EP 101 Teamwork and compromise in Alaska politics with Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins

I don't know if I've ever publicly spoken to this before. Maybe I have once, but.

Given the research we've done, maybe you actually know better than me. But But when I was first elected, I was incredibly idealistic, which in many ways, I certainly hope has not changed. I still feel very much dispositionally idealistic. But when I was first elected, very idealistic and had no idea what to expect in the legislature and going to Juneau. And there were two people who I really respected.

One's a family friend who lives in the South Central area, and the other was a Tlingit elder in Sitka. And they had both said, you know, if you win, like, you know, it's like, it's a snake pit, it might change you, et cetera, et cetera. And so I, before going to Juneau, after the election was decided, I wrote a resignation letter to the legislature and I signed it.

And I gave these two women each a copy of that letter and said, if you ever see me changing in a way that you think is problematic or worrisome, you should send it to me. Send me my pre-signed resignation letter which I mean I never like publicized that and it was like a sincere gesture and I never got either a letter. That was Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. And ever since he was a kid, he's been interested in politics and sports. Electoral politics and baseball, to be specific.

But when it came to politics, he was a prodigy. He could recite groups of politicians, the 50 state attorneys general, and all 100 U.S. senators, for example. He was interviewed on NPR at 14. and at 23, he dropped out of Yale, moved back home to Sitka, and ran as a Democratic candidate for the State House of Representatives. He would go on to represent Sitka and 21 other rural Southeast Alaska communities in the Alaska House of Representatives, until leaving politics in 2022.

His self-proclaimed fanaticism towards sports is what drew him to politics. Like sports, politics is statistical, numeric, and there are winners and there are losers. But with politics, unlike sports, the stakes are higher. They shape the world we live in. Jonathan credits the Sitka High School debate team for giving him the intellectual and ideological versatility that he still relies on today.

He says that, in debate, it's common to flip a coin, and on the basis of the coin flip, you have to argue diametrically opposite sides of the same issue. So you not only have to understand both sides of the argument, you have to be able to clearly communicate it. In 2014, House Bill 216 was signed into law. It made the 20 native languages in Alaska official languages of the state. Jonathan sponsored that bill, and his efforts were, in part, aided by what he had learned in debate.

He says that, like all things in politics, it was accomplished through compromise and teamwork. So here he is, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. Welcome to Chatter Marks. A podcast of the Anchorage Museum. Dedicated to exploring Alaska and the Circumpolar North. Through the creative and critical thinking of ideas. past, present, and future. Music.

Did you ever finish your political science degree at Yale? No. I'm a dropout to my mom's chagrin. Okay, so you dropped out of Yale, one credit short of a degree in political science, moved back home to Sitka and ran as a Democratic candidate for the State House of Representatives. Were you at that point just kind of over college? Did you feel like you had completed that experience as far as you saw it? Yeah, good question. I was feeling a little bit over college.

It was not a premeditated plan that I had been for months or years plotting out. It was a really rapid and unexpected series of events. But I was feeling this sort of creeping emotional reality of being a little over college. And I mean, taking a year off between high school and college, which I awkwardly phrase it that way because gap year has such like a mixed connotation. But I kind of vagabonded and dirtbagged around a little bit and did some music stuff.

And so I was a year older than all my college classmates. And I've always just gravitated socially towards people older than me to begin with. So by third, certainly start of fourth year of college, I was definitely feeling pretty hungry for the real world. And being around sort of more mature institutions than, you know, sort of college social scene and parties and all of that.

And then so when this sort of, I don't know, out of left field thing cropped up about running for the house, I was ready, I was primed to pretty seriously consider it. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And when you were doing that gap year between high school and college, kind of traveling around, doing music. Do you feel like that was closer to... Your speed, you know, kind of who you were or who you are as a person. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, it was great.

I mean, I went to like, I went to South America and I, uh, kind of learned Spanish and did these sort of like work trade programs where you can kind of like live for free if you work in. And so, yeah, it was, it was, uh, um, I enjoy that. Type of life and um but i mean at age 18 it also was like very much what i was looking for to which is like get outside alaska see the rest of the world have some experiences um it was great.

And at the time that you dropped out of yale you had an internship set up for the fall at the white house right yeah well oh gosh i'm trying to remember this is like so long ago i um, i think i i forget exactly where i was in the process for the white house energy i'm not sure if there was a formal offer but i think i think i was in the final stage and i i knew some people there and so i i think it was like i think i had a sense that it

was pretty likely um and i was i I think sort of heavily betting that it was going to be an option. So yeah, like all equal, that was kind of something I was thinking about or planning on. Yeah, the reason I wrote that question down, and I had a feeling, you know, you're going to be like, or you were going to be like, that was a long time ago. But, you know, as I'm looking at that piece of your bio, I'm thinking that, or I wonder if that felt like a pivotal moment in Jonathan's life.

Because, you know, your life could have definitely gone one way and that could have been a whole career in and of itself, but it went another way, you know, and you moved back home to Sitka. Wow, this is already the best interview I've done in years. So first of all, you've done a ton of research. And second of all, that's like a Terry Gross level sort of discerning question. Oh my gosh, thank you. You're welcome. I think that's very fair.

I have actually been reflecting on that very question in the last couple of months. And I think you're totally right that there is a very sort of alternate reality that, you know. Wrapped up college, did the White House thing, sort of one thing leads to the next once you're in the DC sort of bubble, you know, get a staff job in the White House or work on the Hill or, you know, And just kind of like stay in that scene and goodness knows where that would have led in that sort of parallel reality.

And instead it was like back home to Sitka and like hopping fishing boats and float planes and campaigning around and getting deep into the Juno scene. Mm-hmm. Huge delta between the two. Yeah, absolutely. And what was going through your mind at that point? Yeah, I mean, I always had been bleeding Alaska. I mean, growing up and certainly when I was at school and I was coming back to Alaska every summer. I loved Alaska as a lot of sort of like connectivity between college classmates in Alaska.

So, I mean, Alaska was always a pretty overriding interest of mine, even when I was in the lower 48 for school. I mean, I'm not sure I would have come back otherwise just because like, oh, the White House thing would have been cool. And when there was this sort of opportunity that arose that sort of arrested me out of my maybe what otherwise would have been the path, it didn't feel alien at all.

I was pretty excited once I sort of cleared my mind and got to yes and decided I was going to go for it. And, yeah, I mean, felt like fully expressed as a person running that campaign and then certainly having the privilege of serving as a legislator. Mm-hmm. Okay, I have one last question about this. And, you know, that is, if you were to think about what that other path looked like, how would you imagine it? Oh, man.

I was like yeah yeah i'm gonna have to think about this you know in more concrete and specific terms than i think i ever have idly thought about it okay yeah in mind um i imagine you know like do the internship and i probably would have worked really hard to find a my guess is like there's a good chance i would have like gotten really excited about the scene and all these other sort of young ambitious smart people that you're around and worked to try to find um like a staff position

in the administration or maybe the white house and i think there's probably a good chance i would have um that that sort of would have played out through the course, of the Obama administration through 2016. And from there, gosh, goodness knows, this sort of butterfly effect is so overwhelming to try to handicap. But I think there's a really, really good chance I would have kind of stayed in that bubble.

And I don't know, maybe my sort of affinity for Alaska might have faded just being away for so long and so tied up in this other world it's it's yeah i might have ended up a very different person i am now and what originally drew you to politics oh yeah great question i can't explain it um i mean neither of my parents are especially political i mean they vote of course but um.

I'm not like Greyer Hopkins coming from a political family, which of course, by the way, is not a bad thing or a problem, but it was never the sort of thing that I was socialized to growing up. And I just had this sort of deep, innate interest in it. And I think there's a couple of mental pathways that were certainly true for me and actually know other people in the political world for whom this is also true, which is I was very into sports.

Still am a little bit. I don't have much time to indulge that interest. But I mean, growing up, I was just like a sports fan. Fanatic, playing, but like especially following, especially baseball, especially baseball statistics. And, you know, this is what Nate Silver's pathway into electoral politics was as well. And I know a number of other people for whom they were deep into sports, deep into sports stats, and then they discovered electoral politics.

It's like the same parts of the brain light up because electoral politics is highly statistical, highly numeric. There's winners, there's losers, It's a dynamic thing that's ever evolving just as sports and the sort of course of a season is. And unlike sports, I mean, not to write off or disparage sports, but what happens in electoral politics shapes the course of the world. It's very important.

Whereas the course of a major league baseball season, you know, maybe affects the emotional welfare of some people, but it does not, you know, deeply alter the trajectory of a nation state. Yeah. So, I, you know, even as like a middle schooler, you know, was able to appreciate that and cared about it. And so, I just found myself like deeply immersed. And then once I become interested in something, this sort of obsessive part of my personality takes over and it's impossible to control. Yeah.

Yeah. In high school, I read that you memorized all 50 state attorneys general, all 100 U.S. Senators and a couple hundred members of the House of Representatives. Did you have to work at that memorization or does your brain absorb that stuff pretty easily? I think, yeah, my brain absorbs it pretty easily, I think, because I'm just innately interested in it.

And, you know, I'm following elections really closely. I'm following, you know, attorneys general races and state secretaries of state and state insurance commissioners and down ballot and up ballot. It's just like all totally fascinating to me.

And so, I mean, similar to, I don't know, if you're like really into the NBA, somebody who's super into the NBA, like there's a good chance they could tell you who the starting five for the Memphis Grizzlies are without them like having to labor to memorize it. Because they're just like constantly exposing themselves to that info because they're just a diehard fan.

Yeah. Um, so that was very much the case to some extent still is, although that's kind of funny to say, I think like at age 15, I actually probably did have a more like encyclopedic recall of different electeds across the country than I do in this moment now, um, 20 years later. Um, but a lot of it was cause I was just organically exposing myself to the info and it was, it just sort of naturally followed that I would absorb it.

And then there was like, okay, I do have this like compulsive part of my personnel and I was like, okay, I have a pretty good working knowledge of like all these elected figures and who's in what offices. And there's just something that's satisfying about having like 100% knowledge of something. So like, okay, like I probably could like name 42 of the 50 attorneys general, but like, why not just memorize the last eight? Sure. Yeah.

Was there a point when you realized that politics did interest you? Was it the, um, you know, politics overall, like you said, looking at it as a game or were you drawn to, you know, one or two politicians and how they behaved and the policies that they had? backed and things like that. Yeah, I think these questions are so great, Cody. I think it was actually that sequence that you lay out.

Like initially it was like politics is a game or even to iterate the metaphor a little bit, politics is a sport, just like NBA or MLB or whatever. And winners and losers and the sort of dynamism of a quote season, if you will, which in the metaphor is a campaign cycle. And I had this sort of appreciation that this shaped the life and the world we all occupy. And I had these inchoate moral values and I cared about fairness and access to opportunity and all of these things.

And I mean, my parents are both liberals and I sort of think to some extent inherited that moral framework and became more interested in the public policy side of the political world as well. And I mean, I would say there's like a relatively sort of ferocious autodidactism and trying to learn about the different policies and sort of have a working knowledge of all that.

Although I would say I was most naturally attracted to the sort of electoral politics as a sport, like the elections, who's winning, who's losing. That part was especially just uncontrollably of interest. You were on the debate team at Sitka High School. I wonder if you have a moment that sticks out to you. Debate was an amazing experience in high school. And it definitely... I actually...

It's funny, I was talking with a new friend who I've gotten to know over the last couple of months, and she grew up in rural South Dakota, and she also was a debater in high school. And I was sort of reflecting on that, and she was talking about how that made such a huge impact on her.

And i mean i think debate was probably the single most impactful thing that happened to me in high school in terms of developing my ability to critically think to communicate clearly um, i think there's like it interest interesting kind of like polemic uh like prompt or thought experiment they're like what if what if you made debating like a requirement of all public education in high school. How would that shape.

The American high school students? I think it would be a profoundly positive thing. I think it would also probably be really good for the very worrisome trends of polarization in U.S. And to some extent global politics because, I think debate as a competition, as an activity, does a lot to, I think. Disabuse one of dogmas and the notion of like us versus them and we're right and they're wrong and we're good and they're evil or idiotic.

Um and there's just like a lot of nuance shades of gray and ideological diversity is a real thing and that's like a pretty natural outcome of debate when you basically like flip a coin and on the basis of the coin flip you have to argue diametrically opposite sides of of of the of the same issue it's like you have to have intellectual and ideological versatility to be able to do that. Those are qualities that are not especially abundant right now in civil society and U.S.

Politics. So sorry, this is a long digression to say that debate, I think, is such a great thing. And I often feel like I can immediately identify someone I run into in normal day-to-day life who was a debater growing up in high school and college. And fortunately, Alaska, there are a lot of debaters in civil society because there's such a healthy sort of debate scene in high school and UAA Seawolves is such an amazing institution.

They're the college debate team. But yeah, for me, it was sort of super positive. I met a lot of friends, very formative experience. And I think it like really sort of added a layer of ability that not that I I was planning on it in this way, but that like ultimately really sort of set me up for some of the work and stuff I ended up doing as a young adult. Okay. You know, a while back, I tried to interview an older Alaska politician and

I was in contact, I think, with their assistant. and the assistant wanted to know the kinds of questions I'd ask. And I told them that I don't do political interviews. I'm more interested in them as people, their humanity. And the assistant told me that this specific politician would not talk about their personal life, only policy. So, I just scrap the interview? In everything I've read about you online, you're very open. You talk about yourself. You give anecdotes.

You're not very guarded. I wonder if you think it's necessary for younger people in politics to be more open. Interesting. Well, I'm trying to guess who this older Alaska politician is now. How many older Alaska politicians have an assistant? That's a huge filter. But anyway, I won't dwell on that because that's not the point. But I'm admittedly so curious. Also, why would that be the reaction?

I think there's probably a bit of a generational divide or maybe not divide, but spectrum, maybe a sort of more accurate way of describing it. And for younger people where I'm, I mean, I'm young is doing a lot of work to describe me at this point. But younger people, I think probably given the world that we grew up in, especially with internet and social media and technology, the default norms are more towards openness.

And um i i i think that's fair i mean and it's funny because i i think in some ways think of myself as like pretty private and um introverted in some ways like i'm like i have pretty pretty minimal like you know social like i've never gotten really into social media um but i i yeah i mean i think in in i i mean the world's in a strange place it's like interesting to talk and think about it, including how you relate to it. So, I mean, that's very much my default reaction.

Yeah, and I think that there...

Is kind of no real other options now with social media and with, um, all of the information that's out there, there's at least some form of information about anybody, even if they don't have social media, maybe, you know, if they're worth knowing about, there's some talk of them on a forum you know maybe like reddit or you know maybe some other forum um but i kind of don't know if that many people are truly invisible anymore very few yeah i mean i feel like we're um yeah it's kind of sobering

really like if i bet like i think about you know fdr is for freedoms and, you know, freedom to things, but also freedom from things, like freedom from hunger, freedom from poverty. It'd be nice to have, like, freedom from the sort of panopticon that is the internet. You know, if you want to opt out, and I'm not sure that is really an option at this point as, as society gets ever more digitized. And as a result, it's, it's, you know, harder to be truly anonymous.

You know, you make a point of spending a lot of time with people and you have this mentality of not telling people what to think, but asking them what they think in your experience how do people usually respond to being told what to think oh people don't like it i mean who wants to be told what to think i think it's also, there's there's subtones of disrespect or arrogance if you're telling someone what to think and, I mean, yeah, it's also just like more interesting to hear what other people

have to like, you already know what you think, like, it's not really like interesting or helpful to like, tell someone else what they should think. I think it's much more interesting to take in new data. And, you know, each person contains multitudes, and why not learn about those multitudes? And I think this also really extends into politics. And this is, I mean, you've already said, you know, this is more about sort of life and people and not about politics.

So forgive my quick escapade into political talk. But in politics, I mean, one of my sort of deep concerns and disagreements with where I feel, say, more left of center slash Democratic Party entities and people have drifted in recent years is there is ideological catechism. And I think a lot of Democrats have gone to sort of telling people how they should be or what is right rather than meeting people where they are, which I think is like the way you should engage with the world to some extent.

And if you can meet people where they are, then there's a conversation and maybe people change and, you know, it's dynamic and fluid and that's all really good. But this like, like calling people out rather than calling them in, I think is so unhealthy and people have a deep instinctive rejection of it when it's happening to them or they sense that kind of vibe. And I think it's led to some really unfortunate outcomes politically and societally as a result.

Ultimately, I think it's well-intentioned as the vast majority of people. Behaviors are. And it's this sort of righteous belief that thing X or idea Y is the right and just thing. And the way to advance that right and just thing, at least according to whatever framework you're working from, is to espouse it and evangelize it and tell other people that it is right and just. And I mean, that has sort of become more of a political norm, I think, especially on the left.

I mean, I think especially with the George Floyd murder and the sort of racial justice awakening that happened across the country, but I think it's sort of manifested in in some unproductive ways as well. I mean, this is what a lot of people call wokeism. And again, I mean, it's from a good place. It's like social justice and racial justice, and we don't want racism anymore. But the way it manifested, I think, turned a lot of people off.

And yeah, I mean, I think probably if you look through history, there's all sorts of other examples of this manifesting as well. Do you think that we've gone overboard with, you know, calling people out to the point that the pendulum is going to swing now in the opposite direction in an extreme way? Yes. In fact, I think it's already happened. And I think on November 5, we saw evidence of that happening.

Yeah, yeah. I think like over the last four, five, six years, sort of call out culture, people feeling talked down to, people feeling looked down on. There was like a pretty deep I think that was really alienating to a good chunk of the electorate good swath of Americans, and I think some of the sort of uh. Populist successes we've seen in this year, the last couple of years, are reflective of the pendulum really swinging hard the other direction.

And to be clear, in an extraordinarily worrisome way. It's hard to overstate how concerned I am about the state of affairs and where things are headed.

But I think when you look for explanations, that's an explanation to me that makes a lot of sense and i think there is this pretty strong cause and effect with this like call out culture and people um who who yeah felt talked down to felt alienated by sort of social discourse um that uh made their voices heard with their votes and um it's uh yeah i think like there's a new.

Times um column by david brooks maybe uh which speaking of like you know elite commentary, op-ed columnist in new york times but i think the the title of it was like uh elites can you hear us now it was like written on like november 6th or november 7th uh and uh even just i thought like the headline sort of captured the essence of it i mean like and he was he was saying i think a variation of what I'm at least trying to say, which is people were rebelling against.

The system and the order of things, including this call out culture and discourse. On November 5, that became much more clear. Music.

Moving on to local politics, what do you think it means for the House majority in Alaska to be bipartisan? And what kinds of things are we able to accomplish because of it? Oh, I think it is so important and exciting. And I think a lot of people in Alaska, we may not fully appreciate how anomalous this is. And how anomalous is it? It's 100% anomalous.

Nothing like this exists in the other 49 states. We are a duck-billed platypus to all the other boring mammals or whatever that are the other 49 states.

Um and you know it's in the house and the senate now and uh i think it's it's just from a governance perspective having been in juno for a while um it's so healthy i think this is like you can draw parallels to high school debate where you have to argue both sides of the same issue based on a coin flip it's so healthy to be in a caucus room with your colleagues and be forced to have to reconcile opposing viewpoints rather than just be with your own tribe as it were um you're you know

only people who you largely agree with and i think the governance outcomes are way better as a result when you have that more diverse composition of legislators working together and governing together and i this is like this is actually interesting because like i'm sorry i'm gonna kind of blend questions here but like that's okay i i'm i'm sort of.

You know registering my concerns and objections to call out culture in recent years and how i think that's actually been pretty deeply counterproductive. And I think there is a certain irony around a lot of people on the left have really embraced diversity and rightly so. Diversity is, of course, incredibly redeemable and important.

But there are other axes of diversity beyond those that I think are most frequently thought about, including ideological diversity, that I think is incredibly important. And that is a type of diversity that I think is often ignored or not thought of, or not even thought of as legitimate, including by groups that otherwise espouse diversity.

So in Juneau, if you're in a bipartisan coalition and you're governing, if you're a Democrat and you're governing with Republicans and also independents, you're living that reality of ideological diversity and it is a really positive thing i think it it it's just good on on every level who do you think make the best politicians in alaska, oh i i have a soft spot for any rural legislator generally okay i i mean there's a big rural urban divide.

And I mean, I think it's like, yeah, it's a little silly. Maybe it's like, oh, anybody from a certain background is maybe going to be a better legislator. But I mean, I think rural legislators, there's a connection with their districts that is just different than than, say, a legislator, say, out of somewhere in Anchorage. And the issues are much more real. They're a bit more existential in terms of the precarity of a lot of rural communities around energy or transportation.

And that sort of carries forward in terms of how rural legislators tend to engage. And I thought it would be an interesting study or experiment to look at, legislators in Alaska who've risen to leadership positions in the legislature.

And I'm nearly certain that rural legislators vastly punch above their weight if you look at the history of Alaska legislature and what legislators have been in what leadership positions and whether they are rural or urban and i mean certainly the finance committees in particular which you know for those.

Like normal non-political nerds out there um are pretty important bodies in terms of figuring out how the money is spent that's an important thing and there's a lot of political power in that finance committees have been totally dominated over the decades by rural legislators and that's not a coincidence um uh but i i think the other like i'm not i'm not sure there's necessarily correlate the other quality that comes to mind which i'll say here in just a second is um

i'm not sure there's actually a correlation between this quality and people being in positions of power although in my mind there is a really strong correlation between this quality and people being a good legislator and a good public servant is the ability to listen and the ability to listen before you talk and somebody who can really understand other people and have a genuine curiosity about opposing viewpoints or just who their opponents are as people and not

think about them in us versus them terms, but like have the ability to get to agree to disagree kind of posture, which is kind of an art in and of itself and an art that not everybody is capable of. And I think that's such an important quality and the mark of a really good legislator or a really good politician. Yeah, it seems like the Sitka debate club is still very much alive in you.

I i would say so i would say so um yeah i hope hopefully it doesn't go anywhere um it's a good quality and you want well i did i um um i don't know if i've ever publicly spoken to this before maybe i have once but um um given the research you've done maybe you you actually know better But when I was first elected, I was incredibly idealistic, which in many ways, I certainly hope has not changed. I still feel very much dispositionally idealistic.

But when I was first elected, very idealistic and had no idea what to expect in the legislature and going to Juneau. And there were two people who I really respected. One's a family friend who lives in the South Central area and the other was a Tlingit elder in Sitka. And they had both said, you know, if you win, like, you know. It's like, it's a snake pit.

It might change you, et cetera, et cetera. And so I, before going to Juneau, after the election was decided, I wrote a resignation letter to the legislature and I signed it. And I gave these two women each a copy of that letter and said, if you ever see me changing in a way that you think is problematic or worrisome, you should send it to me.

Send me my pre-signed resignation letter um which i mean i can i never like publicized that and it was like a sincere gesture uh yeah and i i never got either a letter um but i mean as i was, you know seven eight nine years in in juno i did start to i think self-perceive that But how I was, I think, seeing the process and interacting with the institution was in some ways subtly starting to shift.

And that was something that definitely weighed on me and was a motivator on the decision to step down and not run for re-election. Do you remember what you said in that letter? I have a copy of it somewhere. That's a great question. I should look it up. I'd love to see what the quality of the writing was. I mean, like the substance of it was, well, actually, no, I mean, I can see it in my mind's eye. It's funny. I can't remember what the word said, but it was like definitely multi-paragraph.

And no, I should really look it up after this interview. I mean, to be clear, I, my opinion hasn't changed, but I would say the ferocity, uh. At which I was engaging with those issues has definitely faded over time. So yeah, I think this is right versus I think this is wrong. That has been sort of unchanged. It's just the decibel meter on that passion. And there are some things in Juno that I think are pretty...

Like pretty bad, just like sort of pure power plays around who's in the majority and who's in the minority. And for instance, like legislative staff in the minority get paid less than legislative staff in the majority. And these people are doing basically the same work. And it's just purely if you happen to be in the majority, the staff get paid more because if you in the majority, you write the rules.

And one of the rules that those in the majority choose to write, I mean, it's not like literally writing, there's a process and blah, blah, blah, but it's like, our staff are just gonna get paid a little bit better. And I think that's total bullshit, still do. And I was in the minority my first four years. I thought it was total bullshit. And then we became in the majority. Guess what happened? Yeah, yeah. We did the same freaking thing.

And I remember like saying, I think this is bullshit. Like we should fix this thing that is patently unfair. And it was like, yeah, I mean, I don't want to portray my colleagues wrong. And I'm sure there was some nuance to the very short lived discussion on this, but there was not a shared view that this was like something that was unfair. It was like spoils to the victors. Great. We're in the majority. We get to write the rules. Our staff are going to get paid a little bit better.

And there are like a few things about Juno and the institution and kind of these like petty power politics that, you know, no one in the general public is aware of. That um i was just like this is just like so stupid it's so wrong like rah rah rah and by like year eight nine ten i mean as you can probably hear my voice i still think that's like deeply like i still think it's bullshit but um uh i was not appropriating political capital trying to, tackle those issues versus, say.

Trying to figure out a fiscal plan or a compromise or these other more sort of traditional policy issues. And I think there's something to that. Yeah, I mean, it's just like picking what battles, I guess, is maybe the best way to describe it. And I think the battles that I had the eagerness to fight or to pick, I think that sort of changed over the course of 10 years in Juneau.

I listened to this interview with you on the podcast, The Tongue Unbroken, and in it, the host said that if a bill was proposed and it had the words Alaska Native in it, it would be immediately killed. Did you ever encounter that in your 10 years in Alaska politics?

Interesting. I don't remember that part of, that podcast interview or the host saying that i you know i don't think so um i mean there there were certainly certainly my first four years which were like the legislature my first four years 2013 through 2016 was a was a very conservative place like all the the the center of political gravity was was pretty far to the right compared to now like vastly vastly so and um in those four years i mean i think anything that

it's not like oh if there's a bill that says alaska native it's dead definitely not that but i think if there were bills that advanced policies that um uh like engaged with the native community or tribes as a class, they would have a tough road to hoe. I mean, for instance, the legislature, I think at this point has passed a bill that. Gives recognition to federally recognized tribes as sovereign governments by the state of Alaska. It's just like a matter of policy.

It's like you could even say it's semi-symbolic. That has passed the legislature. It's like, okay, tribes, there's a government-to-government relationship with tribes. That was pretty much a non-viable premise my first four years in the legislature in terms of just the broader relationship between state of Alaska government and the Alaska Native community and tribes. The pendulum has swung a lot. Do you know why it was...

It was like that i i mean i think like that that's just where the republican party was at the time um i mean to some extent maybe still is or parts of it um and for those four years, republicans controlled the legislature uh unquestionably um house and senate and so So if there was anything on the Indian Child Welfare Act or government-to-government relationships or whatever it might be, there was a pretty immediate policy skepticism from Republican powers that be in the legislature.

And that all shifted with the 2016 election and the 2017 legislature, those who were sworn in after winning in 2016, because that's when the bipartisan coalition in the House started. And so, you know, rural legislators, Alaska Native legislators were in power. The center of gravity moved much more towards the middle or the center left. And the whole policy discourse shifted from there.

In 2014, House Bill 216 was signed into law, a bill that you sponsored, and that bill made the 20 native languages in Alaska official languages of the state.

What was it like bringing up Alaska native issues in the legislature at that time? That bill was a pretty improbable path. Well, for the interview that you mentioned, the tongue unbroken interview, I hadn't thought about that bill in many years until doing that interview. And I went back and I looked at the bill history. I was kind of, you know, it's like really kind of the particulars had faded from my memory.

And looking at the bill history and how it uh made its way through the legislative process i was kind of like shocked honestly like whatever that was eight years later or ten years later okay like how how did i pull that off because it i know that's actually that's uh i i regret that pronoun because it was not me or i it was very much we it was just like it was a very very, Like, and a lot of it is like inside baseball, sort of like appreciate just

like how, how much the odds were stacked against this and had just, there were a number of lucky breaks that happened. And there were some like the opponents of the bill, if they really wanted to kill it, which they did made a couple of political errors, which we benefited from and like gave us a second life and a third life to ultimately get it passed.

And then there were a couple of people who were like quietly sympathetic to the bill who, you know, in a very quiet and subtle way, like did a huge solid, like sort of, you know. Act of like minor political courage to kind of like help it on its path. And that bill should have been dead like 10 times over in that political environment. And I mean, there were definitely like 10 assassination attempts on that bill's life.

And somehow, you know, like it was a cat and more like, you know, nine plus lives or whatever. And ultimately got passed on the last night of the legislature against all odds. But yeah, it was really a combination of a number of lucky breaks, a number of unforced errors by opponents that we fully exploited, and definitely a sort of irrational doggedness of just like, damn the torpedoes, we're just going to go for this and not take no and just keep pushing and pushing and pushing.

And ultimately, that paid off in combination with the luck and the other breaks that we got. Yeah.

Do you ever worry that you peaked when you were younger as this 23-year-old political prodigy? I, um, wow. Great question. Um, I, I, I don't, I don't, I mean, I, I like, I, I mean, that's good.

I hope so. I hope so. I mean, I look back, I mean, I feel like I'm, I've been pretty good, up through, you know, this very moment and challenging myself and never losing a growth mindset and always being very interested in learning and improving and being around people who are better or smarter than me who as a result helped me sort of continue to better myself.

So no I don't like I don't like as a person I don't feel like I've peaked I do think there is this thing in politics though it's not that healthy around this sort of wunderkind young person thing and um you know like that i totally recognize like that was something i mean it's actually like happened to me twice in life because i like first got into politics as kind of discussed when i was like really young when i was 13 and like did all this like political stuff 13

to 15 And there were a bunch of human interest stories and like, and PR, like I did an all things considered interview when I was 14 years old with Steven Skeet, you know, like that kind of stuff. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, it was like, I mean, my 14 year old ego loved it for sure. And then I kind of like, there was like a little second bubble of that, you know, when I was first elected at kind of an unusually young age, but it's all like pretty superficial.

And there's always going to be like that, you know, young person who does something at a preternatural age. And like what really matters in life and making impact in the world is like your fundamental value as a person and your ability to like affect change and like do things.

And I... I think, I hope, I always kind of had some groundedness about that, you know, maybe even when I was a teenager, like that first time, about like, it's all kind of superficial and nobody really freaking cares at the end of the day or certainly a couple years later. It's just like, you know, stuff that's like deep in the Google results and, you know, life goes on. Yeah. But like to fully emphasize, nobody cares really.

Um, it's just like, what really matters is like, you know, you're improving that you're capable that you can, you can, um, affect the kind of change you want to affect in the world. And I think that's, you know, I've at least tried to always make that be the focus of sort of the things I do. Yeah, yeah. How about your nickname, JKT? Do you remember who came up with that?

Oh, it's definitely from childhood. I mean, it's funny, I've gone through like everybody, most people in Sikai grew up with know me as Johnny, actually. Okay. johnny and derivatives of johnny were about like go to that's high school teachers classmates for sure like um teammates on sports teams johnny johnny boy etc um and i've always introduced like basically introduced myself my entire life as jonathan it's just sort of it's an interesting like.

You know, like the Galapagos Islands, like Darwin's finches evolved in different ways, depending on the ecology of each of the islands. So like these different evolutionary offshoots and trajectories. And it's like, it's kind of funny, like it's been a relative constant. I've always introduced myself as Jonathan and like different chapters of life, these different sort of sort of taxonomies of nicknames have sprouted like Darwin's finches on different islands.

And so, you know, it was like Johnny in high school and then, I mean, they were like mostly Jonathan in college and then, yeah, post-college, JKT. And part of it, I think, is that it took root is in newspaper headlines, like Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins is an unwieldy name. And even if you like Kreiss-Tomkins is an unwieldy last name.

Um and so jkt um i mean i think that least partly took root just because of the economization of space yeah um and but yeah i mean some people called me that growing up too um but just i guess it kind of whatever the combination of consonants it sort of rolls off the tongue so maybe that's part of why it sticks. It fits in a headline. It does, yes.

You know, there's this question that just keeps floating around, and I don't know if I've found the right place to ask it, so I'm just going to go ahead and ask it. Alaska only gets three votes in the Electoral College. What kind of voting power do you think Alaska really has? Ooh. I mean, objectively, not a lot in the Electoral College. I think Alaska, as well as 43 of the 50 U.S.

States, are effectively disenfranchised in a certain sense because no presidential candidate cares about the red states or the blue states. The incentive is all that matters are the seven swing states which is why of course president can spend basically a hundred percent of their time in the seven states which is kind of arbitrary.

And um i don't think like a super defensible system because it's like whatever those arbitrary seven states that happen to be more or less split 50 50 are like get all the attention they get all the time. The issues that are important to those states are centered in national policy and politics. It's like when Iowa was a swing state, it's like ethanol policy. People were tripping over themselves to advance it. Iowa isn't a swing state anymore.

Ethanol doesn't really matter. It's like the only reason or the primary reason that was the case is just the arbitrariness of Iowa for at least a period of time being a swing state. Or in Nevada, Yucca Mountain and nuclear storage, nuclear waste storage, same, same story. So I think it kind of sucks that we're, as a red state, basically categorically ignored because our votes, our electoral college votes aren't in play.

So that kind of sucks. um where where we benefit from these sort of distortions and powers of course in the u.s senate and um you know uh it's great for alaska certainly to have the same voting power in that institution as the state of california or the state of new york um so um but i mean as like american politics gets closer and if alaska if and when it ever gets more competitive and there was actually a nate silver piece earlier this year that talked about alaska

basically being the eighth most competitive state in the country at least from like democrats potentially making inroads and you know nate silver wrote this piece about like in his model um there's like a scenario in which if, I mean, if Harris did much better than she did, that Alaska actually could have been the fulcrum in the Electoral College.

And so, you know, it's maybe not a, you know, a day that will never come or pass that Alaska is actually up for grabs and, you know, attracting the attention of presidential candidates.

What do you think it means for the Alaska state government to be entirely dependent on oil royalties uh not good okay bad uh precarious um it's like great feast and famine cycles uh in terms of budget it's it's just it's a objectively a very dumb way to to have your finances structured and in alaska i mean it's worth noting the state now derives a lot of revenue from the permanent fund, which is much more stable. I mean, it has its own risks and sources of volatility as well.

But we're a bit more diversified. And that change happened during my Juno tenure, and it was a lot of differing perspectives. But I have always said and worked really hard my last two years to try to diversify our revenue sources. And I think it's inevitable that that will need to happen. And I'm very curious to see how this current legislature approaches those questions.

I read in a Politico magazine article that the political work you've done in Alaska had, at one point, changed it from a red state to a purple state.

How does that make you feel that the work you've done had noticeably affected the politics of an entire state?

Well i i think that i know the article you're talking about and that article and the headline as headlines tend to be is a bit overstated and hyperbolic and also there are a lot of people who were deeply involved in that work um who did as much or quite a bit more than i did But I mean, I've definitely been very invested in what I see as positive political change in the state and try to spend my time and energy accordingly. And I do think there's a lot to show for those collective efforts.

There's a ton to show for those collective efforts. Um and you know the legislature is i think an exemplar of partisan moderation even on a national scale and that's something alaskans should be really proud of um and we've you know alaska has passed a number of i think really forward-looking policies around minimum wage and most recently this last cycle which i had nothing to do with other than casting my vote in the ballot box. Paid sick leave for employees.

We have a great, I think, election system that is a national model, on and on and on. There's just been so much good things that have happened in Alaska over the last 10 to 12 years, most of which I had nothing to do with.

But I've certainly tried to lean in and make contributions as best I've been able, whether from the legislative perch or just as a private citizen um and i i do think like the trend lines continue to to look positive um so um and i think yeah alaska has got like more more tinges of purple than it certainly did in 2012 and um i would like to see that continue, you know i also read that you spent every one of your adult birthdays at the alaska capital Are those birthdays happy memories,

frustrated memories, sad memories? They're, they were pretty happy. They were pretty happy. And my birthday is in February and legislative sessions run January through, well, when do they end? Actually, it's really a question. Um, they're, they're supposed to end in May, but for far too many years when I was there, they would end in June or July.

Um but yeah i mean there's there's a great like there's a very tight-knit community in the capital of staffers and legislators and non-partisan staff and um i i enjoyed it i enjoyed it i mean i think as i kind of alluded to earlier my last couple of years i was you know starting to feel a little antsy starting to feel ready to move on um but i really liked and enjoyed the people I was working with and a lot of close friendships, a lot of good relationships.

And so those capital birthdays were, were enjoyable. I just think, you know, there's a world beyond the Alaska legislature. And so it's, it's nice to be in that world as well at some point in your life. Yeah. I wonder, do you feel like you missed out on anything maybe, you know, in your twenties because of your service to Alaska? Oh, totally. Yeah, I think I mortgaged a lot of ability to have a lot of exploration a lot of people are able to have in their 20s.

And I mean, both structurally, like I was very tethered to place in Sitka and Juneau and Southeast Alaska, my district running for election every other year. Um, and, um, I mean, I've really enjoyed having sort of agency over my life since leaving the legislature, but also I think in a, um, a sense that I'm not a private person. I'm a public figure. And so, what I do, what I say, where I am, how I act is not semi-anonymous in the way that it is for, say, a non-elected person.

I think that really kind of shaped me a that through my twenties and early thirties as well. Um, and, um, I mean, not to say I'm like acting out now that I can or whatever, but, uh, like, um, I'm not like going on, on benders and, uh, whatever, but, um, making up the lost time. Yeah. I mean, it does. Yeah. It's just a very different reality to live. Sure. Yeah. And, and I'm, I'm glad, you know, to have that, that change.

So what does your life look like now outside of politics? I have been keeping myself busy with, I guess you could describe it as a portfolio of projects.

So a lot of stuff still in the political and policy space for sure um election reform, some fisheries policy um a lot of a lot of work actually in in dc which has been a very different scene that i've enjoyed getting to know and it's maybe sort of like circling back to this alternate reality that yeah never never transpired but working on some i guess you call it like innovation policy or something called the chips and science act um so

it's just been like a a blend of things um became a partner in a business um yeah i i i'm very like multi-threaded for better or worse rather than just one thing and be very singular about work, I kind of oscillate between a lot of different things.

And as a result a lot of the work is also remote compatible so I have been bouncing around a lot in DC or in Anchorage or in Sitka or Juneau, but it's been great, I'm very happy and um it's yeah it definitely feels like the right chapter to be in and how often do you think about the future of alaska.

Pretty often. Very often. Yeah, still deeply, deeply invested in that and follow the legislature closely, in touch with a lot of former colleagues or current legislators, and care about the future of Alaska in a social and economic sense, culturally. I think this is a pretty amazing place and has a lot of unrealized potential, too. And I'd say, yeah, to some extent, a common denominator, a lot of the work is trying to see how Alaska can help realize that potential, ideally.

What role do you see yourself taking in that future? I don't know um but hopefully it's an effective role i'd like to be doing things that are moving the needle and changing the course of the future of the state um ideally in positive ways and there's a lot of there's a lot swirling so um but um i don't know we should talk again in five years and see how things panned out. Yeah. Well, Jonathan, those are all the questions I have for you.

I want to thank you for your time, and also for all the work you've done in Alaska in service of Alaskans. Oh, thanks so much, Cody. This was such a pleasure. And I was totally sincere when I said this is one of the better interviews I've ever done. That's awesome. Thanks, man. I really appreciate that. Totally. Music. For more information about the Anchorage Museum, visit anchoragemuseum.org. This podcast was produced by me, Cody Liska, for the Anchorage Museum.

With additional help from Julie Decker. Music.