WisPolitics Profile
23 August 2000
By Joanne M. Haas
PROFILE SUBJECT: Tanya Bjork
TITLE: Director of the Assembly Democratic Caucus;
Director Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee
BIRTHDATE: Dec. 15, 1970, Fergus Falls, Minn.
EDUCATION: Bachelor of arts in the majors of
communication and political science, University of
Minnesota-Duluth, 1993.
OTHER JOBS: Political director, Feingold for U.S. Senate campaign,
September 1997 to December 1998; campaign
consultant, Mike Freeman for Governor (Minnesota),
Summer 1997; Judiciary Finance Committee Administrator
in the Minnesota House of Representatives, January
1997-July 1997; also did campaign work for Paul
Wellstone for U.S. Senate, Jim Oberstar for Congress campaigns
in Minnesota.
FAMILY: Only child of Tony and Sharon Bjork. She's engaged
to be married next summer
CAUCUS MEMBER TOTAL: 45 members
CAUCUS OFFICE STAFF: 19, including director
CAUCUS OFFICE BUDGET: About $880,000 annually from
Assembly budget
CAUCUS OFFICE ADDRESS: 17 South Fairchild St., Suite
501, Madison, 53708, 608-266-3866 (voice) and
608-264-6912 (fax).
E-MAIL: Tanya.bjork@legis.state.wi.us
CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE ADDRESS: Assembly Democratic
Campaign Committee, P. O. Box 814, Madison, 53701,
608-258-9255 (voice) and 608-258-9228 (fax).
CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE E-Mail: adcc@chorus.net
CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE FUNDS: about $435,000
Tanya Bjork cringed at the thought of being
interviewed for a story about her.
"No, no, I'm supposed to be in the background," she
said, letting her voice dissolve into groans. Finally, she
released a long sigh. "Oh, OK."
After all, she's used to arranging interviews for
politicians -- certainly not for herself. The majority of
the years after her 1993 graduation with a bachelor
degree in political science and communications from
the University of Minnesota-Duluth were devoted to
working on campaigns for Democrats.
There was Mike Freeman for Minnesota governor,
as well as im Oberstar for Congress and
Paul Wellstone for U.S. Senate. Born in
Fergus Falls, Minn., Bjork made such a name for herself in the Wellstone
camp that word spread to Wisconsin's Russ Feingold.
It was 1996 when Bjork, then working for the
Minnesota House of Representatives, got a bit of a
jump on her voice mail. "I played this message and it
says, 'Tanya, This is Russ Feingold. I'm a senator
from Wisconsin.'"
Of course, Bjork said, she knew Feingold. She
just couldn't figure out what he was doing on her
voice mail. "I was sort of stunned."
Feingold needed a political director for his U.S.
Senate re-election campaign. Wellstone had recommended Bjork, who
ultimately left Minnesota for Madison in September
1997.
"When I moved here, I didn't know one person except
Russ and I didn't expect to hang with him because he's
a little busy," she said with a laugh.
After her September 1997-December 1998 tenure
at the Feingold campaign, she was hired as the Assembly Democratic
Caucus director in January 1999.
"As my dad would say, `this is my first real job,"' she
said, referring to her years of campaign jobs. A political resume
isn't wasn't what she had in mind.
"I had planned to go to law school. I was always
going to be lawyer," she says. But then she got
involved in politics through the College Democrats.
"Once this gets into your blood..."
She took campaign job after campaign job, each time
thinking, "this is the last time. And every time, my
dad would say, 'OK, is this a real job or one of those
campaign things?'"
So now she's head of a 19-member
caucus staff that serves the 45 Assembly Democrats.
But she also is holding one of those "campaign things" as the
director of the Assembly Democratic Campaign
Committee.
She sees her trek through campaigns to this job as a
sort of reverse progression. Most people, she
said, would start at the Assembly, then go on to the
state Senate and then think of federal campaigns. "I've actually done
the opposite," she said. But the caucus job is one she
relishes.
"I love what I do. I get to work with great people.
(Assembly Minority Leader) Shirley (Krug) is great," she says.
"It's political, but yet it is policy. It's the best mix of
both worlds."
In her off hours, she's back on the campaign trail for
the Assembly Democrats. "It's a lot of evening work,"
she said of a lifestyle that perhaps can only be truly
understood by another political worker -- such as her
fiancé, Scott Tyre, the finance director of the state
Democratic Party.
They met in 1998 when he was working on
Democrat Lydia Spottswood's 1st District congressional campaign.
Bjork was raised in one of Minnesota's most Republican areas by
parents she labels as mostly apolitical, but she grew up with some politics.
Her father is a retired teacher and her mother worked as a social worker for
the county.
While other kids may have collected stray kittens, "my
parents were taking in stray kids." The Bjork home
wasn't a foster home, but it was home to others.
"(My mother) has always been a .. caregiver and
definitely my role model. She is very strong and
independent. You know, that woman we all want to be."
For Bjork, her service to others -- for now -- comes through
working for elected officials. "I really think that you can have an
impact as a staff person, particularly in this
position."
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