe the reservation should be managed or treated differently than any other part of Wyoming. A lack of representation in government, she said, causes the same final result no matter where it’s taking place. Public participation is the ultimate remedy, she believes.
“The past two years has revealed that many issues affecting citizens are the same on, and off, of the reservation,” she said. “Citizens are not having their voices heard by those who are supposed to represent them. This is what inspired me to run in the last election. Government should exist for the people and by the people, no matter which government you're talking about.”
Penn said she considers public safety, solid waste management and illegal dumping, and low education performance on the reservation to be issues that she specifically wants to work on.
Although the two are on friendly terms, Penn said they most notably disagree on the role of government in society.
“I believe that government should exist to serve the people by protecting their God-given rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness,” she said. “My purpose is to uphold the constitution, not to take from one in an attempt to provide for another. We cannot exercise our state sovereignty if we are pandering for the federal dollar.”
Who’s Posey?
Posey is a U.S. Army veteran, tribal education coordinator and professor at Central Wyoming College, the first tribal liaison under former Gov. Dave Freudenthal in 2003.
“I think my connections with the communities in this district, I think I could represent all of them,” he said. “I just feel like I could do a better job of representation because of my experience in government, experience in other areas and just knowing a lot of people in the community.”
He said he's running to bring a voice of reason to the Legislature and solutions to constituents through bipartisanship. Although he considers himself an independent thinker, Posey said he’ll have to reach across the aisle and work with the Freedom Caucus if elected.
“It doesn’t matter what caucus or political affiliation, I won’t be able to do this stuff by myself,” he said.
Posey said providing better mental health and health care services and improving education in Wyoming will be his biggest priorities if elected.
“Everything, in my opinion, has opportunity to be enhanced,” he said.
With state Sen. Affie Ellis, R-Cheyenne, retiring at the end of the year, there will be no remaining Native Americans in the Wyoming Legislature unless Posey is elected.
The Wind River Reservation has some of the lowest school testing scores in the state. Posey wants to tackle this problem by integrating more culturally connected methods of teaching to these schools.
From a broader perspective, Posey wants to help people who live on the reservation recognize that they are legitimate Wyoming residents with just as much an opportunity to contribute to the state as anyone else.
“Not just on the reservation, but (so that) they have a louder voice outside of our borders,” he said.
He also wants to improve support for seniors and veterans.
Property Taxes
Providing property tax relief for Wyoming homeowners has been an ongoing topic in the Legislature for decades, but the discussion has taken on a fevered pitch lately after home values shot up as result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Property tax relief does not apply to most people living on the reservation, where most tribal land is granted in trust so property taxes don’t exist on it. Posey wants to see more equitable property tax solutions across the board for the rest of the homeowners in his district.
Penn believes the best way to address property taxes is to control state spending.
“When we have a budget surplus, that money should go toward paying down property taxes,” she said.
A constitutional amendment will go to voters in November that if passed would allow lawmakers to adjust the state’s residential property tax rate.
Penn said she’s against this measure because of the potential that the tax rate could be increased as a result of it. Posey said he hasn’t come to a final conclusion about it.
Abortion
Posey said he’s pro-life on abortion but doesn’t support government restrictions on it.
"I don't think government should interfere with a woman's right to choose," he said.
Penn is also pro-life and supports government regulation of the practice, specifically the Wyoming laws passed in recent years banning most forms of abortion. While these laws are being challenged in court, abortion is still legal in Wyoming.
The Race
Posey raised $18,854 during his primary campaign, with $500 coming from pharmaceutical giant Cigna.
Penn raised $24,599. During its meeting in September, the Wyoming Republican Party committed $6,000 for Penn’s campaign, the most approved for any single candidate by the state party this election season.
Many Democrats around Wyoming are looking at the HD 33 race as one of the best opportunities for the party to gain back a seat in the Legislature. Posey said he’s aware of this pressure but is trying to stay focused locally.
A win in HD 33 would be critical for Wyoming Democrats, who lost two seats in the 2022 election, while the Republicans increased their supermajority, gaining five in total thanks to also turning a couple of third-party seats red and winning a newly created district.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
