According to the Jackson Hole Star Tribune, Wyoming Representative Amy Edmonds won her re-election bid last night with 54 percent of the vote compared to her opponent Katherine Van Dell polling at 46 percent.
Why do we care about the results of one house district in Laramie County? Because education reform was front and center in this nail biting race. Edmonds, who will now enter her second term in the Wyoming legislature, took the state house by storm last session when she introduced bold charter school legislation that was only one vote shy of a 2/3rd majority for introduction in a 20-day budget session.
Since then, Edmonds has canvassed the state with her call to action and has remained a true champion of school choice, accountability and teacher initiatives that will matter most for Wyoming’s future. However, it didn’t take long for the state’s teachers union to take notice that Edmonds posed a real threat to the status quo. Backing former union member Katherine Van Dell, the Wyoming Education Association pulled out all the stops in House District 12 including bringing Governor Dave Freudenthal in to go door-to-door stumping for their pick to unseat Edmonds. Yet that union muscle didn’t sway voters who, according to a recent statewide poll, 76 percent support allowing communities to create public charter schools.
With at least one other reform candidate returning to the U.S. Senate, education wins big in the Cowboy State.
Check out Representative Amy Edmonds in action at CER’s June 2008 Leaders Forum.
