Political Career

Krist Novoselic’s political career has run from music-scene lobbying in Olympia to national electoral-reform work to building a new state party. Here it is in order. The Krist and Politics overview has a shorter version, and the timeline has dates.

JAMPAC (1995–2000s)

In 1992 the Washington Legislature passed an “erotic music” law aimed at keeping certain recordings away from minors. Music-industry groups and the ACLU challenged it, and the courts struck it down. When a follow-up “harmful to minors” bill appeared in 1995, Krist led the founding of JAMPAC, the Joint Artists and Music Promotions Political Action Committee (HistoryLink; Rolling Stone). His thinking at the time, as he told Rolling Stone, was “if you can’t beat them, join them”: meet legislators, build relationships and make campaign contributions.

JAMPAC’s longest fight was over Seattle’s 1985 Teen Dance Ordinance, which made all-ages dances very hard to hold. JAMPAC sat on the city’s 1999–2000 Music and Youth Task Force and later sued over the rules. The lawsuit failed in 2002, but that August the City Council passed a replacement All Ages Dance Ordinance 6–2 (Seattle City Archives). “This fight has just been for an inclusive music scene,” Krist told the Seattle Times (Seattle Times).

In the late 1990s he also appeared as a speaker on the Spitfire Tour, a spoken-word tour that put musicians and activists on stage to talk about political and social issues (archived Spitfire Tour page).

The Democratic Party years (to 2009)

Through the 1990s and 2000s Krist worked inside the Democratic Party and chaired the Wahkiakum County Democrats (HistoryLink; KIRO Newsradio). In November 2003 he said he was considering a 2004 run for lieutenant governor against the incumbent, fellow Democrat Brad Owen (HeraldNet). In February 2004 he decided against it, saying that “the whole thing about running a campaign and being a public servant isn’t the way to do it” for him, and that he would keep working on youth voter participation with Music for America and on election reform (TODAY).

He also joined the Grays River Grange near his home in Wahkiakum County and later served as its master, and he wrote about politics for Seattle Weekly in the late 2000s (HistoryLink).

FairVote (2005–2019)

Krist joined the board of FairVote, a national nonpartisan election-reform group, in 2005. In January 2008 the board named him chair, succeeding former congressman and 1980 independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson (FairVote). He served as chair until 2019 (Cascade Party). For what he argued for in that role, see Krist’s Political Agenda.

2009: the Grange protest and leaving the Democrats

Washington’s top-two primary lets candidates list any party “preference” they like. In June 2009, to show how that could misrepresent a group, Krist filed for Wahkiakum County clerk listing the “Grange Party,” which did not exist, and then withdrew. “It’s wrong for me to drag a private association unwittingly onto the public ballot,” he wrote (Seattle Weekly). The same year he left his post as chair of the Wahkiakum County Democratic Central Committee and became an independent. Looking back in 2026, he called it “another realization that, well, this really is not a really good relationship with this party” (KIRO Newsradio).

Zócalo Public Square (2020–)

In 2020 Krist, already a board member and a judge for its book prize, became board chair of Zócalo Public Square, a Los Angeles-based civic-journalism and events nonprofit run as an Arizona State University enterprise. “Zócalo is about civic engagement,” he said when he took the role (Zócalo).

Forward Party (2023–2024)

In May 2023 the Forward Party, the national centrist party Andrew Yang helped start, added Krist to its national board, at the same time that former state Republican chair Chris Vance stepped down as its Washington lead (KUOW; Forward Party). He left in 2024 to start a Washington-only party (Kitsap Sun).

The Cascade Party (2024–present)

The Cascade Party of Washington launched in 2024 as a centrist state party; its name refers to the mountains that divide the state (Spokesman-Review). Under state law, a new party has to nominate a presidential ticket to qualify, so the party collected petition signatures at a string of summer “conventions,” several of them shows by Krist Novoselic’s Bona Fide Band (Spokesman-Review). The party qualified as a minor party in August 2024 with 1,812 valid signatures. Its nominal ticket of Krist for president and James Carroll for vice president initially qualified, and the Secretary of State then approved the party’s request to take it off the 2024 ballot (Washington Secretary of State; Cascade Party).

At its first organizing convention, at Seattle’s Sorrento Hotel on January 11, 2025, members adopted a platform and elected Krist chair (Cascade Party). In 2026 the party is backing Jeff Kelly for the state House in the 38th District and Damon Townsend for Pierce County auditor, and working with an independent legislative candidate in the 24th District (Cascade Party; KIRO Newsradio). Its symbol is an owl: “you see a donkey, you see an elephant, and we want people to see and recognize an owl,” Krist said in August 2026. “It’s hard to build a new party and to build a brand, but we’re in no rush” (KIRO Newsradio). In September 2026 the party also endorsed two candidates for the state Supreme Court (KIRO Newsradio). How the party’s candidates did on November 3, 2026 is in our election results post.

---

Last updated October 2026.