Chris Glenn was still finding his voice at a rainy election block party Wednesday at Snake River Brewing.
After declaring his write-in campaign as an “independent, progressive” sheriff, the 33-year-old tried to outline some of the reasons for his campaign.
Number one is the current Sheriff Matt Carr’s stance on immigration. But Glenn, a retail distribution manager for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, said he’d also like to protect people from being drugged at bars.
“I am here running on a policy of anti-ICE, pro-trans, women, and all of our vulnerable communities,” he told KHOL.
He needs 270 signatures by Aug. 24 to face two-term incumbent Democrat Carr and Republican Eric Snow, a sheriff’s deputy, in the general election.
Carr, 55, and Snow, 45, agree on the current policy of holding undocumented people who are arrested at the jail for 48 hours to allow federal immigration officials to remove them.
The practice has sparked protests and a petition signed by about 500 people including Jackson Mayor Arne Jorgensen.
But Carr has said he hears just as much support from the community for his current approach.
“If our work community were to take a hard stance against [working] with ICE, it would really put a target on our backs,” Carr said. “I really worry about the devastation that would follow if [ICE] started showing up in our community, knocking on doors of restaurants or hotels.”
Snow sees honoring the ICE detainers as a middle-of-the-road strategy that honors a state ban against sanctuary counties but stops short of a so-called 287(g) agreement that can deputize local officers for immigration enforcement.
Glenn wants to end the policy. He moved to Jackson five years ago from Ohio and has been a frequent activist for the immigrant community.
“I want to give people a different option to the same tired old law-and-order speech that we’ve always gotten,” he said.
Deputy coroner Kat Clauson signs onto Chris Glenn’s write-in campaign for sheriff. “I’m just tired of the status quo and I’m really glad to see someone younger, somebody excited about the opportunity to change the position,” she said. (Evan Robinson-Johnson/KHOL)
Glenn brushed off his lack of law enforcement experience, saying that voters are making a decision about “policy decisions” and that other staff in the sheriff’s department could help him with daily operations.
“What’s most important is to protect our most vulnerable community members,” he said. “The quality of decisions that we make are really going to have an impact on them more than day-to-day administrative tasks.”
Carr rejected that stance as “kind of ridiculous.”
“You’ve got to have some experience in knowing what you’re doing,” he said, noting his work with nearly all of the sheriff’s office departments.
But on Wednesday, Glenn found an immediate ally in deputy coroner Kat Clauson, who works closely with the sheriff’s department and said it’s time for fresh leadership.
“I would really love to hear what you have to say and how you get the word out,” she told him, noting her own campaign for coroner.
She wrote her name down as Glenn’s first signature.
