Santa Claus (politician)

Did You Know?

• While a student, he worked as a bouncer at New York bars and clubs including McSorley’s Old Ale House.
• As a monk, Claus has taken a religious vow of poverty, making just $300 a month as a North Pole councilman, and reportedly volunteers more than 1,000 hours per year.

Career

Santa Claus, originally named Tom O'Connor, launched his career in 1971 as a videographer for the New York City Police Department. Over time, he served as special assistant to the deputy police commissioner under Mayor John Lindsay, headed security for the Port Authority, and founded a terrorism research group. His research focused on the root causes that drive people toward terrorism, but he says national security officials dismissed his ideas while he was an appointed member of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Defense Executive Reserve.

Frustrated with the federal government, he took a role as chief of safety and security at the United States Virgin Islands territory port, managing two international airports and four marine ports. He then moved into public broadcasting, working at a Telluride, Colorado radio station, as vice president of a Lake Tahoe television station, and later on the Alaska Public Broadcasting Commission. Before becoming a city councillor, he worked as a senior ranger for the Fairbanks North Star Borough at the Chena Lakes Recreation Area.

Santa Claus name and child advocacy

In the early 2000s, he became a Christian monk with the Celtic Episcopalian order Anam Cara and has served as an emergency response chaplain. After growing a beard as part of monastic tradition, people compared him to Santa Claus, prompting him to legally change his name in 2005. In 2006 and 2007, he embarked on Santa's Bless the Children Tour, meeting with governors' offices to discuss child welfare. Claus says his interest in child welfare and his democratic socialist values stem from the "plethora of ills that plague America’s youth" he witnessed in New York City.

In 2009, the Santa Claus Peace Council awarded him the International Peace Prize for his child welfare work. He ran for president in 2012, earning 625 votes in Maryland. Claus believes his name and the media attention it attracts make legislators more willing to engage with him and his ideas.

Political positions

Claus supports medical marijuana and aligns closely with Bernie Sanders on racial justice, corporate accountability, and election issues. He refuses both corporate and personal donations. His platform includes expanding Medicare, cutting federal defense spending, creating an expanded child tax credit, implementing a wealth tax, and backing the PRO Act. He has raised concerns about the influence of social media companies like Twitter and Facebook.

Claus backs reproductive rights, including funding Planned Parenthood and improving abortion access. He endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 election after Sanders exited the Democratic primary. He rejects Alaska’s reliance on oil extraction, citing climate change and pollution threats to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and has pledged to expand broadband in underserved rural areas of the state.