Encouraging Disagreement in the Right Way: A Look Back at the 2025 Future Caucus Rising Star Awards

By Elizabeth Rosen

Future Caucus gathered its network on November 18 for the eighth annual Rising Star Awards, bringing lawmakers, partners, and supporters together in Washington, D.C., for an evening centered on trust, courage, and imagination.

Layla Zaidane opened the night by grounding the room in the reality of the moment. She reflected on how the past year has tested the resilience of public servants, particularly the young lawmakers at the heart of the State Future Caucus Network. Though 2025 has been shaped in great part by strain on America’s democratic institutions and a rise in political violence against public figures, members of the Future Caucus community have continued to meet those challenges with determination and even love—for their states, for their communities, and for each other. In her words, the honorees illustrate that “courage, curiosity, and collaboration aren’t relics of a bygone era, but the ingredients of a better future.”

Zaidane also acknowledged a new milestone for the organization: Future Caucus is now the steward of the Jacob K. Javits Prize for Bipartisan Leadership. She described the award as a tribute to a tradition of “principled, cross-party problem-solving,” and welcomed members of the Javits family who were in the room to carry that legacy forward.

Carla Javits took the stage to present the Prize, speaking on behalf of the Marian B. and Jacob K. Javits Foundation. She offered a window into her father’s worldview—particularly his concern that a moderate, centrist society could be “torn to bits by contending forces” if political leaders failed to protect trust and institutional confidence. She reminded the audience of Senator Javits’ belief that “it’s just as essential to the Democratic party to have a viable Republican party as it is to the Republican party to have a viable Democratic party,” a principle he viewed as fundamental to the country’s civic health.

Javits highlighted how this year’s honorees uphold that spirit. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s long record of independent, substantive policymaking—particularly on infrastructure, climate resilience, and public safety for Alaska Native and American Indian communities—reflects the kind of leadership the Prize was designed to recognize.

“If you’re grounded in knowing who you are and how you want to serve, good is going to emanate.”

–Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska 

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, honored alongside Murkowski, was recognized for a legislative portfolio defined by practical solutions: efforts to support homeless disabled veterans, bolster rural broadband, strengthen officer safety, and spur innovation in timber-dependent economies.

“It turns out that just being honest with people and trusting them to hear you out in good faith—that’s good strategy.”

–Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash.

The Cherisse Eatmon Collective Impact Award highlighted a partnership that has become emblematic of what cross-partisan leadership can accomplish. Alaska State Sen. Löki Tobin and State Rep. Justin Ruffridge joined forces to stabilize the state’s public education system, working with colleagues across the political spectrum to override two gubernatorial vetoes and secure $50 million for K-12 classrooms.

“There are forces to the right of Justin, and there are forces to the left of me, that constantly are pulling us apart. We have had to choose actively, time and time again, to protect what we have built … but we have persevered.”

–State Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Alaska

“I appreciate Future Caucus for encouraging disagreement—and encouraging disagreement in the right way. We can ultimately have good results if we disagree and work through it. That’s what we’re here today to celebrate.”

–State Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Alaska

This year’s Rising Star Awards went to two lawmakers whose careers reflect the Future Caucus ethos: Florida State Sen. Alexis Calatayud, a tireless advocate for affordable housing, expanded services for individuals with disabilities, and early education, and Georgia State Rep. Imani Barnes, a biomedical research scientist and public health advocate working to codify universal school meal access and a champion of mental health and maternal care.

“My people, they might lean right or they might lean left, but the first thing they do is they lean in to make sure that their family has a future. And my job is the best job in the world, because my job is to try to make sure that roadblocks to that vision that they have for their lives and their families, become trampolines of upward mobility.”

–State Sen. Alexis Calatayud, R-Fla.

“This award just isn’t about me. It’s about possibility. … As I continue serving Georgia, and finishing my doctorate and raising my son and working a full-time job and wearing all the hats that make me who I am, I promise to keep doing the work boldly and honestly and unapologetically. I promise to make room for the next generation of rising stars.”

–State Rep. Imani Barnes, D-Ga.

As Zaidane closed the evening, she distilled a year’s worth of lessons into three principles she sees reflected across all the honorees: staying in the room when tensions rise, choosing courage over performance, and staying flexible in a world that’s changing faster than policy frameworks can keep up.

In a landscape where cynicism often overshadows substance, the 2025 Rising Star Awards offered a clear counterpoint: leaders who choose collaboration even when it comes with risk, who treat public service as a responsibility rather than a platform, and who believe that the challenges facing American politics, while grave, are an opportunity to build something new.