LCCC instructor runs for House seat, vows to be a 'different type of political candidate'

May 15—CHEYENNE — Thomas Lear is a community college lecturer, former baseball player and comes from a long line of military servicemen who served in the United States Air Force.

His next stop? The Wyoming Legislature, he hopes.

Lear announced his candidacy for House District 12 on May 6 — a seat currently held by Rep. Clarence Styvar, R-Cheyenne. After the birth of his daughter, Maia, Lear said he realized education and politics in the Equality State were heading in the wrong direction, and this was the opportunity for him to make a difference.

"We have three parties fighting among themselves to get nothing done," Lear told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on Monday. "What's the result of that? Wyoming suffers, we suffer, our people suffer."

Running as a member of the Republican Party, Lear said he upholds traditional conservative values of a free market and limited governmental interference. However, Lear vows to be a "different type of political candidate."

Too many people get into politics with a "preset agenda," Lear said, and vote based on political ideologies, not for the people they represent.

Lear isn't the first person to mention this. Two candidates recently announced their campaigns in another district, and both criticized the incumbent for being too distracted by national trends to represent the will of his constituents.

"That's part of what's wrong right now with our politics," Lear said.

Lear added he's heard from other residents in his district that Styvar is a hard person to reach. Their emails often go unanswered and phone calls go to voicemail. But apart from that, Lear didn't want to comment on the incumbent's performance.

"I'm not going to run a dirty campaign. I'm not going to go after him," Lear said. "But I am going to talk about how I'm going to be ... responsive, very responsive. I've put it on my website. I want people to reach out to me."

Supporting Wyoming teachers

Wyoming public school teachers face mounting pressure from school districts and parents, Lear said. A bill to protect parental rights in their child's education was recently passed into law, although Gov. Mark Gordon refused to sign it. The bill didn't change much statutorily, both Gordon and Rep. Landon Brown, R-Cheyenne, have said, but one could speculate it symbolically reinforced parents' involvement in their child's education.

A controversial book checkout policy that was adopted last December in Laramie County School District 1 sparked heated debate in Wyoming's largest school district, with one teacher quitting her position in protest. The new policy offers parents and guardians four options for their child to check out books at public school libraries, with one option completely blocking library access for the student.

Lear said he worried about the future of Wyoming's educational system, questioning if the Cowboy State is headed in the right direction. He told the WTE he knew a lot of teachers in the public school district "who are frustrated."

"They have a lot of pressure on them right now," Lear said.

Many teachers are leaving Wyoming school districts because they don't feel supported by their schools when interacting with parents, he said. This creates a burden for those who remain, as class sizes start to grow bigger. Wyoming teachers are paid well compared to the rest of the country, but "it's not an amazing salary," he added, especially considering the cost of housing.

"If they don't feel like they are supported by their administration, they're going to leave. They're going to quit," Lear said. "I've seen that happen with a few people."

Education is a passion of his, second to baseball. As a high school student, Lear spent his free periods volunteering at a local elementary school, where he read to kindergartners and helped sixth graders with their homework.

He worked at Snowy Range Academy in Laramie for nearly three years while attending the University of Wyoming. Now Lear serves as a U.S. Civics instructor in the Adult Career and Education System (ACES) program at Laramie County Community College, and also teaches English as a Second Language.

"I do think there are things that the Wyoming State Legislature can do to support our educational system, and ensure that our students have the best chance to succeed," Lear said. "That includes allowing our teachers to succeed."

Keeping young families in Wyoming

Affordable housing has become another hot topic of conversation in recent years, as complaints of rising property taxes and a limited housing market flood lawmakers' inboxes.

Lear said the lack of affordable housing is a barrier to keeping young families in the Cowboy State. This is a problem across Wyoming, he said, but specifically in Laramie County.

"It's next to impossible if you're a young homebuyer," Lear said.

He suggested that state policymakers focus more on attracting more homebuilders in order to expand the housing market.

"Hopefully, as we increase inventory, prices will drop," Lear said. "Obviously, we can't do much about interest rates at our level, but finding ways creatively to help families get into homes, that's pretty important."

If elected, Lear wants to put political differences aside and work with lawmakers on statutes that will build back the state's workforce. A big part of that, he said, is supporting small businesses in Laramie County, so young people feel encouraged to stay and invest in their local community.

"That's something that the Wyoming Legislature can do," Lear said. "I don't have all the solutions, but I want to work with people who are smarter than I am to find these solutions."

Another side of the coin is supporting the idea of a truly limited government. For Lear, that means keeping the government out of conversations between a parent, their child and their health care provider. In the 2024 budget session, lawmakers successfully passed legislation to ban gender-affirming care of minors in Wyoming.

Lear said this went against an amendment in the state Constitution that left medical decisions up to the individual. This amendment was passed by Wyoming voters in 2012, giving competent adult individuals and parents or legal guardians "the right to make health care decisions."

"Yet, we somehow passed legislation that says the state of Wyoming knows better what health care your child needs," Lear said. "I think we've overreached, where we are now getting into medical decisions."

This type of limited governmental interference applies to book policies and abortion regulation, Lear said. Government is "continuing to expand ... and infiltrate people's personal decisions, when that was never the intent of the government."

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.