April 20, 2025 • 51 mins
Attorney General Treg Taylor reveals how abandoning his Air Force fighter pilot dreams after a spiritual experience in the Canary Islands led him to become Alaska's legal champion. Under his leadership during the Biden administration, Taylor has secured major victories: winning four of five COVID mandate challenges, saving Alaska's cruise industry, and launching over 80 lawsuits defending state sovereignty. His "statehood defense" initiative fights federal overreach in endangered species designations while protecting educational choice for 22,000 correspondence students. Taylor champions the principle that "Alaskans should decide Alaska's destiny—not federal bureaucrats."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kelly Tshibaka (00:08):
Welcome to Stand .
I'm your host, Kelly Tshibaka,and this is where we help make
courage contagious.
I'm joined today by my amazingco-host and husband, Niki
Tshibaka, and we have anoutstanding episode for you.
You can catch all of ourepisodes on our website,
standshoworg.
Become one of our subscribers,our standouts, and join us on
social media.
Today, we are excited to havethe Attorney General of the
(00:30):
State of Alaska, Treg Taylor,join us.
Treg, thank you so much forjoining us on our show.
We are so excited to have you.
AG Treg Taylor (00:37):
Thank you so much, Kelly and Niki, for having
me on the show.
I'm excited to be here.
Nothing going on in the stateof Alaska right now, so it's an
amazing time to be in theposition I find myself in a
fortunate position, to be in aposition that I can help the
state of Alaska, and so it's agreat time to be the attorney
general.
Kelly Tshibaka (00:58):
We know that you are joining us from Juneau
today, so we appreciate youcalling in.
Tell us a little bit about yourbackground story and how you
came to become our attorneygeneral.
AG Treg Taylor (01:07):
Yeah, no.
As a kid growing up ever sinceI can remember, I wanted to be a
private lawyer.
That was my goal, that was mydream, and I worked really hard
for that.
Actually, I grew up primarilyin a single-parent home.
My mother was raising four kidsand teaching full-time, and so
I had a lot of free time on myhand.
(01:27):
I could have made a lot ofdifferent decisions, but I had
that goal that I wanted to go tothe united states air force
academy and be a fighter pilot,and so that cut me out of
trouble for the most part.
I think that was that was thatgoal was key.
I think that my ability to moveforward and not fall for some
of the pitfalls that certainlywere not there around me and it
(01:49):
led me to want to be excellentin academics and to get the
grades that I could be acceptedto the Air Force Academy.
And so I was living the dreamand, lo and behold, I get
accepted to the Air ForceAcademy.
It was one of the best days ofmy life.
I loved the Academy.
I spent two years at the Academybefore they had a deal sort of
(02:11):
with churches that if you'regoing to serve a mission, they
wanted you to go and talk toyour second year, because your
first year is you're not evenhuman.
They beat on you.
It's not great, it's not a fun,it's fun to look back on, was
not fun to go through.
And then your second year isyour hardest academically.
So they wanted you to get threeor two years before you have
free permission.
(02:31):
So I applied for a mission atthe end of the two years and was
sent um to the canary islands,which is off the coast of
morocco and africa and the coast, and spent two years there and
reapplied to get back.
You know you have to reapplywhile you're on your mission
because that's the timelines forthe academy but reapplied and
got back in and they sent me aletter and I apologize ahead of
(02:56):
time.
I had a hard time gettingthrough this story, but sent me
a letter.
All I had to do sign my name,sent it back in and I was going
to be a junior at the UnitedStates Air Force Academy.
I was living my dream.
I was pilot qualifiedphysically and one of the very
few pilot qualified physicallyin my class.
(03:16):
Because the DOD had come downand said hey, if you've had
LASIKs, you're not going to flyfor the Air Force and of course
half my classmates had L you'renot going to fly for the Air
Force and of course half myclassmates have Lasix just to
fly and so um, but I got thatpaper and I had the hardest time
trying to sign that.
I tried to sign that thing sohard for about two weeks and I
felt bad because here I am, I'ma missionary, I'm supposed to be
(03:40):
serving the people of theCanary Islands and I can't get
my mind off of this paper that Iwould love to sign.
And so I did all kinds.
I did all the people of theCanary Islands and I can't get
my mind off of this paper that Iwould love to sign.
And so I did all kinds.
I did all the tricks like thepositives and negatives for
returning, and actually the onlypositive I could think of not
returning was I could marry agirl I've been dating for many
years.
Right, and that was the onlything I could put in a positive.
(04:01):
And despite all that, afterabout two, two weeks of not
being able to sleep, not beingable to focus, I'd had enough
and I finally got dropped myknees and really look at me and
I feel bad about it now, butreally flippantly, I said, fine,
I'll do what you want me to doand I knew exactly what I was
(04:23):
supposed to do at that time.
And so it really changed thecourse of my life and I
apologize again, but literallyone of the biggest decisions of
my life and I'm so glad that Ilistened so glad that I listened
because I've been able to do somuch good as an attorney.
And, oddly enough, I got backfrom my mission.
(04:44):
I enrolled at college and I metmy wife the first week, not the
girl I've been dating forseveral years.
So God has a plan.
That's what I learned and Iknow that if I follow that plan
I'm going to be in the rightplace to do the right things.
So I feel very fortunate to bein this position.
But that was part of his planfor me and you know my legal
(05:09):
career.
You know I started out inlitigation.
I did five years of litigationin Anchorage.
You know came up my wife's fromAnchorage, so we came up right
after law school and so Istarted that five years of
litigation at a firm called LucyMoran, garrity and Zobel.
Michael Garrity, who happenedto be an attorney general for me
, was my supervisor.
(05:30):
And then I decided I'd goin-house because I really wanted
to be part of a team.
You know, I grew up playingteam sports.
I wanted to help grow abusiness, help a business solve
problems, instead of just kindof be a hired hitman.
And so I went over to McKinleyCapital that was Bob hired, a
hired hitman.
And um, so I went over tomckinley capital, um, that was
bob gilliam's bob gilliam shopand he was a.
(05:50):
He was a great boss, a greatmentor and uh spent uh five
years there before going over tothe src.
Um, you know oil and gasdivision, who I knew.
If I was going to stay in alaskaand make law career, I'd
eventually have to get into theoil and gas and energy arena.
And so it was there that thegovernor reached out and asked
me if I'd apply for the positionof the attorney general.
(06:12):
And so I did.
It wasn't something that I'dever thought of before.
I mean, mike had gone on tobecome the attorney general.
So I kind of had thatrelationship with the position.
And then, when it came down toit, I did not get the attorney
general spot.
I remember thinking okay, andthey offered me to be the deputy
of the civil division, I waslike, okay, if I'm going to do
(06:33):
this, I'm going to do thisthrough the deputy of the civil
division, I'm not going to dothis trying to, you know, work
my way into the attorney generalspot.
So that's what I did.
I accepted the position asdeputy attorney general and then
, two years later, I ended upbeing in this position as
attorney general and I feel veryfortunate because I've been an
(06:55):
attorney general four years,almost corresponding to the
Biden administration, which hasbeen a whirlwind.
So that's how I ended up whereI am, you know, and I had to
make Alaska my home.
I know, when we were thinkingabout where we wanted to go
after law school, jody was.
The first thing she said to mewas anywhere but Alaska.
(07:17):
It's like what you know.
We'd come up and work in thesummers, I'd fallen in love with
the state and she's like well,I've lived there my whole life.
I want to see somethingdifferent.
But again, through divineintervention, we came to realize
that Alaska was where we weresupposed to be.
That's where we were supposedto be as a family, our six
children, and it's been a greatblessing to be here at the state
(07:41):
.
Niki Tshibaka (07:42):
That's an amazing , amazing story and I really
appreciate your, just yourvulnerability and your
transparency, because you know,in those, it's those pivotal
decisions in our lives that arethe most emotional and profound
and transformational, and wecould hear that in your voice,
but also in the story itself,just the weight of that.
(08:04):
I have fond memories of thecanary islands.
I traveled there as a as achild and vacationed there with
my parents, and it's just, it'sa beautiful place.
So, um, awesome to hear thatyou're on on mission over there.
AG Treg Taylor (08:16):
um, I'd like to when I made that decision not
sign and to go elsewhere, thatit was like a massive weight
lifted off my shoulder.
And it was really cool becausethat afternoon you know the
spanish air force they have abase there on there on canary
island, but I never saw any ofthe aircraft flying, always
(08:37):
grounded.
And that afternoon, I kid younot, two migs took off from that
base and it's right over us aswe were working and uh, and that
had that return of that feelingwhere I had made the right
decision, that burden had beenlifted from me.
And it turned out there wassomebody bought a russian sub
and we're going to use it as atourist uh attraction, but
(08:59):
didn't bother to tell uh, thegovernor of spain that they were
going to bring that sub intotheir port.
So that's why it was too big ascramble.
So really happenstance, butanother like just a
reaffirmation that I was doingwhat I'm working to do.
Niki Tshibaka (09:12):
That's that's incredible and so thankful for
for your service and wow, youknow it's.
It's one of those I call it thepressure cooker moments where
you just feel it's it, there'sthis, there's this almost like
holy discomfort, where you'rejust like you know something's
not quite right.
I've got it, I've got to make adecision either way, and then,
once you make it, and you knowit's the right decision, that
(09:34):
that pressure just kind offizzles and you and you just
feel this complete peace and youknow, you know you're headed in
the right direction.
Kelly Tshibaka (09:40):
so that's that's amazing, wow we're coming close
up to a break, but, treg, Iwould like for you to tee up for
us what some of your greatestwins are as Attorney General.
What have you taken the mostsatisfaction in?
Niki Tshibaka (09:54):
Yeah, and if we tee those up, maybe you can list
a few of them and on the otherside of the break we can go
deeper into them let's talkabout covid litigation.
AG Treg Taylor (10:04):
Let's talk about shape saving the cruise ship
season.
Uh, statehood defense has beena fabulous thing that we've done
, um, and then obviously we'vehad that recent litigation over
there for respondent schools, uh, so those are some big ones
that I'm proud of, because, andmostly because of the amount of
people that are affected forgood.
Kelly Tshibaka (10:31):
So, yeah, I'd love to talk more about those.
That'd be great.
So we're coming up on thisbreak, so stay with us on the
other side.
I think it's really important.
A lot of people don't reallykeep up with how much the law
and litigation and even just howmuch a strong letter from an
attorney general can affect thecourse of our daily lives.
And if you've never heard ofTreg Taylor before, he is very
(10:53):
much all up in your businessdefending and advocating and
protecting us as Alaskans andeven signing on to litigation
across the United States thataffects what's happening in
other states, and so wedefinitely want to tune in and
hear about what you're doing,treg, and find out all that's
going on, because the AttorneyGeneral has a huge impact on the
rights, the civil rights andeven our pocketbooks here in
(11:17):
Alaska and across the UnitedStates.
So this is Stand.
You're with Kelly and NikiTshibaka on Stand.
We're at standshoworg.
We're with Treg Taylor, theAttorney General for the state
of Alaska, and he has been forseveral years.
I had the honor of working withhim when I was Commissioner for
Administration in theGovernor's Cabinet.
We'll pick up just on the otherside of the break.
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Niki Tshibaka (12:18):
Call Julie today at 907-830-8212.
We are back on stand withGeneral Taylor.
Attorney General Tregg Taylor,state Attorney General for the
State of Alaska.
Such an honor to have him onhere with us on stand.
General Taylor, on the on theprevious segment, you had just
teed up for us some of theincredible work that you and
your staff have been doing inthe Attorney General's office On
(12:39):
behalf of the people of Alaska.
You referenced some of theCOVID litigation.
You referenced some of thewinds as it relates to the
cruise ships issues, and you'vealso talked about what is a huge
issue right now related tocorrespondence schools, which is
something of great import formany Alaskans, because we all
know that education is a bigissue for all of us right now.
(13:02):
So could you unpack each ofthose things and what you've
been doing in those areas sothat more Alaskans can hear
about the incredible work youroffice has been doing?
AG Treg Taylor (13:11):
Yeah, no, I'll kind of go in order.
I've been the attorney generalfor four years and, as I said in
the previous segment, it seemedto have just overlapped
directly with the Bidenadministration, which gave us
plenty to do here, includingdefend against some of the COVID
mandates that they were pushingout.
So we entered five major COVIDmandate pieces of litigation.
(13:32):
Of course it wasn't the lastone alone.
One of the great parts aboutbeing the Attorney General
during that time is I got toknow my counterparts in the
United States really well andworked really well in the United
States and had sort of adivision of labor because there
was stuff coming at it so fastthat it was really easy to lose
track of something or not noticesomething.
And so I have 26 sets of eyes,26 attorneys general with their
(13:56):
eyes on it.
We've been helping to converteverything situation.
So the one.
So the CMS mandate, which wasbasically the vaccine for all
healthcare workers, successfulin getting that thrown out,
which I think was huge.
And then OSHA that was anotherbig piece of litigation because
they wanted to mandate anyemployer that had over 100
(14:19):
employees.
They were mandating thatemployer, force all those
employees to get the vaccine,and we were successful in that
relationship.
There was one that was directedat federal contractors, and so
if you had any no matter ifyou're just a mom and pop shop
that had a federal contract anyfederal contractor would have to
(14:39):
mandate that all of theiremployees get the vaccine.
And so, working with otherstates, we were successful in
getting that thrown out.
And then the last one, HeadStart.
You know they're forcingeverybody teachers, these Head
Start programs to get thevaccine, and we successfully got
that impossible.
And one we lost on it.
We knew it was going to be anuphill battle, but we thought it
(15:02):
was a worthy battle, and thatwas the vaccine requirement for
all, uh, the military person.
And that's because, clearly,the president has a lot of
direct authority over militarypersonnel.
And so we knew that one was anuphill battle and we fought that
one uh, lost in the courts, butit had the desire to affect,
(15:23):
because Secretary of DefenseLloyd Austin rescinded that
mandate soon after thatintervention.
We managed to put it out thereand sort of tried it in the
American people's lives as wellas the courts, and so that was
the COVID intervention.
So I think we saved a lot ofpeople in this country from
(15:44):
being forced to get the COVIDshot and lose their jobs, which
should never, ever, ever occurand hopefully will never occur
again.
Hopefully, we as a nation havelearned that lesson.
Kelly Tshibaka (15:55):
Yeah, Treg.
It reminds me of a phrase thatNiki and I will say to each
other often, and I just want toremind our audience of it that
some causes are so worthy thatit is noble even to fail in
their pursuit.
And so, as you were just saying,even though you knew it
probably didn't have legal causeto be able to order the
commander in chief to notadminister the COVID shot on the
(16:18):
troops, by pursuing that legalcivil right for our men and
women in service, we put so muchsocial pressure on the
Secretary of Defense that theywere able to rescind it anyway.
You knew you were probablygoing into a losing battle
legally, but you won it in thecourt of public opinion and
(16:39):
therefore we were able toprotect a civil right freedom
for the men and women in uniform.
And I appreciate that, becausewe know that we're not going to
win every battle, but it's stillnoble to pursue some of these
battles anyway, and that's whatit means to take a stand.
I appreciate that you mentionedone on the other side of the
break as well, which was aboutthe cruise industry, which has
(17:00):
such huge consequences forAlaska.
What one was that about?
AG Treg Taylor (17:03):
So that one was basically through the COVID
mandate for requirements forvaccine cruise ships, ports of
entry, all the differentrequirements basically were
going to shut cruise areas.
There was sort of a doublewhammy at this time in that not
only that, but for the Alaskacruise season all of the
Canadian ports were closed andso that under law they didn't
(17:31):
have to stop at these foreignports in order to make the
voyage to Alaska.
And so it was twofold.
On that we joined forces withFlorida, which obviously has a
big concern about cruise shipstoppage, and so we joined
forces with Ashley Mooney downin Florida, who's now the
senator representing Florida,and we were successful in that
(17:55):
litigation.
And then we worked very closelywith both of our congressional
delegations to get a waiver forthat requirements delegations,
to get a way for that to be arequirement.
So those acts prevented cruiseships from coming directly from
the Seattle ports to Alaskawithout stopping in the field of
course.
So that was a big win.
Because you know the Southeast,you know we don't have the
(18:16):
timber industry and the thingsto have and a lot of these small
towns, a lot of these smallbusinesses, small restaurants.
They live and die by the foodindustry and having that
disrupted for multiple yearswould have had devastating
effects.
I've already seen.
I'm sitting in Juneau in myoffice and I can look at
restaurants that no longer exist, just because of the time here.
(18:44):
There's other litigation Icould talk about too.
The statehood defense stuff'sreally kind of interesting.
Those are the potatoes of sortof Alaska's response to all the
Biden executive orders and theagainst the record in Alaska.
Niki Tshibaka (18:58):
Yeah, please unpack that.
AG Treg Taylor (19:00):
Yeah.
So we knew right away thatAlaska was going to be a target
of the Biden administration.
He did what he that Alaska wasgoing to be targeted by the
administration.
We made it.
We did what he said he wasgoing to do during this campaign
.
So we knew Alaska was going tobe a target.
So we came up with the otherstate, the Defense Fund.
We went to the legislature foradditional funding to help that
(19:20):
fight because we knew the battlewas coming and we basically
pulled the group.
It was the commissioner of DNR,commissioner of Fish and Game
and commissioner of DDC andmyself.
We met every week and continueto meet every week on these
issues to try to figure out whatbattles are coming, how to
(19:41):
prepare for them, what sciencedo we need Fish and Game to do
or DBC to do in order to win, toultimately be successful in
these legal battles?
And again, because of thatextra funding that the
legislature gave us to take thaton, we have been very
successful and we currently haveover 80 lawsuits against the
(20:04):
government and the basis ofstatehood defense is hey,
alaskans should decide thedestiny of Alaska, right?
Not a federal bureaucrat inWashington DC.
And so this is all about makingsure the feds respect the
promises they made in Alaskastatehood and allow Alaska to
determine its future.
And so that's sort of whatstatehood and allow Alaska to
(20:26):
determine its future?
And so that's sort of whatstate of defense some of our big
wins, you know, might not seemlike a big deal to most people
that aren't even know that, likethe polar bear incident, will
take.
If that had gone awry we'dliterally have stopped
production on the North Slopebecause polar bear critical
habitat.
We were successful in that.
(20:46):
We were able to preserve andhave enough capacity for that
operation on North Slope tocontinue and also to allow for
willow to go in Because again,if that had gone a different way
, willow would never have beenallowed to move.
We kept commercial Chinookpushing going on in the
southeast Alaska to take on someof the environmental issues
(21:07):
that wanted to shut that down inthe federal government.
And then we have a criticalhabitat for ice seals.
You know there's millions andmillions of ice seals.
It's a healthy population.
But what the Bidenadministration was doing with
all this critical habitat andendangered species listings is
they were taking the science andthey were looking, they're
modeling it out.
100 years For 100 years couldice seals be in danger and, of
(21:33):
course, using their model andtheir logic, they came up with
the fact oh yeah, in 100 yearsthey're going to be a species
that's almost extinct.
And so we fought that.
And if you look at thedesignation for critical habitat
, it basically shuts down anytype of commercial use of those
(21:55):
waters or land that encompassesthat critical habitat.
And what's really unfair is thatit encompassed, like, the
entire coast of Alaska.
Now if you look at criticalhabitat on the east coast,
different story, right, becauseagain, alaska is an easy target.
So critical habitat for specieslike the Atlantic right whale,
(22:16):
there are little tiny pockets ofcritical habitat that allow
still commercial activity tocontinue to go on around it.
But in Alaska they were usingthat as a weapon.
They were trying to weaponizecritical habitat and prevent us
from doing any additional miningin that critical habitat, any
offshore drilling that may occurin the future, and so that was
(22:39):
a big win for the state as well.
Kelly Tshibaka (22:42):
They were doing the same thing with how they
were expanding definition ofclean water and anything that
was essentially defined as apuddle became protected waters
and just these really expansiveregulations.
You heard you were talkingabout it, the governor was
talking about it, SenatorSullivan was talking about it,
about how expansive they madethe regulatory authority to just
(23:04):
really shut down and targeteverything in Alaska to just
turn us into a national park.
It was their 30 by 30 agenda tohave 30 percent of the United
States water and land shut downby 2030.
And the main place they weretargeting was here.
So, yeah, you were on fulldefense.
It's you.
You got to be that fighterpilot, but from from the
(23:27):
courtroom.
Yeah, For the state of Alaskapilot, but from from the
courtroom.
AG Treg Taylor (23:33):
Yeah, for the state of Alaska.
Luckily I've got a great cohortof attorneys you know, yeah,
people don't realize we do boththe criminal prosecution side
Alaska's kind of community tothem, to all criminal
prosecution at least allfelonies, some of the
municipalities, maybe some ofthe misdemeanors, but then the
other half of the Department ofLaw does all the civil stuff.
So all this defensive,defensive statement um that that
(23:54):
went on was with our folks andwith the additional funds from
the legislature we were able tobring in the outside counsel
with the expertise um to setsome of these cases up for um us
supreme court.
And I still think that some ofthese we're still hoping some of
these lawsuits that serve toplay the US Supreme Court will
be heard.
Kelly Tshibaka (24:16):
It would be good if they do, because I think we
need the legal precedent to beable to stand on for 10th
Amendment purposes for states'rights, so that we are able to
draw that line in the sand.
We're up on a break, so let'stake the break audience and
we'll come back with Treg Tayloron the other side.
And Attorney General Taylor, wewant to talk to you about
education and we know that Trumpis looking to disband or will
(24:39):
be disbanding.
I'm sure that there will besome legal challenges to that to
the Department of Education.
We want to talk about howthat's going to affect Alaska
and some of the challenges thatwe've faced here in Alaska to
homeschooling and privateeducation and funding for
education.
We want to get all yourthoughts on that on the other
side of the break, so stand by,we'll be right back after this.
You're on stand with Kelly andNiki Tshibaka.
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Welcome back to Stand withKelly and Niki Tshibaka.
We're with Attorney GeneralTaylor.
I'm totally starting with that.
Over the break, the AttorneyGeneral told us that he has been
(25:48):
awarded by the Anchorage DailyNews as Worst Legislator of the
Year because he's actually beendoing things and making an
impact, which I reallyappreciate, because when you
take a stand, people are goingto give you flack for it, and I
think it's important to wearthat as a badge of honor.
So I'm very proud of you,Attorney General.
Niki Tshibaka (26:04):
For being effective in the executive
function that you have so muchso that, yeah.
Kelly Tshibaka (26:10):
When your adversaries give you a badge for
it, it's something to wear withpride, so just hang that on
your wall.
AG Treg Taylor (26:16):
I just want to.
It's the importance of beinggrounded right and always
knowing what you stand for andwhat you value Because, man,
there's so much pressure to dothe wrong thing sometimes or
ignore things or let things go.
It's constant pressure,especially from a BBA.
Kelly Tshibaka (26:36):
Yeah.
So I have people who care aboutme very much and who watch the
hate that I get on social mediaon a daily basis from what
people would call trolls, andthey reach out to me with great
concern regularly.
Would call trolls and theyreach out to me with great
concern regularly and I tellthem that I don't care, because
if you're effective, then you'regoing to get more comments
(26:58):
against you, but if you'reineffective, then nobody is
going to comment at all.
So I actually use it as ameasure of how effective I'm
being at influencing andaffecting things, and that's
what I take your ADN badge asbeing.
If you weren't doing anything,you wouldn't be getting any heat
.
Niki Tshibaka (27:12):
So it's good for people to be in a position where
people are coming against youwhen you're doing the right
thing.
At least like your conscienceis clear.
That's right you have a clearconscience.
All of that noise just doesn'tmatter, Because you know that
you're on the right track.
Kelly Tshibaka (27:30):
So you've really taken a stand on things like
parental rights and on educationhere in Alaska.
For those who aren't caught up,we do have a major education
problem.
Many times we're rated 51st inthe nation of 50 states as far
as our education quality.
When I grew up here inAnchorage, we were around the
top 20.
(27:50):
And so it's been.
I would say maybe anintentional decline in the last
several decades in order to dropfrom where we were to where we
are.
So, General Taylor, I wanted toask you what have you been doing
to address this?
What's your take on Trump'seffort to abolish or diminish
the Department of Education?
(28:11):
He's sending some of thosefunctions over to other
departments.
How will that affect us?
And then, Niki and I have beenparticularly concerned recently
about the efforts in the courtsystem and in the legislature.
To well, I would just saycreate a monopoly of public
school funding only in Alaskaand stop all funding for
homeschool efforts, privateschools.
(28:33):
I think many of us participatein the stipend funding from the
state to help our kids inextracurricular activities.
I just wanted to kind of tossthe ball to you and see what's
your take on this as our headattorney in the state to protect
education and school choice andparental rights for Alaskans.
AG Treg Taylor (28:50):
Yeah, no, you know, one of the blessings of
COVID was the spotlight on oureducation system, that's right.
You know, without COVID weprobably wouldn't have this
uprising that you see, as far aspeople demanding results from
their education system,demanding choices, and you know
I, obviously, obviously, youknow I've got six kids, so I
(29:11):
constantly worry about what kindof education they're getting.
Uh, and then you know, as aparent of six kids, you also
know that each kid is sodifferent, so one way of doing
things isn't going to be thebest for each kid.
Prime example my oldest place,um, she, she did a highly gifted
(29:31):
program in the West.
Now she was likely the onlyconservative person in that
entire program.
She took care of us constantly.
But I knew, because I knew mydaughter Quincy, I knew what she
was made of, I knew herpersonality, I knew she could
form a map and that she couldrise to the occasion.
She could rise to it, rise to itright, and um, the occasion.
(29:52):
And so some of my otherchildren, I probably wouldn't
put them in that position, right, because I know them and I.
They're still growing, they'restill learning, they're still
developing sort of that backboneand so, uh, it's really nice
for a parent to be able to haveeducational choice like should I
play?
Where is gonna be the best ofthis.
So it's gonna be like this andyou've mentioned it the dreadful
(30:15):
scores that Alaska gets,despite being one of the highest
funded states out there and soyou wanna protect what is
working and right now and we'lltalk about that in a little bit
but first I want to address whatyou talked about with Trump and
the Department of Education andhis wanting to sort of do away
(30:37):
with the Department of Education.
I'm going to pick up and readto your audience what the US
Constitution has to say abouteducation.
It's not in the US Constitutionconstitution, right, because it
was clearlya matter for statesand uh, I was holding my breath.
Kelly Tshibaka (30:55):
I was like what's he gonna read?
AG Treg Taylor (30:57):
yeah, that I like I I'm like, oh, maybe
they've added something ourfounders clearly wanted
education to be controlled bystates.
Kelly Tshibaka (31:08):
And in.
AG Treg Taylor (31:09):
Amendment 10, right, that's right.
Hey, whatever powers are notreserved for themselves, are
reserved for states.
Education is a state issue.
And what makes something likethe Department of Education so
dangerous is because it forcesuniformity throughout the entire
United States.
Right now we're seeing this onan economic side.
(31:31):
Right, we're seeing statesexplore with tax deductions or
tax relief or implementingcertain policies or deregulating
.
We're seeing states competingfor economic growth and if there
was an edict from Washington DCthat said you can't do that,
then we wouldn't see this, thisgloomy, going around the United
(31:53):
States and people are votingwith their feet.
Right, we're not European.
We don't stay in the same placeour entire lives.
We're going to move where wecan live the American dream best
, right.
Kelly Tshibaka (32:03):
Well, it's a good point.
If none of your kids are thesame, why would we assume any of
the states are the same abouteducation?
AG Treg Taylor (32:11):
Well, yeah, no, exactly Well, Alaska could be
exhibit one of them.
What's good for a kid in PlainHope isn't necessarily good for
a kid at West High School,that's right.
And any time you get, you knowthe federal government has so
much control, not because ofwhat they're allowed to do in
the Constitution.
They have control because theygive out just free money, right,
and you and I both know there'sno such thing as free money.
(32:33):
We pay for it, right, we're thetaxpayer, so we're putting the
bill, and that money comes withrequirements, it comes with
restrictions, it comes withduties and obligations.
So, um, and that's how they'vebeen able to control what goes
on in the classroom so closely.
And so I guess what I'm all for, right, I'm all for taking that
(32:56):
money and sending it to thestates to learn states to use it
and to have the ability ofstates to experiment with what
works best, try differentprograms, try out different
things, and then we as a statecan look around who's doing it.
Well, I mean, we saw that withreading right.
Florida reading scores used tobe one of the worst Alabama
(33:17):
reading scores used to be one ofthe worst.
Yet all of a sudden, in a fewyears they're at near the top of
the nation.
It's like when you look at astate you say, well, what are
they doing right?
State to say, well, what arethey doing right, and why can't
we do that?
And so we saw a little patentlegislation that was passed.
Now we didn't get everythingthey were doing in that
legislation because we had tocompromise, because that's how
legislation worked, um, but wegot some of that and uh, and
(33:40):
hopefully we'll see acorresponding increase in the
ability of our children to readthat level right, because right
now it was.
The numbers for Alaska aredismal and that affects not only
our future workforce, becausewe're going to need a future
workforce.
If we get half the projectsthat President Trump imagines
for or wishes for Alaska, we'regoing to need a workforce and it
(34:02):
also affects current.
I don't know how many timesI've tried to recruit attorneys
from out of state friends,people I know good work and then
you reach out and the firstthing, one of the first things
they do is do what our schoolsdo because they want the best
for the kids, and I've been toldno many, many times.
Because they look at our schoolperformance and they say
(34:25):
there's no way I'm going to movemy family to Alaska.
So it affects future workforce,current workforce.
So it's a big issue to grapplewith and we've seen that just
increasing spending isn't theanswer.
That's what we've been doingand our scores continue to be
great.
So I think the Department ofEducation probably never had a
place under the Constitution andso seeing that go away is not
(34:49):
going to be.
They're not going to be.
It's going to be a good thingfor the states.
It'll give them more control,more ability to experiment, more
ability to do things.
They know that their kids needum and so um.
That's that in that show on thecorrespondence school.
So we do.
We do have a pretty good system.
(35:10):
In Alaska we have acorrespondence school in the
Lopins.
We've got 22,000 kids that aresort of tailoring their
educational needs, and thecorrespondence is a lot more
problem.
It is a public school, it'sguided by a public school
teacher, you get a public degree.
It's a public school education.
But it provides a lot of choiceand so, as many well know, if
(35:33):
anybody has anybody in thatprogram, they certainly know.
But the NEA decided they didn'tlike that choice, they didn't
like the parents being able totake their kids out of
curriculum school.
They wanted to force those kidsto be in a prison, and so, and
they hired Scott Kendall to goout and attack that authorizing
(35:54):
statute for them.
And so they did, and wedefended that and ultimately we
lost to the in the SuperiorCourt, which was surprising.
And but we won the AlaskaSupreme Court, where we were
able to say that that statute isconstitutional because they
were trying to get the wholeprogram.
Now they've come back sincethen.
(36:16):
Right, they've come back andsued based upon what we call an
as-applied charge.
So, as school districtsimplement this Correspondence to
Memorial Law Program perstatute, as they implement it,
they might be implementing it,according to Scott Kendall and
the NEA, in a way that violatesthe Constitution.
So we're getting ready todefend that.
(36:36):
Obviously, that's ongoinglitigation.
That barely started.
They brought in four schooldistricts and so we're gonna be
defending school districts'right to be as nimble and as uh,
as, uh, as open as they can bein that program because, again,
(36:57):
the more choices you have, thebetter off that kid's going to
be.
And so we'll see what happensover the next.
Uh, it'll probably be a prettyslow moving litigation because
they're going to subpoenaed outthere because they're asking for
all these documents, and soit's gonna be a pretty document
intensive fight, but hopefullyat the end of the day we can
preserve those that program forthe 22,000 skids that are using
(37:22):
it.
We'll see what the courts sayAgain.
It's quite worthy to be a partof.
Niki Tshibaka (37:31):
That's amazing.
Well, you know, I justlistening to all of that.
It just reminds me when you'rein a fight like that and you and
you know that you're right itmakes all of the difference
Because really the folks on theother side of this Kendall and
the NEA it's more about powerand money on their side, and the
(37:52):
fight that the Dunleavyadministration and you and your
office are doing is for the kidsand their futures, and so
hopefully the court will get itright the Superior Court level
this time, at least on thisparticular issue and you won't
have to go all the way up to theSupreme Court.
(38:12):
Want to wrap this up,sweetheart?
Kelly Tshibaka (38:15):
Yeah, I appreciate you taking up the
fight.
You know you think about thestudents involved in there.
A lot of the kids who havelearning disabilities, special
needs they don't have all theirneeds met in the brick and
mortar school or a lot of times.
Also, the kids who needaccommodations, they're the ones
who are competing in our sportsprograms or at the Olympic
level.
(38:35):
And they're the ones who arecompeting in our sports programs
or at the Olympic level andthey're the ones who are out of
state or, you know, are our beststudents in a lot of ways and
they can't show up Mondaythrough Friday at a public
school and so they're needingthat accommodation and we want
to support students at thedifferent ends of the learning
spectrum in these accommodations.
And that's Alaska is known forits libertarian lifestyle for a
reason.
Accommodations and that'sAlaska is known for its
(38:57):
libertarian lifestyle for areason.
And forcing people intoconformity, as we were talking
about earlier, is kind ofantithetical to our Alaskan
spirit.
So appreciate you taking upthat fight and thank you for
being with us today.
Attorney General Taylor, weappreciate all the fight that
you're taking up.
This has been, attorney GeneralTaylor, with us on stand.
We're going to pick up on theother side of the break me and
Niki and we wish you all thebest this week in Juneau Treg.
(39:19):
We hope that it goes well asyou take up the fight with the
Juneau legislature.
Niki Tshibaka (39:21):
Thank you, General Taylor, and thank you
for the stand that you're takingfor the people of Alaska.
AG Treg Taylor (39:24):
No, thank you for letting me get the message
out.
This is fantastic If I couldgive accolades to all the
attorneys that work so hard andthe department of law, day in
and day out to make sure thatyou get these things that we
need in Alaska.
If there's any opportunity Ican do that, I'm going to go
back and do it.
So thank you so much.
Kelly Tshibaka (39:43):
Yep, absolutely, we'll be back.
We'll pick up on the other sideof this break.
Stand by.
Welcome back to Stand.
We're on our last segment.
You're with Kelly and NikiTshibaka.
That was an amazing interview wejust had with Treg Taylor, our
(40:04):
current Attorney General for thestate of Alaska.
The part of the interview thatstood out to me the most, or
that had the biggest impact onme, was when he told his story
about that big sacrifice he madeat the beginning of his journey
, when he gave up on hislifelong dream to go into the
Air Force and instead pivotedand became a lawyer and in a
(40:27):
sense, you know he followed hisdream and has become a fighter
for all Alaskans and hasactually stood up for all
Americans in joining theselawsuits against the Biden
administration that are going tocontinue to play out into the
Trump administration's tenure,as we set precedent for law
across the country.
But it was a really harddecision to have to sit there
without any cause but followwhat he really felt like the
(40:50):
Lord was telling him to do andwalk away from that dream.
And we saw how much emotion hehas, even all these decades
later, of giving up on a dreamlike that.
How did that affect you?
Niki Tshibaka (41:00):
You know, it was just a really stirring reminder
of the importance of courage tofollow through on our
convictions and that when we dothat, good things happen.
It doesn't necessarily meanlife is easy, but we can lay our
(41:22):
heads on our pillows and ourconsciences can be at peace
about it.
And I really appreciated thisin particular about it.
I appreciated General Taylor'svulnerability, his transparency
and, of course, the courage heshowed in that decision, because
we are all benefiting rightfrom that decision.
(41:43):
All these years later I willnot say decades, because,
general Taylor, you are not thatold but I will say all of these
years later, alaskans arebenefiting from the courage of
that decision.
And in addition to that, whenwe make those little in this
case it was a big choice butthose decisions to follow our
(42:04):
conscience, to follow what webelieve we're being led to do
and to do what's right, itbecomes a pattern in our lives.
It eventually becomes ourcharacter and ultimately becomes
our destiny.
Kelly Tshibaka (42:18):
Yeah.
Niki Tshibaka (42:19):
And I think we heard that in General Taylor's
story because, like you said, hewent from, he always had that
fight in him, right where hewanted to do something to serve
his country to serve his fellowman and it was like God just
redirected him and said this iswhere I want you to go and this
is what I want you to do.
(42:39):
And he's been doing it eversince, and we just heard about
the amazing work that he and theDepartment of Law have been
doing, along with otherattorneys general across the
country, to not only undo whatthe Biden administration has
done to really unravel thefabric of our democracy in a lot
of ways and harm Alaska, butalso to take more of a proactive
(43:03):
stance, I think, going forwardwith the Trump administration.
We have an administration nowthat is you can say whatever you
think of it, whether you likeit or not.
One thing you can say aboutthis administration is they are
taking incredibly strong, bold,proactive moves to establish the
vision that Trump has forAmerica and America's future and
(43:26):
that we all voted him intooffice to execute.
Kelly Tshibaka (43:31):
Those are all hard decisions.
I was curious if you had astory about a time you had to
make a decision like GeneralTaylor did.
I know I have two stories Ithought would be interesting to
share and I imagine that youhave a story or two as well,
having shared life with you.
I remember at the beginning ofour marriage I was accepted to
Oxford, which at the time hadbeen my lifelong dream, similar
(43:54):
to what Treg Taylor shared withus.
Niki Tshibaka (43:56):
Well, I was going to say that was my first major
courageous decision was choosingto ask you to marry me.
That took a lot of courage.
Kelly Tshibaka (44:02):
Actually, that might be a really good story to
share.
Niki Tshibaka (44:04):
I will not share that publicly yet Go ahead, our
engagement story.
That's a really great story.
Oh my goodness.
Kelly Tshibaka (44:10):
For another time maybe.
So, having gotten into the PhDprogram at Oxford, we faced a
decision where we could havebeen separated for several years
, while Niki started his lawcareer and I pursued the PhD, or
we could have chosen to do whatwas best for our marriage, and
instead I made the choice to dowhat was best for our marriage,
and that required laying downthis big dream.
(44:33):
And the big dream would havebeen to have had a PhD in
theology and got accepted to oneof the colleges at Oxford, and
that was all in the bag.
But then, all these years later, as Niki knows, we ended up
planting and pastoring a church,and we've now been doing that
for 19 years, and so we have allthe benefits that would have
(44:55):
come with the seminary degree,but without having sacrificed
our marriage.
So, in the same way that TregTaylor's story worked out, he
ends up fighting for Alaskansand Americans, but in a
different way than he thoughthis path would originally go.
And another one that I thoughtthat came to mind was just about
how, in my first job out of lawschool, I worked for the
(45:17):
Department of Justice and myboss brought a case to me where
he asked me to reinvestigate aninvestigation that had been done
by our inspector general'soffice.
I was supposed to just edit itand finalize it, make sure it
was good for publication.
The investigators had lookedinto allegations that there had
been physical abuse by guards ata prison in New York against
(45:39):
inmates that had been arrestedafter September 11th on
suspicion that they'd beeninvolved.
They hadn't been involved, butthey said there had been no
abuse and the inspector generalthought that there were some
holes in the case, so he askedme to reinvestigate it.
I was just out of law schooland there were some things I
thought really needed to bepressed in on and I just you
(46:00):
know, like you said, Niki, withthat dogged determination, that
there was just something herethat didn't seem right.
I ended up really digging intothe case and not letting go
until I got to the bottom of it,including finding hundreds of
videotapes that the heads of theDepartment of Justice had said
had been destroyed, but theyhadn't been, and they showed
evidence that the guards badlyabused these detainees.
Niki Tshibaka (46:22):
Was this the Department of Justice or the
Bureau of Prisons that said theywere destroyed?
Kelly Tshibaka (46:25):
The Department of Justice had said they were
destroyed, as well as the Bureauof Prisons.
But the BOP is in theDepartment of Justice and this
case involved the FBI, the DOJ,the BOP and people even at the
head of the Department ofJustice, and so it goes all the
way up to the US Supreme Courtbecause of what we found in this
investigation that I did and itends up.
I just recently realized ittook 20 years for them to
(46:48):
resolve and finalize this entirecase.
Several of the guards ended upgetting terminated.
Later one of the guards, one ofthe prison captain, ends up
going to jail and they ended uppaying out the detainees over a
million dollars who were thedefendants in the case or who
brought the case.
So I thought that was aninteresting example as well just
(47:10):
things early in my career ofyou know, taking a stand and
taking courage and saying youknow there's something here
worth fighting for and notbacking down.
What's a story you have?
Niki Tshibaka (47:20):
Well, I mean, I, you know, I mean I don't like to
talk about my stories too much,so I, I, I'd like to actually,
like I said, my biggest one isand my best and wonderful, most
courageous decision was marrying.
Kelly Tshibaka (47:32):
Most courageous.
That was terrifying.
Niki Tshibaka (47:34):
And it takes courage every day to walk along
this side this formidable andamazing woman.
But I wanted to get back toGeneral Taylor's work as an
attorney general.
He talked about education.
Kelly Tshibaka (47:52):
Oh yeah.
Niki Tshibaka (47:53):
Being an incredibly important thing
that's near and dear to hisheart.
Near and dear to the hearts of,I know, of all of us Alaskans
and, of course, across thecountry, because right now we're
seeing a huge sea change and aseismic tectonic shift in how
education is being handled now,with the Department of Education
effectively from a practicalstandpoint, the Department of
(48:14):
Education effectively from apractical standpoint,
essentially being wound- downRight and such, so that the
federal monies can actually beplaced in the hands of our
states, our state leaders,because we're the ones who know
best how to take care of andeducate our kids.
We have a very diverse systemacross this country, very
(48:36):
diverse communities strugglingwith different kinds of things,
and so to have one size fits allkinds of approaches coming up
from the federal government hasnever been the best way.
Kelly Tshibaka (48:45):
And I agree that we will do a better job with
determining that if everybody'sinvolved.
I'm very concerned aboutdecisions that are being made at
the local level in education inAlaska when we have dropped so
substantially from rankingpretty high when I was in public
school here to now being oftennumber 51 in a United States of
50 states in terms of educationscores.
Niki Tshibaka (49:07):
Yeah, no, that's, that's.
But what I was really gratifiedand encouraged to hear was
General Taylor's passion forthat subject and seeing what we
can do, you know, from a policystandpoint, what are the things
that he can do in his positionand in working with the governor
and working with the Trumpadministration, to really up our
(49:28):
game, Because we're denying ourkids the future that they all
deserve to have when we don'tmeet our basic responsibilities
of just educating, just teachingthem how to read and do math
Rather than some of the other.
I'm not even going to get intoit, but the other things that we
seem to have been focusing ongetting back to the basics and
(49:48):
the foundations of what are thethings that they need to know in
order to flourish.
Kelly Tshibaka (49:53):
Succeed, that's right.
Niki Tshibaka (49:55):
The things needed for human flourishing, and
reading and writing andarithmetic has always been at
least a basic foundation of that.
Leave the values to the parents.
Kelly Tshibaka (50:03):
Right.
Niki Tshibaka (50:04):
Focus on the basics of what they need to feed
their brains.
Kelly Tshibaka (50:08):
I think that's a wonderful example of how well
this attorney general has foughtfor the values and rights of
Alaskans and I appreciate, likeyou said, the courage that Treg
Taylor has demonstrated intaking on the fight with the
Biden administration and theoverreach of government in
Alaska and on behalf of Alaskans, and in partnering with other
(50:30):
Attorney Generals across theUnited States in order to
protect and preserve the rightsof all Americans.
We are so grateful that TregTaylor came on the episode.
Thank you, Treg, and we arelooking forward to having
another amazing episode of Stand.
You are with Kelly and NikiTshibaka and we are hoping to
make courage contagious.
You can find all of ourepisodes at standshoworg and we
(50:53):
will be happy to see you on ournext show.
Stand by and stand strong andstand firm.
Welcome to Stand .
I'm your host, Kelly Tshibaka,and this is where we help make
courage contagious.
I'm joined today by my amazingco-host and husband, Niki
Tshibaka, and we have anoutstanding episode for you.
You can catch all of ourepisodes on our website,
standshoworg.
Become one of our subscribers,our standouts, and join us on
social media.
Today, we are excited to havethe Attorney General of the
(00:30):
State of Alaska, Treg Taylor,join us.
Treg, thank you so much forjoining us on our show.
We are so excited to have you.
AG Treg Taylor (00:37):
Thank you so much, Kelly and Niki, for having
me on the show.
I'm excited to be here.
Nothing going on in the stateof Alaska right now, so it's an
amazing time to be in theposition I find myself in a
fortunate position, to be in aposition that I can help the
state of Alaska, and so it's agreat time to be the attorney
general.
Kelly Tshibaka (00:58):
We know that you are joining us from Juneau
today, so we appreciate youcalling in.
Tell us a little bit about yourbackground story and how you
came to become our attorneygeneral.
AG Treg Taylor (01:07):
Yeah, no.
As a kid growing up ever sinceI can remember, I wanted to be a
private lawyer.
That was my goal, that was mydream, and I worked really hard
for that.
Actually, I grew up primarilyin a single-parent home.
My mother was raising four kidsand teaching full-time, and so
I had a lot of free time on myhand.
(01:27):
I could have made a lot ofdifferent decisions, but I had
that goal that I wanted to go tothe united states air force
academy and be a fighter pilot,and so that cut me out of
trouble for the most part.
I think that was that was thatgoal was key.
I think that my ability to moveforward and not fall for some
of the pitfalls that certainlywere not there around me and it
(01:49):
led me to want to be excellentin academics and to get the
grades that I could be acceptedto the Air Force Academy.
And so I was living the dreamand, lo and behold, I get
accepted to the Air ForceAcademy.
It was one of the best days ofmy life.
I loved the Academy.
I spent two years at the Academybefore they had a deal sort of
(02:11):
with churches that if you'regoing to serve a mission, they
wanted you to go and talk toyour second year, because your
first year is you're not evenhuman.
They beat on you.
It's not great, it's not a fun,it's fun to look back on, was
not fun to go through.
And then your second year isyour hardest academically.
So they wanted you to get threeor two years before you have
free permission.
(02:31):
So I applied for a mission atthe end of the two years and was
sent um to the canary islands,which is off the coast of
morocco and africa and the coast, and spent two years there and
reapplied to get back.
You know you have to reapplywhile you're on your mission
because that's the timelines forthe academy but reapplied and
got back in and they sent me aletter and I apologize ahead of
(02:56):
time.
I had a hard time gettingthrough this story, but sent me
a letter.
All I had to do sign my name,sent it back in and I was going
to be a junior at the UnitedStates Air Force Academy.
I was living my dream.
I was pilot qualifiedphysically and one of the very
few pilot qualified physicallyin my class.
(03:16):
Because the DOD had come downand said hey, if you've had
LASIKs, you're not going to flyfor the Air Force and of course
half my classmates had L you'renot going to fly for the Air
Force and of course half myclassmates have Lasix just to
fly and so um, but I got thatpaper and I had the hardest time
trying to sign that.
I tried to sign that thing sohard for about two weeks and I
felt bad because here I am, I'ma missionary, I'm supposed to be
(03:40):
serving the people of theCanary Islands and I can't get
my mind off of this paper that Iwould love to sign.
And so I did all kinds.
I did all the people of theCanary Islands and I can't get
my mind off of this paper that Iwould love to sign.
And so I did all kinds.
I did all the tricks like thepositives and negatives for
returning, and actually the onlypositive I could think of not
returning was I could marry agirl I've been dating for many
years.
Right, and that was the onlything I could put in a positive.
(04:01):
And despite all that, afterabout two, two weeks of not
being able to sleep, not beingable to focus, I'd had enough
and I finally got dropped myknees and really look at me and
I feel bad about it now, butreally flippantly, I said, fine,
I'll do what you want me to doand I knew exactly what I was
(04:23):
supposed to do at that time.
And so it really changed thecourse of my life and I
apologize again, but literallyone of the biggest decisions of
my life and I'm so glad that Ilistened so glad that I listened
because I've been able to do somuch good as an attorney.
And, oddly enough, I got backfrom my mission.
(04:44):
I enrolled at college and I metmy wife the first week, not the
girl I've been dating forseveral years.
So God has a plan.
That's what I learned and Iknow that if I follow that plan
I'm going to be in the rightplace to do the right things.
So I feel very fortunate to bein this position.
But that was part of his planfor me and you know my legal
(05:09):
career.
You know I started out inlitigation.
I did five years of litigationin Anchorage.
You know came up my wife's fromAnchorage, so we came up right
after law school and so Istarted that five years of
litigation at a firm called LucyMoran, garrity and Zobel.
Michael Garrity, who happenedto be an attorney general for me
, was my supervisor.
(05:30):
And then I decided I'd goin-house because I really wanted
to be part of a team.
You know, I grew up playingteam sports.
I wanted to help grow abusiness, help a business solve
problems, instead of just kindof be a hired hitman.
And so I went over to McKinleyCapital that was Bob hired, a
hired hitman.
And um, so I went over tomckinley capital, um, that was
bob gilliam's bob gilliam shopand he was a.
(05:50):
He was a great boss, a greatmentor and uh spent uh five
years there before going over tothe src.
Um, you know oil and gasdivision, who I knew.
If I was going to stay in alaskaand make law career, I'd
eventually have to get into theoil and gas and energy arena.
And so it was there that thegovernor reached out and asked
me if I'd apply for the positionof the attorney general.
(06:12):
And so I did.
It wasn't something that I'dever thought of before.
I mean, mike had gone on tobecome the attorney general.
So I kind of had thatrelationship with the position.
And then, when it came down toit, I did not get the attorney
general spot.
I remember thinking okay, andthey offered me to be the deputy
of the civil division, I waslike, okay, if I'm going to do
(06:33):
this, I'm going to do thisthrough the deputy of the civil
division, I'm not going to dothis trying to, you know, work
my way into the attorney generalspot.
So that's what I did.
I accepted the position asdeputy attorney general and then
, two years later, I ended upbeing in this position as
attorney general and I feel veryfortunate because I've been an
(06:55):
attorney general four years,almost corresponding to the
Biden administration, which hasbeen a whirlwind.
So that's how I ended up whereI am, you know, and I had to
make Alaska my home.
I know, when we were thinkingabout where we wanted to go
after law school, jody was.
The first thing she said to mewas anywhere but Alaska.
(07:17):
It's like what you know.
We'd come up and work in thesummers, I'd fallen in love with
the state and she's like well,I've lived there my whole life.
I want to see somethingdifferent.
But again, through divineintervention, we came to realize
that Alaska was where we weresupposed to be.
That's where we were supposedto be as a family, our six
children, and it's been a greatblessing to be here at the state
(07:41):
.
Niki Tshibaka (07:42):
That's an amazing , amazing story and I really
appreciate your, just yourvulnerability and your
transparency, because you know,in those, it's those pivotal
decisions in our lives that arethe most emotional and profound
and transformational, and wecould hear that in your voice,
but also in the story itself,just the weight of that.
(08:04):
I have fond memories of thecanary islands.
I traveled there as a as achild and vacationed there with
my parents, and it's just, it'sa beautiful place.
So, um, awesome to hear thatyou're on on mission over there.
AG Treg Taylor (08:16):
um, I'd like to when I made that decision not
sign and to go elsewhere, thatit was like a massive weight
lifted off my shoulder.
And it was really cool becausethat afternoon you know the
spanish air force they have abase there on there on canary
island, but I never saw any ofthe aircraft flying, always
(08:37):
grounded.
And that afternoon, I kid younot, two migs took off from that
base and it's right over us aswe were working and uh, and that
had that return of that feelingwhere I had made the right
decision, that burden had beenlifted from me.
And it turned out there wassomebody bought a russian sub
and we're going to use it as atourist uh attraction, but
(08:59):
didn't bother to tell uh, thegovernor of spain that they were
going to bring that sub intotheir port.
So that's why it was too big ascramble.
So really happenstance, butanother like just a
reaffirmation that I was doingwhat I'm working to do.
Niki Tshibaka (09:12):
That's that's incredible and so thankful for
for your service and wow, youknow it's.
It's one of those I call it thepressure cooker moments where
you just feel it's it, there'sthis, there's this almost like
holy discomfort, where you'rejust like you know something's
not quite right.
I've got it, I've got to make adecision either way, and then,
once you make it, and you knowit's the right decision, that
(09:34):
that pressure just kind offizzles and you and you just
feel this complete peace and youknow, you know you're headed in
the right direction.
Kelly Tshibaka (09:40):
so that's that's amazing, wow we're coming close
up to a break, but, treg, Iwould like for you to tee up for
us what some of your greatestwins are as Attorney General.
What have you taken the mostsatisfaction in?
Niki Tshibaka (09:54):
Yeah, and if we tee those up, maybe you can list
a few of them and on the otherside of the break we can go
deeper into them let's talkabout covid litigation.
AG Treg Taylor (10:04):
Let's talk about shape saving the cruise ship
season.
Uh, statehood defense has beena fabulous thing that we've done
, um, and then obviously we'vehad that recent litigation over
there for respondent schools, uh, so those are some big ones
that I'm proud of, because, andmostly because of the amount of
people that are affected forgood.
Kelly Tshibaka (10:31):
So, yeah, I'd love to talk more about those.
That'd be great.
So we're coming up on thisbreak, so stay with us on the
other side.
I think it's really important.
A lot of people don't reallykeep up with how much the law
and litigation and even just howmuch a strong letter from an
attorney general can affect thecourse of our daily lives.
And if you've never heard ofTreg Taylor before, he is very
(10:53):
much all up in your businessdefending and advocating and
protecting us as Alaskans andeven signing on to litigation
across the United States thataffects what's happening in
other states, and so wedefinitely want to tune in and
hear about what you're doing,treg, and find out all that's
going on, because the AttorneyGeneral has a huge impact on the
rights, the civil rights andeven our pocketbooks here in
(11:17):
Alaska and across the UnitedStates.
So this is Stand.
You're with Kelly and NikiTshibaka on Stand.
We're at standshoworg.
We're with Treg Taylor, theAttorney General for the state
of Alaska, and he has been forseveral years.
I had the honor of working withhim when I was Commissioner for
Administration in theGovernor's Cabinet.
We'll pick up just on the otherside of the break.
Stand by the Emerald isAlaska's first multi-level
(11:43):
senior activity program madespecifically for elder Alaskans
and those with physicaldisabilities.
It's located in MidtownAnchorage and the facility
offers unprecedented views ofdowntown Anchorage and the Inlet
from a newly renovated building.
The goal is to encourage aspirit of independence and
foster community integration.
Experience a new senior careprogram built by Alaskans for
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Alaskans.
Niki Tshibaka (12:18):
Call Julie today at 907-830-8212.
We are back on stand withGeneral Taylor.
Attorney General Tregg Taylor,state Attorney General for the
State of Alaska.
Such an honor to have him onhere with us on stand.
General Taylor, on the on theprevious segment, you had just
teed up for us some of theincredible work that you and
your staff have been doing inthe Attorney General's office On
(12:39):
behalf of the people of Alaska.
You referenced some of theCOVID litigation.
You referenced some of thewinds as it relates to the
cruise ships issues, and you'vealso talked about what is a huge
issue right now related tocorrespondence schools, which is
something of great import formany Alaskans, because we all
know that education is a bigissue for all of us right now.
(13:02):
So could you unpack each ofthose things and what you've
been doing in those areas sothat more Alaskans can hear
about the incredible work youroffice has been doing?
AG Treg Taylor (13:11):
Yeah, no, I'll kind of go in order.
I've been the attorney generalfor four years and, as I said in
the previous segment, it seemedto have just overlapped
directly with the Bidenadministration, which gave us
plenty to do here, includingdefend against some of the COVID
mandates that they were pushingout.
So we entered five major COVIDmandate pieces of litigation.
(13:32):
Of course it wasn't the lastone alone.
One of the great parts aboutbeing the Attorney General
during that time is I got toknow my counterparts in the
United States really well andworked really well in the United
States and had sort of adivision of labor because there
was stuff coming at it so fastthat it was really easy to lose
track of something or not noticesomething.
And so I have 26 sets of eyes,26 attorneys general with their
(13:56):
eyes on it.
We've been helping to converteverything situation.
So the one.
So the CMS mandate, which wasbasically the vaccine for all
healthcare workers, successfulin getting that thrown out,
which I think was huge.
And then OSHA that was anotherbig piece of litigation because
they wanted to mandate anyemployer that had over 100
(14:19):
employees.
They were mandating thatemployer, force all those
employees to get the vaccine,and we were successful in that
relationship.
There was one that was directedat federal contractors, and so
if you had any no matter ifyou're just a mom and pop shop
that had a federal contract anyfederal contractor would have to
(14:39):
mandate that all of theiremployees get the vaccine.
And so, working with otherstates, we were successful in
getting that thrown out.
And then the last one, HeadStart.
You know they're forcingeverybody teachers, these Head
Start programs to get thevaccine, and we successfully got
that impossible.
And one we lost on it.
We knew it was going to be anuphill battle, but we thought it
(15:02):
was a worthy battle, and thatwas the vaccine requirement for
all, uh, the military person.
And that's because, clearly,the president has a lot of
direct authority over militarypersonnel.
And so we knew that one was anuphill battle and we fought that
one uh, lost in the courts, butit had the desire to affect,
(15:23):
because Secretary of DefenseLloyd Austin rescinded that
mandate soon after thatintervention.
We managed to put it out thereand sort of tried it in the
American people's lives as wellas the courts, and so that was
the COVID intervention.
So I think we saved a lot ofpeople in this country from
(15:44):
being forced to get the COVIDshot and lose their jobs, which
should never, ever, ever occurand hopefully will never occur
again.
Hopefully, we as a nation havelearned that lesson.
Kelly Tshibaka (15:55):
Yeah, Treg.
It reminds me of a phrase thatNiki and I will say to each
other often, and I just want toremind our audience of it that
some causes are so worthy thatit is noble even to fail in
their pursuit.
And so, as you were just saying,even though you knew it
probably didn't have legal causeto be able to order the
commander in chief to notadminister the COVID shot on the
(16:18):
troops, by pursuing that legalcivil right for our men and
women in service, we put so muchsocial pressure on the
Secretary of Defense that theywere able to rescind it anyway.
You knew you were probablygoing into a losing battle
legally, but you won it in thecourt of public opinion and
(16:39):
therefore we were able toprotect a civil right freedom
for the men and women in uniform.
And I appreciate that, becausewe know that we're not going to
win every battle, but it's stillnoble to pursue some of these
battles anyway, and that's whatit means to take a stand.
I appreciate that you mentionedone on the other side of the
break as well, which was aboutthe cruise industry, which has
(17:00):
such huge consequences forAlaska.
What one was that about?
AG Treg Taylor (17:03):
So that one was basically through the COVID
mandate for requirements forvaccine cruise ships, ports of
entry, all the differentrequirements basically were
going to shut cruise areas.
There was sort of a doublewhammy at this time in that not
only that, but for the Alaskacruise season all of the
Canadian ports were closed andso that under law they didn't
(17:31):
have to stop at these foreignports in order to make the
voyage to Alaska.
And so it was twofold.
On that we joined forces withFlorida, which obviously has a
big concern about cruise shipstoppage, and so we joined
forces with Ashley Mooney downin Florida, who's now the
senator representing Florida,and we were successful in that
(17:55):
litigation.
And then we worked very closelywith both of our congressional
delegations to get a waiver forthat requirements delegations,
to get a way for that to be arequirement.
So those acts prevented cruiseships from coming directly from
the Seattle ports to Alaskawithout stopping in the field of
course.
So that was a big win.
Because you know the Southeast,you know we don't have the
(18:16):
timber industry and the thingsto have and a lot of these small
towns, a lot of these smallbusinesses, small restaurants.
They live and die by the foodindustry and having that
disrupted for multiple yearswould have had devastating
effects.
I've already seen.
I'm sitting in Juneau in myoffice and I can look at
restaurants that no longer exist, just because of the time here.
(18:44):
There's other litigation Icould talk about too.
The statehood defense stuff'sreally kind of interesting.
Those are the potatoes of sortof Alaska's response to all the
Biden executive orders and theagainst the record in Alaska.
Niki Tshibaka (18:58):
Yeah, please unpack that.
AG Treg Taylor (19:00):
Yeah.
So we knew right away thatAlaska was going to be a target
of the Biden administration.
He did what he that Alaska wasgoing to be targeted by the
administration.
We made it.
We did what he said he wasgoing to do during this campaign
.
So we knew Alaska was going tobe a target.
So we came up with the otherstate, the Defense Fund.
We went to the legislature foradditional funding to help that
(19:20):
fight because we knew the battlewas coming and we basically
pulled the group.
It was the commissioner of DNR,commissioner of Fish and Game
and commissioner of DDC andmyself.
We met every week and continueto meet every week on these
issues to try to figure out whatbattles are coming, how to
(19:41):
prepare for them, what sciencedo we need Fish and Game to do
or DBC to do in order to win, toultimately be successful in
these legal battles?
And again, because of thatextra funding that the
legislature gave us to take thaton, we have been very
successful and we currently haveover 80 lawsuits against the
(20:04):
government and the basis ofstatehood defense is hey,
alaskans should decide thedestiny of Alaska, right?
Not a federal bureaucrat inWashington DC.
And so this is all about makingsure the feds respect the
promises they made in Alaskastatehood and allow Alaska to
determine its future.
And so that's sort of whatstatehood and allow Alaska to
(20:26):
determine its future?
And so that's sort of whatstate of defense some of our big
wins, you know, might not seemlike a big deal to most people
that aren't even know that, likethe polar bear incident, will
take.
If that had gone awry we'dliterally have stopped
production on the North Slopebecause polar bear critical
habitat.
We were successful in that.
(20:46):
We were able to preserve andhave enough capacity for that
operation on North Slope tocontinue and also to allow for
willow to go in Because again,if that had gone a different way
, willow would never have beenallowed to move.
We kept commercial Chinookpushing going on in the
southeast Alaska to take on someof the environmental issues
(21:07):
that wanted to shut that down inthe federal government.
And then we have a criticalhabitat for ice seals.
You know there's millions andmillions of ice seals.
It's a healthy population.
But what the Bidenadministration was doing with
all this critical habitat andendangered species listings is
they were taking the science andthey were looking, they're
modeling it out.
100 years For 100 years couldice seals be in danger and, of
(21:33):
course, using their model andtheir logic, they came up with
the fact oh yeah, in 100 yearsthey're going to be a species
that's almost extinct.
And so we fought that.
And if you look at thedesignation for critical habitat
, it basically shuts down anytype of commercial use of those
(21:55):
waters or land that encompassesthat critical habitat.
And what's really unfair is thatit encompassed, like, the
entire coast of Alaska.
Now if you look at criticalhabitat on the east coast,
different story, right, becauseagain, alaska is an easy target.
So critical habitat for specieslike the Atlantic right whale,
(22:16):
there are little tiny pockets ofcritical habitat that allow
still commercial activity tocontinue to go on around it.
But in Alaska they were usingthat as a weapon.
They were trying to weaponizecritical habitat and prevent us
from doing any additional miningin that critical habitat, any
offshore drilling that may occurin the future, and so that was
(22:39):
a big win for the state as well.
Kelly Tshibaka (22:42):
They were doing the same thing with how they
were expanding definition ofclean water and anything that
was essentially defined as apuddle became protected waters
and just these really expansiveregulations.
You heard you were talkingabout it, the governor was
talking about it, SenatorSullivan was talking about it,
about how expansive they madethe regulatory authority to just
(23:04):
really shut down and targeteverything in Alaska to just
turn us into a national park.
It was their 30 by 30 agenda tohave 30 percent of the United
States water and land shut downby 2030.
And the main place they weretargeting was here.
So, yeah, you were on fulldefense.
It's you.
You got to be that fighterpilot, but from from the
(23:27):
courtroom.
Yeah, For the state of Alaskapilot, but from from the
courtroom.
AG Treg Taylor (23:33):
Yeah, for the state of Alaska.
Luckily I've got a great cohortof attorneys you know, yeah,
people don't realize we do boththe criminal prosecution side
Alaska's kind of community tothem, to all criminal
prosecution at least allfelonies, some of the
municipalities, maybe some ofthe misdemeanors, but then the
other half of the Department ofLaw does all the civil stuff.
So all this defensive,defensive statement um that that
(23:54):
went on was with our folks andwith the additional funds from
the legislature we were able tobring in the outside counsel
with the expertise um to setsome of these cases up for um us
supreme court.
And I still think that some ofthese we're still hoping some of
these lawsuits that serve toplay the US Supreme Court will
be heard.
Kelly Tshibaka (24:16):
It would be good if they do, because I think we
need the legal precedent to beable to stand on for 10th
Amendment purposes for states'rights, so that we are able to
draw that line in the sand.
We're up on a break, so let'stake the break audience and
we'll come back with Treg Tayloron the other side.
And Attorney General Taylor, wewant to talk to you about
education and we know that Trumpis looking to disband or will
(24:39):
be disbanding.
I'm sure that there will besome legal challenges to that to
the Department of Education.
We want to talk about howthat's going to affect Alaska
and some of the challenges thatwe've faced here in Alaska to
homeschooling and privateeducation and funding for
education.
We want to get all yourthoughts on that on the other
side of the break, so stand by,we'll be right back after this.
You're on stand with Kelly andNiki Tshibaka.
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Welcome back to Stand withKelly and Niki Tshibaka.
We're with Attorney GeneralTaylor.
I'm totally starting with that.
Over the break, the AttorneyGeneral told us that he has been
(25:48):
awarded by the Anchorage DailyNews as Worst Legislator of the
Year because he's actually beendoing things and making an
impact, which I reallyappreciate, because when you
take a stand, people are goingto give you flack for it, and I
think it's important to wearthat as a badge of honor.
So I'm very proud of you,Attorney General.
Niki Tshibaka (26:04):
For being effective in the executive
function that you have so muchso that, yeah.
Kelly Tshibaka (26:10):
When your adversaries give you a badge for
it, it's something to wear withpride, so just hang that on
your wall.
AG Treg Taylor (26:16):
I just want to.
It's the importance of beinggrounded right and always
knowing what you stand for andwhat you value Because, man,
there's so much pressure to dothe wrong thing sometimes or
ignore things or let things go.
It's constant pressure,especially from a BBA.
Kelly Tshibaka (26:36):
Yeah.
So I have people who care aboutme very much and who watch the
hate that I get on social mediaon a daily basis from what
people would call trolls, andthey reach out to me with great
concern regularly.
Would call trolls and theyreach out to me with great
concern regularly and I tellthem that I don't care, because
if you're effective, then you'regoing to get more comments
(26:58):
against you, but if you'reineffective, then nobody is
going to comment at all.
So I actually use it as ameasure of how effective I'm
being at influencing andaffecting things, and that's
what I take your ADN badge asbeing.
If you weren't doing anything,you wouldn't be getting any heat
.
Niki Tshibaka (27:12):
So it's good for people to be in a position where
people are coming against youwhen you're doing the right
thing.
At least like your conscienceis clear.
That's right you have a clearconscience.
All of that noise just doesn'tmatter, Because you know that
you're on the right track.
Kelly Tshibaka (27:30):
So you've really taken a stand on things like
parental rights and on educationhere in Alaska.
For those who aren't caught up,we do have a major education
problem.
Many times we're rated 51st inthe nation of 50 states as far
as our education quality.
When I grew up here inAnchorage, we were around the
top 20.
(27:50):
And so it's been.
I would say maybe anintentional decline in the last
several decades in order to dropfrom where we were to where we
are.
So, General Taylor, I wanted toask you what have you been doing
to address this?
What's your take on Trump'seffort to abolish or diminish
the Department of Education?
(28:11):
He's sending some of thosefunctions over to other
departments.
How will that affect us?
And then, Niki and I have beenparticularly concerned recently
about the efforts in the courtsystem and in the legislature.
To well, I would just saycreate a monopoly of public
school funding only in Alaskaand stop all funding for
homeschool efforts, privateschools.
(28:33):
I think many of us participatein the stipend funding from the
state to help our kids inextracurricular activities.
I just wanted to kind of tossthe ball to you and see what's
your take on this as our headattorney in the state to protect
education and school choice andparental rights for Alaskans.
AG Treg Taylor (28:50):
Yeah, no, you know, one of the blessings of
COVID was the spotlight on oureducation system, that's right.
You know, without COVID weprobably wouldn't have this
uprising that you see, as far aspeople demanding results from
their education system,demanding choices, and you know
I, obviously, obviously, youknow I've got six kids, so I
(29:11):
constantly worry about what kindof education they're getting.
Uh, and then you know, as aparent of six kids, you also
know that each kid is sodifferent, so one way of doing
things isn't going to be thebest for each kid.
Prime example my oldest place,um, she, she did a highly gifted
(29:31):
program in the West.
Now she was likely the onlyconservative person in that
entire program.
She took care of us constantly.
But I knew, because I knew mydaughter Quincy, I knew what she
was made of, I knew herpersonality, I knew she could
form a map and that she couldrise to the occasion.
She could rise to it, rise to itright, and um, the occasion.
(29:52):
And so some of my otherchildren, I probably wouldn't
put them in that position, right, because I know them and I.
They're still growing, they'restill learning, they're still
developing sort of that backboneand so, uh, it's really nice
for a parent to be able to haveeducational choice like should I
play?
Where is gonna be the best ofthis.
So it's gonna be like this andyou've mentioned it the dreadful
(30:15):
scores that Alaska gets,despite being one of the highest
funded states out there and soyou wanna protect what is
working and right now and we'lltalk about that in a little bit
but first I want to address whatyou talked about with Trump and
the Department of Education andhis wanting to sort of do away
(30:37):
with the Department of Education.
I'm going to pick up and readto your audience what the US
Constitution has to say abouteducation.
It's not in the US Constitutionconstitution, right, because it
was clearlya matter for statesand uh, I was holding my breath.
Kelly Tshibaka (30:55):
I was like what's he gonna read?
AG Treg Taylor (30:57):
yeah, that I like I I'm like, oh, maybe
they've added something ourfounders clearly wanted
education to be controlled bystates.
Kelly Tshibaka (31:08):
And in.
AG Treg Taylor (31:09):
Amendment 10, right, that's right.
Hey, whatever powers are notreserved for themselves, are
reserved for states.
Education is a state issue.
And what makes something likethe Department of Education so
dangerous is because it forcesuniformity throughout the entire
United States.
Right now we're seeing this onan economic side.
(31:31):
Right, we're seeing statesexplore with tax deductions or
tax relief or implementingcertain policies or deregulating
.
We're seeing states competingfor economic growth and if there
was an edict from Washington DCthat said you can't do that,
then we wouldn't see this, thisgloomy, going around the United
(31:53):
States and people are votingwith their feet.
Right, we're not European.
We don't stay in the same placeour entire lives.
We're going to move where wecan live the American dream best
, right.
Kelly Tshibaka (32:03):
Well, it's a good point.
If none of your kids are thesame, why would we assume any of
the states are the same abouteducation?
AG Treg Taylor (32:11):
Well, yeah, no, exactly Well, Alaska could be
exhibit one of them.
What's good for a kid in PlainHope isn't necessarily good for
a kid at West High School,that's right.
And any time you get, you knowthe federal government has so
much control, not because ofwhat they're allowed to do in
the Constitution.
They have control because theygive out just free money, right,
and you and I both know there'sno such thing as free money.
(32:33):
We pay for it, right, we're thetaxpayer, so we're putting the
bill, and that money comes withrequirements, it comes with
restrictions, it comes withduties and obligations.
So, um, and that's how they'vebeen able to control what goes
on in the classroom so closely.
And so I guess what I'm all for, right, I'm all for taking that
(32:56):
money and sending it to thestates to learn states to use it
and to have the ability ofstates to experiment with what
works best, try differentprograms, try out different
things, and then we as a statecan look around who's doing it.
Well, I mean, we saw that withreading right.
Florida reading scores used tobe one of the worst Alabama
(33:17):
reading scores used to be one ofthe worst.
Yet all of a sudden, in a fewyears they're at near the top of
the nation.
It's like when you look at astate you say, well, what are
they doing right?
State to say, well, what arethey doing right, and why can't
we do that?
And so we saw a little patentlegislation that was passed.
Now we didn't get everythingthey were doing in that
legislation because we had tocompromise, because that's how
legislation worked, um, but wegot some of that and uh, and
(33:40):
hopefully we'll see acorresponding increase in the
ability of our children to readthat level right, because right
now it was.
The numbers for Alaska aredismal and that affects not only
our future workforce, becausewe're going to need a future
workforce.
If we get half the projectsthat President Trump imagines
for or wishes for Alaska, we'regoing to need a workforce and it
(34:02):
also affects current.
I don't know how many timesI've tried to recruit attorneys
from out of state friends,people I know good work and then
you reach out and the firstthing, one of the first things
they do is do what our schoolsdo because they want the best
for the kids, and I've been toldno many, many times.
Because they look at our schoolperformance and they say
(34:25):
there's no way I'm going to movemy family to Alaska.
So it affects future workforce,current workforce.
So it's a big issue to grapplewith and we've seen that just
increasing spending isn't theanswer.
That's what we've been doingand our scores continue to be
great.
So I think the Department ofEducation probably never had a
place under the Constitution andso seeing that go away is not
(34:49):
going to be.
They're not going to be.
It's going to be a good thingfor the states.
It'll give them more control,more ability to experiment, more
ability to do things.
They know that their kids needum and so um.
That's that in that show on thecorrespondence school.
So we do.
We do have a pretty good system.
(35:10):
In Alaska we have acorrespondence school in the
Lopins.
We've got 22,000 kids that aresort of tailoring their
educational needs, and thecorrespondence is a lot more
problem.
It is a public school, it'sguided by a public school
teacher, you get a public degree.
It's a public school education.
But it provides a lot of choiceand so, as many well know, if
(35:33):
anybody has anybody in thatprogram, they certainly know.
But the NEA decided they didn'tlike that choice, they didn't
like the parents being able totake their kids out of
curriculum school.
They wanted to force those kidsto be in a prison, and so, and
they hired Scott Kendall to goout and attack that authorizing
(35:54):
statute for them.
And so they did, and wedefended that and ultimately we
lost to the in the SuperiorCourt, which was surprising.
And but we won the AlaskaSupreme Court, where we were
able to say that that statute isconstitutional because they
were trying to get the wholeprogram.
Now they've come back sincethen.
(36:16):
Right, they've come back andsued based upon what we call an
as-applied charge.
So, as school districtsimplement this Correspondence to
Memorial Law Program perstatute, as they implement it,
they might be implementing it,according to Scott Kendall and
the NEA, in a way that violatesthe Constitution.
So we're getting ready todefend that.
(36:36):
Obviously, that's ongoinglitigation.
That barely started.
They brought in four schooldistricts and so we're gonna be
defending school districts'right to be as nimble and as uh,
as, uh, as open as they can bein that program because, again,
(36:57):
the more choices you have, thebetter off that kid's going to
be.
And so we'll see what happensover the next.
Uh, it'll probably be a prettyslow moving litigation because
they're going to subpoenaed outthere because they're asking for
all these documents, and soit's gonna be a pretty document
intensive fight, but hopefullyat the end of the day we can
preserve those that program forthe 22,000 skids that are using
(37:22):
it.
We'll see what the courts sayAgain.
It's quite worthy to be a partof.
Niki Tshibaka (37:31):
That's amazing.
Well, you know, I justlistening to all of that.
It just reminds me when you'rein a fight like that and you and
you know that you're right itmakes all of the difference
Because really the folks on theother side of this Kendall and
the NEA it's more about powerand money on their side, and the
(37:52):
fight that the Dunleavyadministration and you and your
office are doing is for the kidsand their futures, and so
hopefully the court will get itright the Superior Court level
this time, at least on thisparticular issue and you won't
have to go all the way up to theSupreme Court.
(38:12):
Want to wrap this up,sweetheart?
Kelly Tshibaka (38:15):
Yeah, I appreciate you taking up the
fight.
You know you think about thestudents involved in there.
A lot of the kids who havelearning disabilities, special
needs they don't have all theirneeds met in the brick and
mortar school or a lot of times.
Also, the kids who needaccommodations, they're the ones
who are competing in our sportsprograms or at the Olympic
level.
(38:35):
And they're the ones who arecompeting in our sports programs
or at the Olympic level andthey're the ones who are out of
state or, you know, are our beststudents in a lot of ways and
they can't show up Mondaythrough Friday at a public
school and so they're needingthat accommodation and we want
to support students at thedifferent ends of the learning
spectrum in these accommodations.
And that's Alaska is known forits libertarian lifestyle for a
reason.
Accommodations and that'sAlaska is known for its
(38:57):
libertarian lifestyle for areason.
And forcing people intoconformity, as we were talking
about earlier, is kind ofantithetical to our Alaskan
spirit.
So appreciate you taking upthat fight and thank you for
being with us today.
Attorney General Taylor, weappreciate all the fight that
you're taking up.
This has been, attorney GeneralTaylor, with us on stand.
We're going to pick up on theother side of the break me and
Niki and we wish you all thebest this week in Juneau Treg.
(39:19):
We hope that it goes well asyou take up the fight with the
Juneau legislature.
Niki Tshibaka (39:21):
Thank you, General Taylor, and thank you
for the stand that you're takingfor the people of Alaska.
AG Treg Taylor (39:24):
No, thank you for letting me get the message
out.
This is fantastic If I couldgive accolades to all the
attorneys that work so hard andthe department of law, day in
and day out to make sure thatyou get these things that we
need in Alaska.
If there's any opportunity Ican do that, I'm going to go
back and do it.
So thank you so much.
Kelly Tshibaka (39:43):
Yep, absolutely, we'll be back.
We'll pick up on the other sideof this break.
Stand by.
Welcome back to Stand.
We're on our last segment.
You're with Kelly and NikiTshibaka.
That was an amazing interview wejust had with Treg Taylor, our
(40:04):
current Attorney General for thestate of Alaska.
The part of the interview thatstood out to me the most, or
that had the biggest impact onme, was when he told his story
about that big sacrifice he madeat the beginning of his journey
, when he gave up on hislifelong dream to go into the
Air Force and instead pivotedand became a lawyer and in a
(40:27):
sense, you know he followed hisdream and has become a fighter
for all Alaskans and hasactually stood up for all
Americans in joining theselawsuits against the Biden
administration that are going tocontinue to play out into the
Trump administration's tenure,as we set precedent for law
across the country.
But it was a really harddecision to have to sit there
without any cause but followwhat he really felt like the
(40:50):
Lord was telling him to do andwalk away from that dream.
And we saw how much emotion hehas, even all these decades
later, of giving up on a dreamlike that.
How did that affect you?
Niki Tshibaka (41:00):
You know, it was just a really stirring reminder
of the importance of courage tofollow through on our
convictions and that when we dothat, good things happen.
It doesn't necessarily meanlife is easy, but we can lay our
(41:22):
heads on our pillows and ourconsciences can be at peace
about it.
And I really appreciated thisin particular about it.
I appreciated General Taylor'svulnerability, his transparency
and, of course, the courage heshowed in that decision, because
we are all benefiting rightfrom that decision.
(41:43):
All these years later I willnot say decades, because,
general Taylor, you are not thatold but I will say all of these
years later, alaskans arebenefiting from the courage of
that decision.
And in addition to that, whenwe make those little in this
case it was a big choice butthose decisions to follow our
(42:04):
conscience, to follow what webelieve we're being led to do
and to do what's right, itbecomes a pattern in our lives.
It eventually becomes ourcharacter and ultimately becomes
our destiny.
Kelly Tshibaka (42:18):
Yeah.
Niki Tshibaka (42:19):
And I think we heard that in General Taylor's
story because, like you said, hewent from, he always had that
fight in him, right where hewanted to do something to serve
his country to serve his fellowman and it was like God just
redirected him and said this iswhere I want you to go and this
is what I want you to do.
(42:39):
And he's been doing it eversince, and we just heard about
the amazing work that he and theDepartment of Law have been
doing, along with otherattorneys general across the
country, to not only undo whatthe Biden administration has
done to really unravel thefabric of our democracy in a lot
of ways and harm Alaska, butalso to take more of a proactive
(43:03):
stance, I think, going forwardwith the Trump administration.
We have an administration nowthat is you can say whatever you
think of it, whether you likeit or not.
One thing you can say aboutthis administration is they are
taking incredibly strong, bold,proactive moves to establish the
vision that Trump has forAmerica and America's future and
(43:26):
that we all voted him intooffice to execute.
Kelly Tshibaka (43:31):
Those are all hard decisions.
I was curious if you had astory about a time you had to
make a decision like GeneralTaylor did.
I know I have two stories Ithought would be interesting to
share and I imagine that youhave a story or two as well,
having shared life with you.
I remember at the beginning ofour marriage I was accepted to
Oxford, which at the time hadbeen my lifelong dream, similar
(43:54):
to what Treg Taylor shared withus.
Niki Tshibaka (43:56):
Well, I was going to say that was my first major
courageous decision was choosingto ask you to marry me.
That took a lot of courage.
Kelly Tshibaka (44:02):
Actually, that might be a really good story to
share.
Niki Tshibaka (44:04):
I will not share that publicly yet Go ahead, our
engagement story.
That's a really great story.
Oh my goodness.
Kelly Tshibaka (44:10):
For another time maybe.
So, having gotten into the PhDprogram at Oxford, we faced a
decision where we could havebeen separated for several years
, while Niki started his lawcareer and I pursued the PhD, or
we could have chosen to do whatwas best for our marriage, and
instead I made the choice to dowhat was best for our marriage,
and that required laying downthis big dream.
(44:33):
And the big dream would havebeen to have had a PhD in
theology and got accepted to oneof the colleges at Oxford, and
that was all in the bag.
But then, all these years later, as Niki knows, we ended up
planting and pastoring a church,and we've now been doing that
for 19 years, and so we have allthe benefits that would have
(44:55):
come with the seminary degree,but without having sacrificed
our marriage.
So, in the same way that TregTaylor's story worked out, he
ends up fighting for Alaskansand Americans, but in a
different way than he thoughthis path would originally go.
And another one that I thoughtthat came to mind was just about
how, in my first job out of lawschool, I worked for the
(45:17):
Department of Justice and myboss brought a case to me where
he asked me to reinvestigate aninvestigation that had been done
by our inspector general'soffice.
I was supposed to just edit itand finalize it, make sure it
was good for publication.
The investigators had lookedinto allegations that there had
been physical abuse by guards ata prison in New York against
(45:39):
inmates that had been arrestedafter September 11th on
suspicion that they'd beeninvolved.
They hadn't been involved, butthey said there had been no
abuse and the inspector generalthought that there were some
holes in the case, so he askedme to reinvestigate it.
I was just out of law schooland there were some things I
thought really needed to bepressed in on and I just you
(46:00):
know, like you said, Niki, withthat dogged determination, that
there was just something herethat didn't seem right.
I ended up really digging intothe case and not letting go
until I got to the bottom of it,including finding hundreds of
videotapes that the heads of theDepartment of Justice had said
had been destroyed, but theyhadn't been, and they showed
evidence that the guards badlyabused these detainees.
Niki Tshibaka (46:22):
Was this the Department of Justice or the
Bureau of Prisons that said theywere destroyed?
Kelly Tshibaka (46:25):
The Department of Justice had said they were
destroyed, as well as the Bureauof Prisons.
But the BOP is in theDepartment of Justice and this
case involved the FBI, the DOJ,the BOP and people even at the
head of the Department ofJustice, and so it goes all the
way up to the US Supreme Courtbecause of what we found in this
investigation that I did and itends up.
I just recently realized ittook 20 years for them to
(46:48):
resolve and finalize this entirecase.
Several of the guards ended upgetting terminated.
Later one of the guards, one ofthe prison captain, ends up
going to jail and they ended uppaying out the detainees over a
million dollars who were thedefendants in the case or who
brought the case.
So I thought that was aninteresting example as well just
(47:10):
things early in my career ofyou know, taking a stand and
taking courage and saying youknow there's something here
worth fighting for and notbacking down.
What's a story you have?
Niki Tshibaka (47:20):
Well, I mean, I, you know, I mean I don't like to
talk about my stories too much,so I, I, I'd like to actually,
like I said, my biggest one isand my best and wonderful, most
courageous decision was marrying.
Kelly Tshibaka (47:32):
Most courageous.
That was terrifying.
Niki Tshibaka (47:34):
And it takes courage every day to walk along
this side this formidable andamazing woman.
But I wanted to get back toGeneral Taylor's work as an
attorney general.
He talked about education.
Kelly Tshibaka (47:52):
Oh yeah.
Niki Tshibaka (47:53):
Being an incredibly important thing
that's near and dear to hisheart.
Near and dear to the hearts of,I know, of all of us Alaskans
and, of course, across thecountry, because right now we're
seeing a huge sea change and aseismic tectonic shift in how
education is being handled now,with the Department of Education
effectively from a practicalstandpoint, the Department of
(48:14):
Education effectively from apractical standpoint,
essentially being wound- downRight and such, so that the
federal monies can actually beplaced in the hands of our
states, our state leaders,because we're the ones who know
best how to take care of andeducate our kids.
We have a very diverse systemacross this country, very
(48:36):
diverse communities strugglingwith different kinds of things,
and so to have one size fits allkinds of approaches coming up
from the federal government hasnever been the best way.
Kelly Tshibaka (48:45):
And I agree that we will do a better job with
determining that if everybody'sinvolved.
I'm very concerned aboutdecisions that are being made at
the local level in education inAlaska when we have dropped so
substantially from rankingpretty high when I was in public
school here to now being oftennumber 51 in a United States of
50 states in terms of educationscores.
Niki Tshibaka (49:07):
Yeah, no, that's, that's.
But what I was really gratifiedand encouraged to hear was
General Taylor's passion forthat subject and seeing what we
can do, you know, from a policystandpoint, what are the things
that he can do in his positionand in working with the governor
and working with the Trumpadministration, to really up our
(49:28):
game, Because we're denying ourkids the future that they all
deserve to have when we don'tmeet our basic responsibilities
of just educating, just teachingthem how to read and do math
Rather than some of the other.
I'm not even going to get intoit, but the other things that we
seem to have been focusing ongetting back to the basics and
(49:48):
the foundations of what are thethings that they need to know in
order to flourish.
Kelly Tshibaka (49:53):
Succeed, that's right.
Niki Tshibaka (49:55):
The things needed for human flourishing, and
reading and writing andarithmetic has always been at
least a basic foundation of that.
Leave the values to the parents.
Kelly Tshibaka (50:03):
Right.
Niki Tshibaka (50:04):
Focus on the basics of what they need to feed
their brains.
Kelly Tshibaka (50:08):
I think that's a wonderful example of how well
this attorney general has foughtfor the values and rights of
Alaskans and I appreciate, likeyou said, the courage that Treg
Taylor has demonstrated intaking on the fight with the
Biden administration and theoverreach of government in
Alaska and on behalf of Alaskans, and in partnering with other
(50:30):
Attorney Generals across theUnited States in order to
protect and preserve the rightsof all Americans.
We are so grateful that TregTaylor came on the episode.
Thank you, Treg, and we arelooking forward to having
another amazing episode of Stand.
You are with Kelly and NikiTshibaka and we are hoping to
make courage contagious.
You can find all of ourepisodes at standshoworg and we
(50:53):
will be happy to see you on ournext show.
Stand by and stand strong andstand firm.
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