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Harriet Drummond was first elected to the Anchorage School Board in 1994 where she served for nine years. She then represented West Anchorage on the Anchorage Assembly, leaving that post when she was elected to the Alaska State House in 2012 to represent Spenard, North Star, Forest Park, Huntington Park, north Midtown, Rogers Park and Geneva Woods for ten years. She chaired or co-chaired the House Education Committee for six years.

In 2022, she lost her seat due to redistricting which left her in a largely new district and challenging another incumbent, Representative Zack Fields. Now, three years out of office, Harriet offers her reflections on her career and insight into issues that matter most to her, primarily public education. Her husband of 22 years, rural economic development consultant Elstun Lauesen, was yesterday's podcast guest; they have been integral members of the Alaska Democratic Party for many decades.

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Elstun Lauesen grew up in Alaska and after dropping out of the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1970, he managed former Alaska State Senator Joe Josephson's campaign for the US Senate to replace Bob Bartlett who had died in office; ultimately Joe lost the Democratic primary to Wendell Kay, and Republican Ted Stevens won that seat. After time at Harvard University (where he lived in Constitutional Law Professor Laurence Tribe's basement), Elstun returned to Alaska where he made a career in rural economic development. We discuss some of his projects on Saint Lawrence Island off the coast of western Alaska. 

Elstun is known to many listeners as a progressive firebrand; he and his wife of 21 years, former Alaska State House Representative Harriet Drummond, have been at the heart of Alaska Democratic circles for decades. Elstun has a pulmonary disorder that requires him to use supplemental oxygen and makes extended conversation challenging.

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Steve Williams is the director of Diversions Programming at the Anchorage Police Department. The Diversion Program allows officers to offer offenders a path to drug treatment instead of charges at the point of arrest. Previously, Steve was the CEO at the Alaska Mental Health Trust. And. prior to that, he worked for the mental health court. We discuss all three of those roles in detail on today's episode.

To listen to APD Chief Sean Case's podcast episode, click here.

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Anna Taylor is the executive director of the Alaska Institute for Justice which is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the rights of everyone living in Alaska regardless of immigration status. Anna is the daughter of a Vermont State House Rep father and a veterinarian mother. Anna got interested in law while living in Ghana, West Africa, and initially wanted to work in international law, but an experience in law school convinced her that she could do more good by helping folks navigate the American immigration system. Her work at AIJ has largely revolved around helping survivors of abuse acquire legal status in the United States. 

Read: "ICE shift in tactics leads to a soaring number of at-large arrests," by Mairanne Levine, Emmanuel Martinez, & Alvaro Valino, here.

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Dr. Michael Livingston is an Unangax̂ historian. The Unangax̂ are the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, also known by the Russian-given name Aleut. For many years it was thought that Benny Benson designed the Alaska state flag when he was 13 and that, because he had been born in Chignik, that he was Alutiiq. But thanks to the research and persistence of our guest today, Benny Benson’s birth certificate was posthumously corrected; we now know he was 14 when he designed the Alaska state flag. We also know that Benny’s maternal ancestors are from Unalaska making Benny Unangax̂, not Alutiiq. We discuss Dr. Michael Livingston’s own story, Unangax̂ history, and Benny Benson.

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Today, New Year’s Eve 2025, I thought I’d take a look back at a few episodes from the last year. I am in my 5th year of the East Anchorage Book Club podcast and last year I released 78 episodes. This podcast is extremely meaningful to me as both as a legislator and as a person: I learn about issues that I am unfamiliar with, I create relationships with unexpected people, and it really is through editing the conversations that I internalize them and come out of them changed. 

Alaska needs foster families. Click here to learn how to become one.

Today's episodes includes excerpts from the following interviews:

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Today's episode is part of a series called "Leaving America," about folks who have decided to move outside the country and how they did it. 

Our guest is Joanna Keenan. Jo and I worked together in Santa Cruz, California. We were both physician assistants in the same emergency department at the local hospital there. Eight years ago Jo and her spouse Kelly retired to Mexico. Five years ago, Joanna came out as a trans woman. We discuss our shared experience working in American healthcare, and her and Kel's decision to retire to Mexico and the logistics of that move. We also talk about her experience coming out as a trans woman in Mexico, and her and Kel's move back to the United States this year in large part because they have turned 65 and now qualify for Medicare which gives them access to better health care than what they had in Mexico.  

Other episodes in the "Leaving America" series:

Aaron Poe (Ireland)

Tashina Duttle (Spain)

Daniel Gundlach (Germany)

Kathy McCue (New Zealand)

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As a 13-year-old, former Alaska State House Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins headed Vermont Governor Howard Dean's 2004 Presidential campaign in Alaska. He immersed himself in all things political as a high school student, but gave up politics when he got to college at Yale. During his junior year, he was contacted by several people encouraging him to return home to Sitka to run against the incumbent Republican serving in the state house seat, co-chair of the powerful House Finance committee Bill Thomas. Jonathan ran, won, and served for 10 years in the House where his proudest achievement was getting his HB 216 signed into law in 2014 which made 20 Native languages official Alaska state languages. Much of this interview draws from a 2018 Politico story that profiled three young Alaskans: Forrest Dunbar, John-Henry Heckendorn, and our guest Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.  

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This Christmas morning US Senator Lisa Murkowski discusses her book that came out last summer, Far From Home: An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington, DC. And, although much of what we speak about is from the book, we also discuss her vote on HR 1 (referred to by President Donald Trump as the "One Big Beautiful Bill"), her concerns about the use of the National Guard, and the insurrection that happened on January 6, 2021. 

The co-writer of Far from Home is Charles Wohlforth; listen to his podcast episode here.

Listen to Beth Kerttula's podcast episode here.

Listen to Andrew Halcro's podcast episode here.

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After a childhood in east Anchorage, Andrew Halcro worked his way up in his family's Avis Rental Car business eventually becoming CEO in 2002 after leaving the state house where he had served for four years representing the Sand Lake district of west Anchorage. After an unsuccessful gubernatorial run in 2006, he continued a popular political blog until he became the president of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce in 2012. In 2015 he unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Anchorage losing to his friend Democrat Ethan Berkowitz. Mayor Berkowitz appointed Halcro to be director of the Anchorage Community Development Authority. Through a collaboration with the Anchorage Daily News in 2021, he started a podcast called "With All Due Respect," which became extremely popular for its biting criticism of Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson. Andrew continues to host "With All Due Respect," which you can find wherever you listen to podcasts.