By Suzanne Downing 
Two Alaska state lawmakers and Sen. Lisa Murkowski are being showcased by a national nonprofit next week, with awards that highlight bipartisan cooperation but also expose the widening ideological rift within Alaska’s own Republican ranks.
On Nov. 18, the nonprofit Future Caucus announced four state legislators from across the country as recipients of its 2025 Rising Star Award. The group says the award goes to Gen Z and millennial lawmakers “working across party lines” on issues affecting their states.
Two of the honorees are from Alaska – one is a Democrat and the other is barely a Republican. They are being recognized for overriding the governor’s veto of a massive increase in spending for education.
Sen. Löki Tobin, an Anchorage Democrat, is unsurprisingly on the list. Tobin is one of the Legislature’s most reliably leftist members, an advocate for expanding state spending and public-sector programs, and an outspoken ally of the union-backed education unions. Her inclusion in a national award for “bipartisan cooperation” is ironic, given her consistent alignment with the Democratic minority.
More surprising is the other Alaska honoree: Rep. Justin Ruffridge, a Republican from Soldotna whose reputation in conservative circles has declined sharply over the past two years. Ruffridge, who represents the heavily red Kenai Peninsula, has repeatedly sided with Democrats on major policy fights including education funding formulas and controversial social-policy bills. He voted to override the Republican governor’s veto of the extraordinary spending package for teachers unions.
Ruffridge and Tobin will jointly receive the Cherisse Eatmon Collective Impact Award, a category of Rising Star Awards, for what the nonprofit calls their bipartisan work strengthening public education. In Alaska, that praise will likely land differently. Many conservative voters and parent groups have criticized the direction of Alaska’s public education system, citing falling test scores, administrative bloat, and statewide resistance to reforms such as parental-rights protections. To those voters, Ruffridge’s partnership with Tobin signals not “bipartisan cooperation,” but acquiescence to the education establishment.
Ruffridge is quoted by the group as saying that “It is truly an honor to be recognized … This award recognizes it takes colleagues working together to identify compromise solutions on education funding and policy reforms that benefit Alaskan children.” There were no education policy reforms to speak of in the spending package that Ruffridge supported.
The organization noted, “In Alaska, Representative Justin Ruffridge and Senator Löki Tobin joined forces to strengthen public education — culminating in a rare achievement: overriding two gubernatorial vetoes to secure vital funding for Alaska’s schools, including $50 million for classrooms across the state. Their partnership exemplifies what’s possible when leaders put community above politics.”
The awards roster includes two national-level figures, one of whom is another Alaskan known for crossing party lines: U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who will receive the Jacob K. Javits Prize for Bipartisan Leadership. Murkowski is a consistent opponent of President Donald Trump.
Murkowski has long been celebrated by national organizations that reward centrism and cross-party collaboration. In Alaska, however, she is frequently criticized by Republicans for siding with Democrats on key votes ranging from cabinet confirmations to social-policy legislation.
Murkowski has openly stated she is considering leaving the Republican Party altogether, a move that would formalize what many Alaska conservatives believe has already occurred in practice.
Also receiving the Javits Prize is Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat from Washington state.
Future Caucus’ awards highlight a familiar dynamic in Alaska politics: while national groups heap praise on lawmakers who “bridge divides,” many conservative Alaskans see the same names as emblematic of a growing problem within the state’s Republican brand.
From Murkowski in Washington, to Ruffridge when he is in Juneau, these are Alaska officials who have benefited from organizations that reward bipartisan optics, even as their positions stray further from the values of the conservative voters they represent.
For Tobin, the award reinforces her status as a rising figure in Alaska’s progressive wing. But for Ruffridge, it may deepen existing tensions with the voters of the Kenai Peninsula.
And for Murkowski, another bipartisan trophy on her shelf serves as yet another reminder that her political future may no longer lie within the Republican Party that once elected her, before ranked-choice voting was put in place on her behalf and her voters became primarily Democrats, undeclareds, and nonpartisans.
Participation awards based mostly on DEI principles.
That’s. Not an award,its a warning label ” dont ever vote for this creep”
There is not a bipartisan bone in Löki Tobin’s body. The award is a complete joke.
I’ve got an award she deservingly is awarded year after year but, it won’t make the public news platforms!!! She won’t willingly accept it and it won’t be widely mentioned publicly but, we’ll keep continuing to fly it her direction day in and day out, as she most assuredly deserves it!!!
Do we have anyone who’s been around long enough who can credibly compare Murkowski as a senator to Javits as a senator?
Sean P Integration “from the top down” is not a relic of the 1950s; it is still very much at work in modern America, including in Alaska. The phrase, popularized by Senator Jacob Javits, describes change driven by elites who use their institutional power to integrate conflicting interests and impose compromises that might not emerge from the grassroots on their own. In our time that looks like bipartisan voting-rights deals, federal infrastructure packages, and corporate “DEI” regimes that begin in the boardroom and then filter down to ordinary citizens and employees. It can produce real, tangible outcomes – money on the ground, roads built, some protections secured – but it is always inherently top-directed, and therefore always at risk of being perceived as management of the people rather than government by the people.
Lisa Murkowski’s career in a red-leaning Alaska is a clear, current example of this model. She has repeatedly used her position as a senior U.S. Senator to assemble coalitions across party lines – from infrastructure spending to voting-rights compromises – and has survived politically not by energizing a narrow partisan base, but by stitching together Republicans, independents, and moderate Democrats under institutional rules like open primaries and ranked-choice voting. That is “integration from the top down” in action: a centrist figure using elite levers to keep the extremes at bay and to force a kind of pragmatic unity on a fractured political landscape. Whether Alaskans ultimately accept or reject that model is a question of consent of the governed. If citizens believe these top-down bargains truly serve their rights, their resources, and their children, the model can function for a time. If they come to see it as a closed system protecting incumbents and special interests at their expense, then the people of Alaska are justified in demanding a return to genuine bottom-up self-government, where integration is earned from the consent of informed citizens, not engineered from above. Now Sean P chew on that !
One Those two are not GenZ. They are middle age growing millennials
Two they are not bipartisan
If they were they’d agree with Gov Dunleavy Alaska schools are failed and need reforms not more money
It seems to me that working together is a good thing, especially within the Trump miasma.
Bipartisan is simply a RINO or leftist….or could it be a partisan who identifies as bi…?
Greg are you from MRAK Staff & from Seward’s Folly ? If so your comment is what one would expect!
“Bipartisan” for Lisa is only when her constituent votes pencil out. She’s a calculating creature of The Swamp, as evidenced by her bringing RCV to Alaska. Evil is as evil does.