A message from Wyoming House of Representatives candidate Liz Storer.

JACKSON, Wyo. – At the Oct. 21 forum for county commission and town council candidates, hosted by Protect Our Waters and the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, candidates broadly agreed: we need to do a better job managing growth in our community.

The harder question is how to give local governments the resources — and the authority —to turn that stated consensus into action.

Ensuring that growth serves our community — protecting water quality and wildlife habitat, providing affordable housing, and preserving community character requires leadership and investment. It also requires state government to respect local decisions, rather than overturn local sentiment when landowners and their lobbyists take complaints to Cheyenne. The candidates’ unanimous support for defending local authority over pond regulation underscored that point.

As a legislator, I have a direct role in this work: securing resources, defending local decision-making and building support to protect our community’s priorities. 

Here are my top five priorities for strengthening the partnership between Cheyenne and our community:  

Put Wyoming’s permanent funds to work responsibly

My experience overseeing an endowment has taught me the importance of long-term thinking, disciplined oversight and protecting the assets future generations will depend on. I bring that experience to Wyoming’s permanent funds: scrutinizing investment costs and performance, supporting sound management and pursuing statutory and constitutional changes that will improve the state’s investment returns — the best way to replace diminishing mineral revenues while keeping our taxes low. 

Build a fairer revenue system 

Wyoming’s legal and tax system offers significant benefits to wealthy corporations and individuals. This includes no state individual or corporate income tax and favorable laws for holding and transferring wealth through trusts and other entities. Those benefits help make Wyoming an extremely attractive place to organize businesses and manage assets – even for people who don’t live here. Our overall approach to raising revenue should better reflect who benefits and their ability to contribute — giving low- and middle-income working families a break while ensuring those who benefit most pay a fair share. New revenues can help pay for the investments needed to build a prosperous future. 

Make local control more than a campaign slogan

Many incoming legislators emphasized local control during their primary campaigns. These commitments create the expectation that these promises translate into stronger protections for local decision-making. I will work to strengthen local land-use authority, give communities a more meaningful role in decisions about state-owned lands within their boundaries, and resist efforts to use the legislature to overturn local rules.

Stand with communities on federal public-land decisions

Local communities need a stronger advocate when federal land decisions affect their future. The state cannot give counties a veto over federal land management, but it can stand beside them. I will work to provide financial and legal support so local governments can participate effectively in federal reviews and press state agencies to coordinate with affected communities. I will also urge the governor and our congressional delegation to insist on transparent processes, thorough environmental analysis, and meaningful responses to local concerns.

When federal approvals place new demands on housing, roads or emergency services, the state should help communities pursue enforceable mitigation and fair cost-sharing. Our towns and counties should not be left to shoulder the costs of decisions made over their objections.

Give communities more ways to meet local needs

Local responsibility should come with the financial capacity to meet local capital needs – whether for affordable housing, aging water infrastructure, modern highway planning, or other local necessities. For Teton County, that means seeking legislative authority to consider a local-option real estate transfer tax with carefully designed exemptions and protections for modest-priced primary residences. 

Giving our community that choice is not imposing a tax from Cheyenne. It is letting us decide how best to address our own challenges.

This past August, voters rejected the Freedom Caucus’s ideology-driven agenda — an agenda that puts rigid political and religious beliefs ahead of practical solutions, strips local governments of resources, and overrides local decisions that don’t fit its worldview. With the Freedom Caucus’s loss of power, we have an opportunity to move the legislature in a different direction: respecting local control, addressing real problems, and investing in our Wyoming communities to make sure that families and businesses can be here and thrive.

Our community needs more than agreement on the challenges we face. We need results. That takes leadership, experience and the ability to build support in the legislature while standing true to our Teton County values.

That takes legislators whose values align with those of residents of Teton County, not with MAGA and the Freedom Caucus. I bring these values and strengths to my service to House District 23, and I’m ready to continue working for our community. 

I ask for your vote.