My platform.
Financial Stability
Columbus is the second-most economically segregated metropolitan area in the country and one of the least economically mobile cities in the nation. If you grow up poor here, chances are you stay poor. This is not only true in the Third District, but increasingly, across the entire United States.
Universal Child Care and Early Learning
Jobs Guarantee
Tuition-Free Public College
Universal Income
Federal Minimum Living Wage
Medicare for All
Racial Justice
The black poverty rate in Columbus is 50% higher than the average. In Franklin County alone, our people comprise nearly 65 percent of those in the homeless system. Across Central Ohio, black women earn 65 cents for every dollar earned by men. The median net worth in the U.S. for a black family is now $9,000, compared with $132,000 for a white family. The time for merely studying these issues has passed. The time for remedies is now.
Systemic Reparations
Stable Housing
The unemployment rate in Franklin County is near historic lows, but the number of people who are homeless continues to grow. Between 2012 and 2017, home prices in Central Ohio have risen by an average of nearly six percent annually, while household income has only increased by just over one percent annually during this same period. Gentrification, nearly stagnant wages, and a shortage of affordable housing is forcing far too many people in Columbus to become housing unstable.
National Rent Stabilization Policies
Increased Affordable Housing Supply
Clean Environment
Columbus is in Ohio Valley’s “Asthma Belt.” The combination of poverty, pollen, and air quality affects us at a disproportionately higher rate, compared to other cities in the U.S. Asthma is also one of the leading causes of school absenteeism and Columbus ranks as one of the top metropolitan areas in which children miss school due to asthma attacks. Pollution and climate change are keeping our children out of school more than 5,000 days each and every academic year.
Green New Deal
Public Safety
Every year, nearly 1,000 people are shot and killed in the United States...by the police. For black men and boys, being killed by the police is a leading cause of death. We need to reform policing to reimagine public safety.
Empower Citizens and Communities
Federally-fund community-based violence interrupters, community members called before the police, particularly in cases of mental health episodes
Mandate civilian review boards to oversee incidents of police violence
Federally-fund community mental health centers
End Violent Policing
Eliminate Qualified Immunity by clarifying the true intent of Section 1983 and protecting 4th Amendment rights
Mandate standardized nationwide police training around deescalation
End the 1033 Program that provides military weapons and machinery to local police departments
Require departments to dismiss officers who kill unarmed civilians
Increase Transparency and Accountability
Require independent investigations and prosecutions of all police killings
Report all incidents of excessive police force to a federal database
Worker’s Rights
When workers have rights and a voice on the job, they earn more, have safer workplaces, and begin to close the gender and race pay gaps. All Ohio workers, union and non-union, do better when unions are strong, and employees have a free and fair opportunity to organize in their workplaces.
Federal Minimum Living Wage, including paid family sick leave and paid family leave
Protect and expand workers’ rights to organize unions, take concerted action, and collectively bargain fair contracts
Increase transparency of equity issues in all workplaces
Protect workers from sexual harassment
Reproductive Justice
I support a person’s right to choose if and when to end a pregnancy or become a parent from a reproductive justice framework. This means also addressing policy solutions that focus on racial, economic, and health equity to ensure an individual's right to reproductive and abortion healthcare or to parent with adequate resources, dignity, and free from interpersonal and State violence.
Protecting the constitutional right to an abortion and ensuring it is safe and accessible for everyone regardless of income, documentation status, or geography.
Repealing any federal legislation prohibiting federal funding for abortions.
Advancing initiatives that make birth control free and accessible to all.