Affie Ellis announces retirement from Wyoming Legislature

Mar. 21—CHEYENNE — Republican State Sen. Affie Ellis announced Thursday morning that she will not seek another term in the Wyoming Senate.

She was first elected to the Senate in 2016 and will have completed two four-year terms at the end of the year. She represents Senate District 8, which covers includes downtown Cheyenne and portions of southwest Laramie County.

"Serving the people of Wyoming is a tremendous honor, and I am proud of the work my colleagues and I accomplished in these last eight years," Ellis said in a news release. "My family has provided love and support throughout this journey, and they've made sacrifices as I traveled this amazing state to do the work of Wyoming people. In 2025 and beyond, it will be time to focus my attention on my family, particularly my children, before they head off to college in the coming years."

Senate President Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle that Ellis was a solid legislator, a great committee chairperson and a great team player in the Legislature. Ellis, a member of the Navajo Nation, was the first female Native American to serve in the Wyoming Legislature.

Driskill said she spearheaded efforts in resolving Native American issues, and was a major contributor on every committee she served on.

"She's just really the salt of the earth, a great individual all the way around," Driskill said.

The Senate president said he most admired her efforts as a member of the Senate Education Committee, contributing to both educational issues and Native issues.

"She spearheaded a lot of efforts that really helped our Natives in Wyoming to move forward, and she was continuing to do so," Driskill said. "She's pretty broad-based, diversified, obviously an attorney and a good mind on things. She'll be dearly missed."

The announcement of her retirement wasn't shocking news, Driskill said, since Ellis had gone back and forth over whether to run again. He added that he tries not to pressure lawmakers on their decisions to return to the Legislature.

"We had a tough session, and I wanted everybody to have a chance to settle down and decide what they wanted to do," Driskill said. "It came as a surprise, but not a surprise. I knew she'd been contemplating it."

Ellis told the WTE she has contemplated leaving the Legislature for a while, but the decision ultimately boiled down to what was best for her children.

Her kids were fairly young when she first started serving in the Legislature, Ellis said. But now that her daughter is getting ready to go to college in a few years, Ellis wanted to make sure she was there for her family. Between her job as an attorney and working as a senator, there's not a lot of time left to spend with her kids.

"It's always a difficult decision to leave something that you love, and I have loved doing this work," Ellis said. "I definitely have mixed emotions."

Ellis served four years on the Joint Revenue Committee, where she spearheaded a law to provide personal property tax relief for thousands of Wyoming's mom-and-pop business owners. She served as the chairwoman of the Senate Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee and crafted legislation establishing the Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund, which will help local communities better manage increased visitation and thrive on their own terms. She also supported sportsmen legislation for Wyoming residents, including a law allowing hunters to wear neon pink in addition to fluorescent orange.

"I can't tell you how many pictures people have sent me of their young daughters or wives wearing bright pink hunting gear while kneeling next to an animal they've just harvested. It's rewarding to see so many women and young girls enjoying this wonderful sport as I do, knowing their freezers will be full of meat to feed their families," Ellis said.

Ellis also serves as the Senate chairwoman of the Select Committee on Tribal Relations, where she continues to work closely with tribal leaders of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes of Wyoming's Wind River Reservation. She was successful in enacting legislation to begin addressing the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, to protect Native American graves located on state and private lands and to codify the Indian Child Welfare Act into state law. At the recommendation of U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, Ellis also served on the bipartisan Indian Law and Order Commission from 2010-14.

"We need more public servants like Affie Ellis," Barrasso said in the release. "True to her roots and faithful to her cause, she is Wyoming through and through. ."

Ellis currently serves on the Senate Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee; the Select Committee on Blockchain, Financial Technology and Digital Innovation Technology; the Select Federal Natural Resource Management Committee; and the Select Water Committee.

In addition to her legislative accomplishments, Ellis also co-chaired the Wyoming Women's Legislative Caucus, a nonprofit organization comprised of former and current female lawmakers who organize the annual Leap Into Leadership conference. This event is designed to encourage women to run for office and seek appointment to gubernatorially appointed boards and commissions.

When she ran for office in 2016, Wyoming had one of the worst percentages of female representation in its statehouse, with only one woman serving in the Wyoming Senate. Today, there are seven women in the 31-member chamber.

Ellis is the managing partner of the Cheyenne law office of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. She practices in the areas of natural resources, energy, environment and federal Indian law. The Profiles in Diversity Journal presented her with the Indigenous/Native American Leadership Award in 2023.

On the last day of this year's budget session, Ellis presented a handmade quilt she crafted herself, with each square symbolizing one of her colleagues in the Senate. She said it was in the back of her mind as she collected the fabrics that the quilt was both a gift and a way of saying goodbye to her fellow senators.

"The quilt definitely was a nice way to kind of make amends with my decision," Ellis said.

The Cheyenne senator had visited Pioneer Park Elementary earlier that day, where students asked her questions about bills and her favorite moments in the Legislature. The one thing she wanted them to know is that the road to politics isn't reserved for the elite.

"I come from a really humble background," Ellis said. "The Wyoming Legislature is still composed of people — just normal people — who want to do good for their state. And I hope that that's their biggest takeaway — if they want to serve their communities, those are options for every student in Wyoming."

Hannah Shields is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's state government reporter. She can be reached at 307-633-3167 or hshields@wyomingnews.com. You can follow her on X @happyfeet004.