In times of intense national controversy, a lot of Americans write their Congress members. Alaska Public Media Washington correspondent Liz Ruskin became interested in how Alaska’s congressional delegation responds to constituent messages. She collected hundreds of response letters and shares five things she learned with "Alaska News Nightly" host Casey Grove.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Casey Grove: Liz, how did you become interested in this and what did you do?
Liz Ruskin: Well, responding to constituent letters is a big portion of what the congressional offices do. But as a reporter covering our delegation, I have only caught glimpses of it. So, I asked readers of my newsletter, “Alaska at-Large,” to send me the constituent response letters they’ve received from the senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, and from Congressman Begich. And to be frank, Casey, I was fascinated, because clear patterns emerged.
CG: Oh, really. Well, let's get into your five findings. Tell us about the first one.
LR: No. 1 is that some Alaskans are calling and writing the congressional delegation A LOT. I was surprised. One reader sent me this:
“Liz, I've written over 700 messages to each of our three lawmakers since April 2025, when I finally couldn't stand silent any more with regard to the Trump administration.”
That’s is from someone I think we’ve both interviewed, retired fish and game biologist Rick Sinnott. He never struck me as overtly political. But now he says he’s up to 800 messages to the delegation. Since April!
CG: Wow. Yeah, remind me not to do anything that Rick Sinnott thinks is controversial.
LR: Casey, let’s acknowledge that this was not a cross-section of Alaskans I heard from. Anger is a huge motivator to contact the delegation,. People who write their Congress members these days are quite often mad at President Trump’s policies. And it’s almost a given that the letters they get back, crafted by professional staffers and approved by a politician, are unlikely to satisfy.
CG: Tell me about that. Finding No. 2 is about Sen. Murkowski’s letters, right?
LR: Yes, to generalize what I heard from constituents, Murkowski’s response letters are the equivalent of tap water. Unexciting, but every once in a while, people told me, kind of refreshing.
One person said he finds Murkowski’s letters to be more thoughtful than Sullivan’s, and the reader admitted to me his own bias as a judge. He said, “I suppose that this is in part due to the fact that Murkowski generally agrees with my positions--or at least acknowledges them, whereas I completely disagree with Sullivan on almost all the topics that I write to him about.”
CG: What about Sen. Sullivan’s constituent response letters?
LR: My third finding is that Sullivan’s responses tend to be quite long.
One person sent me a Sullivan letter and said “Quite frankly I couldn't get through the whole epistle without falling into a brief coma.”
I saw a Sullivan letter that ran to 15 pages. The real colossus was Sullivan’s response letter to complaints about the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” That letter grew to 25 pages. Sullivan started sending it as an attachment to a shorter letter.
CG: OK, so long letters from Sen. Sullivan. What else did you find? What is finding No. 4?
LR: Some of my readers asked if these long Sullivan letters were produced by artificial intelligence. So I sent one to an expert in the AI field – that is, my artificial friend, Claude.
CG: Oh yeah, Claude. So using AI to sniff out AI. What did Claude say?
LR: Claude said the Sullivan letter I sent, about the powers of the presidency, was almost certainly NOT AI-generated. And Claude just gushed praise for the letter’s thoroughness, organization, accuracy and what it called its “sophisticated civics lesson tone.”
And then Claude offered this insight. I’m just going to read you this passage. It says:
Rhetorical Strategy: The letter tries to thread a needle - supporting Trump's agenda while acknowledging judicial authority concerns. The extensive discussion of Federalist 78, Marbury v. Madison, and mandatory injunctions feels like it's addressing constituent concerns about Trump defying court orders without directly criticizing him.
CG: OK. Interesting take.
LR: Yeah, and Casey, those things Claude.ai loved? The constituent who received the letter did not. He wanted Sullivan to say what he was doing to be a check on presidential power. He didn’t want a civics lesson. But this was a feature in nearly all the Sullivan letters I saw. One recipient I know coined a term for it – “Dan-splaining.”
CG: OK, “Dan-splaining.” And what about your fifth finding? You haven’t said anything about Congressman Begich’s letters.
LR: Right, my fifth finding is that a great many of the constituents who contacted me said they got no response from Begich.
An Anchorage resident named Irene Bortnick told me she’s been writing Begich for months and only got two responses. One was a blank email. And one was just a transcript of voicemail she’d left for the Congressman.
CG: Well, that's odd. So they sent her own words back to her?
LR: Yes, and she was not the only person to tell me that’s what they got — just a transcript of their words. I asked about it and a Begich spokeswoman said they had a technical problem that they’ve now addressed. And she also pointed out that in the House they have far fewer staffers than the Senate offices have, but they try to respond to every constituent message.
At least one person forwarded a five-sentence generic response letter from Begich, inviting the constituent to check the congressman’s website and subscribe to his newsletter for updates on what he’s doing.
I did see a couple of actual Begich response letters. Small sample size but they were crisply written and said what his position was and why.
CG: OK, Liz. And if people want to subscribe to your completely not AI-generated newsletter, which you write yourself, called “Alaska at-Large” — How can they do that?
LR: AlaskaPublic.org/newsletters. It’s free and arrives by email every two weeks.
