Centrist Independent Voter endorses Lisa Kinney in Wyoming’s August 18 Democratic primary for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Kinney is not a perfect match for our policy views. But she brings something badly needed in Congress: substantial governing experience combined with an explicit commitment to working with people who disagree with her.
Kinney served ten years in the Wyoming Senate, including two years as minority leader. She has also worked as an attorney, librarian and financial adviser and served as president of the Laramie Area Chamber of Commerce. She understands both government and the communities she hopes to represent.
Bipartisanship That Means Something
Candidates routinely promise to work across the aisle. Kinney is unusually specific about what she means.
She describes her years in the Wyoming Senate as a time when legislators could disagree strongly on one issue and work together on the next. One member of her current campaign team is a Republican with whom she served in the Legislature. Kinney says legislators who speak only with members of their own party accomplish little, and she hopes to find seven or eight moderate members of Congress who can work together and exercise influence disproportionate to their numbers.
That is very close to what Centrist Independent Voter wants to encourage. Congress needs more members whose first instinct is to assemble a coalition capable of governing rather than to produce material for the next partisan fundraising email.
Kinney also stresses congressional independence. She argues that members of Congress should exercise the constitutional checks and balances assigned to them rather than surrendering congressional authority to a president of either party.
A Pragmatic Wyoming Voice
Kinney strongly opposes large-scale sales of federal public lands and supports continued public ownership while allowing energy development, grazing and other traditional uses. She accepts Wyoming’s continuing production of coal, oil and gas while favoring diversification into additional energy sources.
On immigration, she is sharply critical of the Trump administration’s enforcement practices, but her answer is legislation rather than simply opposition. She supports legal treatment for Dreamers and other immigrants who should be allowed to remain while distinguishing them from dangerous people who should be excluded or deported. She specifically calls for a bipartisan immigration solution.
We also agree with her criticism of tariffs, which she correctly describes as imposing costs on American consumers.
We Do Not Agree on Everything
Kinney proposes eliminating federal income taxes for people earning less than $100,000, reducing payroll taxes and increasing taxes on high-income Americans. We share her concern about the federal deficit, but we are skeptical that removing such a large portion of taxpayers from the income-tax base is sound fiscal policy. Her proposals require considerably more arithmetic than slogans about taxing the rich.
Apart from the difficulty of funding the government this way, the proposal creates bad incentives. We have noted elsewhere that having a large portion of the population immune from taxation can cause those taxpayers to demand too many government services, while disproportionately taxing others can cause those taxpayers to demand too few.
Her healthcare proposals are more promising. She favors temporarily restoring Affordable Care Act subsidies while seeking a bipartisan longer-term solution and suggests combining insurance markets among Western states to create larger risk pools and greater competition.
An Important Foreign-Policy Question Remains
Kinney has taken one position we consider reassuring: she explicitly supports honoring NATO and recognizes the alliance’s importance to American security. She is also strongly skeptical of recent American military interventions, including the war in Iran.
What we have not been able to find is a clear position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or continued American assistance to Ukraine.
That matters to us. Centrist Independent Voter strongly supports Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression and believes American support for Ukraine serves the broader interests of the United States and its allies. We also believe that, in the long run, continued support for Ukraine will be less expensive than the alternative.
The absence of a position is not evidence of opposition, and we will not invent one for Kinney. But Democratic primary voters should watch her campaign website, social media and Wyoming political coverage for clarification before voting. They can also ask the campaign directly. If Kinney takes a substantially different position on Ukraine or America’s commitments to its allies, voters should consider that new information.
The Choice in the Democratic Primary
Kinney faces Elena Del Real. The available public record makes the comparison difficult because Del Real did not respond to an extensive candidate questionnaire from WyoFile, an independent nonprofit news organization covering Wyoming, on qualifications, healthcare, compromise, public lands or immigration. Kinney did, providing voters with detailed positions that can be examined and challenged.
We prefer candidates who tell voters what they believe.
More importantly, Kinney has demonstrated experience governing in a state where Democrats can accomplish very little without Republicans. Her willingness to compromise without abandoning her principles, her independence from party leadership and her explicit interest in building a moderate congressional coalition make her the stronger choice.
Centrist Independent Voter endorses Lisa Kinney in the August 18 Democratic primary for Wyoming’s at-large congressional district.