Issues

As a trans/non-binary person, I am fully committed to defending and advocating for all LGBTQIA people. California has been a leader in establishing LGBTQIA rights, and as someone who has experienced discrimination first-hand on both a personal and political basis, I intend to do everything in my power and through the power of the community to ensure that we protect LGBTQIA folks and gain full equality under the law. It is still legal in more than half of the states to fire someone because of their sexuality or gender identity.  Furthermore, transgender individuals, particularly trans women of color, are being assaulted and murdered at an alarmingly disproportionate rate. The current Civil Rights laws in the United States do not protect LGBTQIA individuals. If elected, I intend to put forth legislation that will secure the protections of LGBTQIA people in law. We have been ignored for so long, but we cannot and will not be ignored, disregarded, or erased anymore. 

There has never been a trans representative in the U.S. House of Representatives or Senate. How we can we trust that our elected officials are representing us when we aren't even included in the conversation? Representation matters. 

Healthcare should be a human right, but it isn't -at least not in the United States. Healthcare should not be an industry, but will continue to be until we take it out of the hands of private insurers. No one should suffer or die because they can't afford health insurance, but this is the reality many Americans face because of the inadequate, unaffordable, and for-profit healthcare model in place. I fully support and will continue to fight for Universal Healthcare. When we finally receive Universal Healthcare, less of us will suffer. This has always been true, and is even more relevant in the midst of the global Covid-19 pandemic. 

Environmental Justice is the only path forward for current and future generations. The time to act was yesterday, so we must act now to drastically curb our impact on climate change and planetary impact. Americans have undoubtedly benefitted from the very sources that are causing irreversible, adverse effects on our climate and environment. It is unethical for us to reap the benefits of this industrial society and then leave this place a wasteland for future generations. We look back at the New Deal to understand how it brought the United States out of the Great Depression and transformed it into the modern landscape it is today. Future generations will look back at us and either thank us for saving our planet, or beg to understand why we didn't make a change when we had the opportunity. Now is the crucial time to take action, and further reason to elect grassroots, government officials who do not have corporate ties to pollution-inducing industries.  Radically just programs such as the Green New Deal can and will positively affect climate change while addressing economic inequities and racial injustice.

America has been a standard for innovation and technology, but will soon lose that distinction if it fails to educate its public. Although school is compulsory for American youth, not every American is receiving the same quality of education. Many of our public schools are setting our students up for failure without the proper tools and funding, and our teachers aren't paid nearly enough. Although we have many of the best higher-education institutions in the world, they are often out of financial reach for many people. I support free college for all Americans. There is nothing to lose in education; without it, we undermine our own capabilities and opportunities.

ICE has destroyed families and communities. It is beyond hypocritical for a nation established and built by immigrants to deny immigrants a fair opportunity for citizenship, and in many cases, simply sanctuary in the United States. Mexico, our close and friendly neighbor, has been vilified by our government. Families and children are being held in cages by our current government officials. We cannot and will not tolerate this. This is unjust, inhumane, and antithetical to American values.  We need to abolish our current detention system and ICE, and restore dignity to all humans seeking to come to the United States. 

• I condemn the wall built by the United States along our shared border with Mexico.
• I condemn the migrant detention centers in operation in the U.S.
• I condemn I.C.E.
• I condemn Executive Order 13769, also known as the "Muslim Ban".

We cannot claim to be the greatest nation in the world while ignoring one of the most vulnerable groups of people here at home -people experiencing homelessness. We are leaving far too many of our own on the streets without access to adequate resources or shelter. In the past year, homelessness increased 12% in LA County and 16% in the City of LA. In certain parts of CA-30, homelessness increased 40%.  Alleviating homelessness is important to me because it disproportionately affects people of color and LGBTQIA people and 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQIA!  

I currently serve as one of the Homelessness Liaisons for the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council and Co-Chair of the Ad-Hoc Committee on Housing and Homelessness, and as your Congressional representative, I will work to make sure we effectively and compassionately address homelessness in LA County and nationwide.  This means advocating for ending the traumatic CARE+ sweeps in Los Angeles, increasing services, and getting people into permanent housing. This means speaking out and legislating against the criminalization of poverty. We must build more permanent supportive housing and emergency shelters, and end the cycle of homelessness through a compassionate, housing-and-services-first approach. 

Black Lives Matter, plain and simple. 

The protests following the murder of George Floyd shed light on what many people have known to be true in the United States, that it is plagued with institutional racism, particularly in the field of law enforcement. Black people are disproportionately murdered by police and are disproportionately represented in both prison populations and unhoused populations. Police brutality must have consequences. I support defunding the police, reducing the scope of police duties,  and reallocating funding for services in communities of color.  

I support the Black Lives Matter movement and stand by their guiding principles.

I am pro-choice. No one should decide the fate of a persons health except for the person in question. This is especially true when the laws dictating our behavior are mandated by a government that is overwhelmingly male. This speaks to the inequity of feminine representation in Congress and to the restriction of people to advocate for their bodies and their selves . I will implore my fellow representatives to consider the unconstitutionality of restricting a persons right to an abortion. While I fully support religious freedom, I do not support religious representatives in government who vote on behalf of their religion instead of their entire constituency. Religious convictions are often the great motivators in these situations, and we need to remain cautious about the interaction between Church and State -especially while considering most religions are patriarchal. Religion is a cherished liberty that every American has the right to engage in, but no American should ever be obligated to follow laws dictated by religious beliefs. And no person should ever be obligated to follow a man's rule for their own autonomy. 

• I'm advocating for a pro-choice government, and will fight to regain the right to have an abortion for those who have lost it. 
• I condemn the anti-abortion legislation recently enacted in Alabama, Ohio, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, and other states. 

America's role in the global order has long been regarded, for better or worse, by the rest of the world.  The United States has been a superpower longer than anyone on earth has been alive, and unfortunately much of that power is the result of colonialism, imperialism, and military force. I support the American military, but I do not support the use of might to undermine the sovereignty of other nations. I am a pacifist plain and simple. I will never vote to invade another country because we think it is our job to control global power, and especially not because we believe another nation has weapons of mass destruction, when we ourselves are unwilling to disarm. In our evolving world, the United States needs to be a leader through diplomacy and collaboration, not through force. 

• I unequivocally condemn war with Russia and would vote against it if presented to Congress. No more US military interventions simply because we have the biggest war toys.
• I support humanitarian aid to Ukraine -this must include food, water, shelter, medical aid, and refugee assistance. This cannot include military intervention because both the US and Russia have weapons of mass destruction.
• I reject political contributions from the Military Industrial Complex, including weapons makers and defense contractors.
• I support defunding the Pentagon and reallocating those funds to programs such as Medicare for All and other social safety nets. 
• I support increased services and benefits for our veterans.

When it comes to National Security, one of our greatest threats comes from within, as demonstrated by the capitol siege on January 6, 2021.  As a supporter of the Constitution, I support the right to bear arms, but not without restriction. There are more guns in America than people, and not coincidentally, the United States is one of the leading nations in the world when it comes to death by guns. We are also one of the few constitutional sovereignties in the world that guarantees the right to bear arms. We live in a different world than when we established our Constitution and thus need to reconsider how we interpret the Second Amendment. There needs to be greater emphasis on background checks and restrictions on obtaining firearms capable of mass destruction.

Prison reform is necessary as it relates to racial injustice, and profiteering from excessive incarceration should be a crime. I fully support CA AB-32 which bans the issuance of contracts with for-profit prisons and private detention centers in the state. The bill also phases out the use of these facilities by 2028. My opponent, Adam Schiff, was an architect of mass incarceration in California during his time as a State Senator in the late 1990's. Schiff not only voted for,  but authored legislation which: 

• Created  the Department of Juvenile Justice. (SB483)
• Allowed law enforcement to enter private homes when a person makes "loud noises" at night. (SB1091)
• Made it a felony punishable by prison time for employers to hire people who are "unauthorized aliens". (SB1128)
• Imposed incarceration for vandalism charges. (SB1229)
• Allowed children who were "truant" or "disobedient" who were wards of the court to be "punished by being held in a secure facility during non-school hours." (SB1279)
• Made it easier for the district attorney of LA County to prosecute minors. (SB1311)
• Allowed children 14 years or older accused of serious crimes to be tried as adults at the sole direction of the prosecutor, without any fitness hearings by a judge. (SB1293)
• Massively expanded the length of sentences by removing the 5-year sentencing cap for non-violent offenses (SB1900)
• Created a new felony punishment for "aggravated trespassing" (SB1486) This bill exempted law enforcement officers who unlawfully entered the residence of another.
• Allowed for the fingerprints of a minor who was only arrested to be entered into a Department of Justice database. (SB1751)
• Created "Juvenile Bootcamps" for children as young as 15 who committed various offenses at school". (SB1937)
• Made it easier to terminate parental rights for children who were wards of the court and put the burden on parents who changed residences to update the court of a change of mailing address. (SB2043) This would have the greatest impact on poor and unhoused parents. 

Working and middle class stability goes hand in hand with alleviating homelessness in California and in America. We cannot expect decreases in rates of homelessness when the middle class is getting smaller and rents are rising. I fully support a Green New Deal that would employ Americans, both skilled and unskilled, to build a better and greener nation . Projects would include clean energy centers to capture wind, solar, and ocean power, and improvements to our local and national infrastructure, serving a dual purpose of jobs creation and clean energy production. Unhoused and unemployed people would be given priority for local projects. 

The global pandemic has exposed the fragility of our capitalist state. People are being forced to choose between their health or working to survive. I support canceling rent and mortgages and support a monthly, Universal Basic Income. I support bailouts for people and small businesses, not Wall Street. Our current struggle has exacerbated the necessity of Medicare for All. 

Green New Deal?

Medicare for All??

Free College???

Universal Basic Income????

Who's going to pay for all this?

As a proponent of Modern Monetary Theory, I understand that as a financially-sovereign, fiat state, the US does not need to raise taxes to fund basic and essential services for everyone. Healthcare, housing, and education are all human rights. Our taxes aren't raised when Congress votes to give the Pentagon nearly a trillion dollars annually (more than half of which goes to defense contractors and weapons-makers) and they don't need to be raised to take care of our healthcare, housing, and educational needs.

Your representative should be just that -a representative of the people, not corporations. I reject all corporate donations from big money industries such as Healthcare, Banking, Oil, Agribusiness, and the American Military Industrial Complex. Our campaign relies on small, personal donations from supporters like you. Please consider making a donation to our grassroots movement. People over profits, always.