What we believe in
 

Access is tied to  affordability, and affordability depends on both accountability and good relationships. Monopolies and corporate greed drive up costs and drive down wages; a healthy market requires healthy competition and calibrated regulation. Affordability is also about modernizing our electricity grid and permitting process, ensuring that we aren’t crippling the ability to bring new energy sources online. Affordability is not just a domestic issue either. Workers and goods move across borders, and global relationships shape what we pay. Accessibility to the arts and objective, credible media is integral to the health of our society.

Rapidly increasing demand, skyrocketing prices, and outdated infrastructure mean that we have to act quickly and tactically to expand our domestic energy landscape. I support improving and expanding electricity transmission infrastructure and technology, permitting reform for clean energy projects, and redistributing public subsidies more equitably across the energy portfolio.

Fairness is about giving people what they’re owed. Veterans are owed a well-resourced Department of Veterans Affairs. The family farmers who feed this nation are owed adequate support, and public school teachers deserve a level of compensation that matches the critical  importance of their jobs. Fairness is also about acknowledging that not everyone has the same access to resources or societal acceptance and doing what we can to level the playing field. Fair elections are not those bought by billionaires, corporations, or foreign interests. Fairness is ensuring that due process is a right for everyone.

The PACT Act of 2022 was most known for extending healthcare to Veterans with toxic exposure, but it also allocated more resources to build up the workforce and facilities of the Department of Veterans Affairs. As a result, important services improved considerably. However, recent cuts and subsequent downsizing are negatively affecting the quality of care. We need to restore VA funding levels and workforce capacity.

I would also support curbing the influence of Citizens United as much as possible, including through incremental efforts such as improving fiscal transparency and increasing prohibitions on campaign spending, e.g., the Disclose Act.

Balance between our three branches of government is important; future generations deserve democracy. Balancing the country’s spending is critical; future generations do not deserve our debt. Maintaining the balance of our wants and needs with the health of our environment is existential; future generations do not deserve our mess.

Tightening the tax code should come before cutting important programs. Those who profit the most should support the very societal systems that have enabled their accumulation of wealth. I would support policies such as the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax Act.

Science is our superpower. Objective, transparent, rigorous, peer-reviewed science is what should inform politics, not the other way around. Corporations should follow the science, not meddle in it. Science is the way we lead in technological innovation, understand how to sustain our resources and environment, and strengthen public health. Science is learning from Indigenous wisdom and the achievements of other cultures. Science is understanding emerging technologies and the skillsets they require to prepare our children for the future job landscape. Science is encouraging talented people from around the world to study and work in the United States. Science is integral to US competitiveness and national security.

Robust appropriations to scientific programs across federal agencies, oversight to ensure these programs are operating without private sector or political interference, a well-functioning H-1B visa process, and increased science and technology support for Congress are all important to keep our science strong. One specific piece of policy that I would support is the resurrection of the Office of Technology Assessment; this would provide Congress with neutral, objective information about emerging technology and reduce the influence of special interest groups on the policymaking process.

We are a country built on immigrants (our other superpower) and are strengthened by a thoughtful and well-resourced immigration process. Everyone should have the chance to learn important job skills, whether they be skills for building a house or building large language models. Our society needs a prison system that puts reform over revenue. Also, it’s high time to decriminalize and deschedule cannabis.

I support initiatives to make trade and technical schools and community colleges broadly accessible and affordable to everyone. I also support removing the recently added fees for asylum and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) applicants and appropriating more funds to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to enable a rigorous, streamlined, and just asylum process.

Keeping people safe means ensuring that everyone has quality healthcare. It means providing law enforcement with the right type of support and training to address the needs of the community. We are only as safe as our most vulnerable, and we must protect marginalized groups that continue to suffer from systemic injustices.

Our healthcare system is broken, putting profit over people. Many of my family memebrs live in a country in which there is a public health system in addition to private options. They have more choices, and they never have to worry about being denied coverage or risking debt for treatment. In the US, however, private health insurance and pharmaceutical companies have owned the narrative and the politics for too long.  Healthcare is a right, and it’s time our policy reflects this.