Kayla Wikstrom

PERKINS — Longtime Delta County resident Kayla Wikstrom has launched her campaign to represent Michigan House District 108 for the Libertarian Party. She explained her overall message: “Politicians on both left and right want control over our lives; they only disagree on how to take it. Here in the Upper Peninsula Libertarian Party, we advocate small government, personal responsibility, and accountability. Government has taken on too many roles, and I want to stop that.”

“My top priority is restoring our 2nd Amendment rights and repealing infringements. For all the claims that women and minorities are under attack,” says Wikstrom, “I find it strange that politicians refuse to support the ability of people to educate, train, and arm themselves so that they can protect themselves. The anti-self-defense advocates and our legislature are literally forcing us to be victims.”

“We also lack a clear, simple process to verify election results, she said. “It’s been four years since the 2020 fiasco, and we still don’t have a way to authenticate elections. Never again should an election be certified when a canvasser is openly and publicly threatened to certify as in 2020. Despite two legislatures and Senator McBroom’s Oversight Committee report, there’s still no clear process. Despite the official narrative that everything’s just fine, the report never stated that there was no fraud. Instead, it uncovered vulnerabilities, processing insecurities, and resistance by officials to deliver requested information to the Senate committee. The report is incomplete, and the games have to stop.”

Wikstrom is also concerned about the abuse of executive power and the lack of interest by the current legislature to assure that the rights of the people are not suspended again by the stroke of a pen. “If a claim of ’emergency’ is going to be the grounds for suspending the constitution as it was in 2020, you can bet that self-interested politicians will declare emergencies to justify their actions. The unprecedented lockdowns resulted in the largest wealth transfer in history from the middle class to the top one percent in income. Yet Governor Whitmer never furnished either science or data to justify her massive intrusion, the destruction it caused, and the harm we continue to live with.”

Wikstrom cited over-imprisonment as another costly practice. “Half of all Michigan prison inmates are serving time for non-violent, victimless crimes. Michigan has more prisoners than the population of 17 countries! And there’s still a question about collusion between Gretchen Whitmer, Dana Nessel, and the FBI agents who helped entrap our neighbors in a fake kidnapping plot by offering criminal suggestions to the entrapment victims. That’s why those cases were thrown out.”

After running for office in 2022, Wikstrom put aside social media to spend time reading her Bible. “I was struck,” she said, “by what I read in Isaiah chapter 30 about not turning either right or left, but instead listening to the voice of God and following the narrow path. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been led to run as a Libertarian Party candidate because of its consistent application of both truth and grace to issues where God wants us to act in accordance with our responsibility as human beings.”