Kelly Chaundel Tshibaka (; born September 5, 1979) is an American attorney and politician who served in the federal government from 2002 to 2019 in several inspector general offices. Upon moving back to her home state of Alaska in 2019, she served for two years as the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Administration until 2021. Tshibaka was a Republican candidate for the United States Senate in the 2022 election. She lost to the incumbent, Republican Lisa Murkowski.
Early life and education
Tshibaka was born in Alaska to Bill and Michele Hartline. Her father, a Vietnam veteran, worked as a union electrician, and her mother worked at Alaska's largest oil field, Prudhoe Bay. Tshibaka's parents once lived in a tent, which was not unusual for people who wanted to become oil workers, but by the time she was born they owned a house in Wasilla.
She was raised in Wasilla and Anchorage, graduating in 1995 from Steller Secondary School in Anchorage. She attended University of Alaska Anchorage and graduated from Texas A&M University in 1999.
Tshibaka earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 2002. In 2001, while at Harvard, she wrote an article for the Harvard Law Record saying that "Unlike race or gender, homosexuality is a choice", but later apologized, said she had been assigned the article as a counterpoint piece, and added that "I don't hold that view today".
Tshibaka has said that she was the first in her family to graduate from college. At least one member of her extended family also attained a college degree, her maternal grandfather, the late Edward Allsup.
Career
Tshibaka worked for the federal government from 2002 to 2019, and for Alaska's state government from 2019 to 2021. Following her government work, she became a candidate for U.S. Senate.
Federal government work
From 2002 to 2005, Tshibaka served as a special assistant in the United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. She then joined the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, serving as advisor to the inspector general of the intelligence community and senior advisor in the Civil Liberties and Privacy Office. A controversy arose as to whether or not she had improperly recorded about 600 working hours for which she was paid $36,000, but the matter was apparently closed in 2011 without any disciplinary action against her, and she says the accusation was retaliation for work she had done.
Tshibaka joined the Federal Trade Commission in 2013, serving as chief investigator and senior advisor to the inspector general until 2014. She then served as that Commission's acting inspector general from 2014 to 2015.
From 2015 to 2019, she served as assistant inspector general and chief data officer in the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General. In that position, she relied heavily upon data analytics to monitor post offices, in order to reduce the time spent on audits and investigations, and to increase the return on investment in each of those cases.
State government work
In 2019, Alaska Governor Michael Dunleavy hired Tshibaka as a senior policy advisor, and the state paid her over $80,000 for the cost of moving her family from Washington D.C. Dunleavy then appointed Tshibaka commissioner of the Alaska Department of Administration in January 2019, after his first nominee to that position withdrew.
Among her responsibilities while commissioner was leading the state's negotiating team to end a strike by the Alaska ferry workers union. Tshibaka argued that higher wages translate into less money to run the system, and the union eased its stance on pay hikes, which helped to end the strike.
In 2021, a controversy arose about Nazi-themed license plates (e.g. "3REICH") that were found to be in use. Tshibaka ordered changes to her department's electronic screening system for personalized license plates, by adding such terms to the department's electronic screening list. She continued to serve as commissioner until stepping down in March 2021 to run for U.S. Senate.