Vision
A future we all deserve:
E-12 Education | Higher Education | Affordable Housing | Transportation | Environment | Healthcare | Reproductive Freedom | Opportunity and Equity | Criminal Justice Reform | Common-Sense Gun Safety Laws | Workers’ Rights | Protecting Minnesotans | Protecting Democracy
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I’ve worked with Northeast and Como educators for years, and I support strong public schools that are pillars of our community. That’s why we need to fully fund education and increase per-pupil funding across the state. Regardless of where they live, every family should be able to send their children to a Minnesota public school and know that the school will have the resources to meet their child’s needs—whatever those needs may be.
Students have a right to small class sizes where their unique gifts can be developed, and should not be reduced to a standardized test score. Supporting schoolchildren means fostering personal, social, and civic growth, in addition to academic improvement. Because of this, Minnesota must recommit itself to funding vital after-school programs, and embrace a full-service community school model providing wraparound services located within schools. I will work with local governments to place healthcare and mental health services within our public schools so they can support the full spectrum of child development. I support an immediate ban on school lunch shaming and will work to provide funding to provide nutritious meals for all of Minnesota's schoolchildren.
I know from experience that teachers are dedicated, passionate professionals, and they have my full support. Minnesota must also recognize that school support staff are as essential to the operation of our schools and the education of our students. Making schools better work environments is also the first step in recruiting and retaining educators of color. Increasing programs to create a more diverse educator pool will help ensure that schools are a supportive and welcoming environment for students of all backgrounds.
Special education and other mandates should be fully funded by the state. Minnesotans agree all children deserve an excellent and appropriate education, but a lack of funding means too many of our students and our schools are being left behind. Unfunded mandates hurt students and our public schools, especially schools in our community with large numbers of students who need differentiated educational services. School referendums throughout the state are a sign the state is doing an inadequate job funding the education system our students deserve.
Minnesota is blessed with a world-class higher education system. I want to strengthen and sustain that system and the students it educates.
Expanding the Minnesota State network of colleges and universities and keeping tuitions within it affordable is the shortest route to ensuring every state resident who would like to, can enter higher education. With the University of Minnesota, Minnesotans are fortunate to have a land-grant institution that is deeply woven into the identity of the state. The U of M embodies an ideal of higher education that has been abandoned in many other states: large, relatively affordable public universities that educate to the highest standards. I want to help protect that ideal by bringing down costs for students and protecting our time-tested university system from political influence.
As someone with student loan debt of my own, I know all too well the difficult choices that can arise when a college education costs too much for working families. Major life events, like buying a home or starting a family, should not have to wait until student loan debt is paid down. In addition to reasonable tuition, the state can support its colleges and universities by reducing costs that accompany higher education, like transportation and affordable housing.
Northeast and Como are some of Minnesota’s most diverse and integrated communities. They need a housing policy that will help them stay that way, by ensuring that the neighborhoods can continue to grow economically without displacing existing residents with high housing costs.
Minnesota must increase funding for affordable housing, and take steps to ensure that this funding is directed where it is most needed: areas with high rents, plentiful jobs, and strong neighborhood schools and services. The cost of housing is driving people out of these neighborhoods.
Our housing challenges are not unique to Minneapolis alone. Smart housing policy requires a metro-wide approach. Our entire region is facing an affordable housing crisis and every city in the region must play a part. I will also support inclusive zoning legislation to ensure that new affordable housing is produced alongside market-rate developments in growing areas, so that developers cannot only build housing for the rich and leave the rest behind.
Finally, residents must be protected. Bad landlords need to be held accountable, renters need to be able to avoid unnecessary evictions and all Minnesotans need to be able to find safe and stable housing. Minnesota has one of the nation’s first fair housing laws. Unfortunately, it has too often been neglected. Our state has a shameful history of housing discrimination which has contributed to some of the worst rates of homeownership for people of color. I will support programs to root out and help identify housing discrimination against frequent subjects of discrimination, like senior citizens, families with children, people of color, and residents with disabilities. Such discrimination which is a blow against our diverse community and must be prohibited at any expense. All Minnesotans deserve safe and affordable housing. Minnesota has still not recovered from when the Reagan Administration slashed federal funding for public housing. Public infrastructure includes public housing and we must do everything we can to prevent future tragedies like the deadly fire in Cedar Riverside.
Our neighborhoods are great places to live and work; getting to, from, and around them should be easy and safe. I will work to secure transportation infrastructure funding for our community so we keep pace with the transportation amenities in other neighborhoods. Transportation improvements can make Northeast and Como more accessible and safer, better support our local businesses, and reduce environmental impact.
Right now, there is no funding for new bus rapid transit (BRT) projects slated for our area, despite recent rapid economic growth. I will support new BRT funding and project development, to facilitate rapid and convenient transit between our economic hubs and residential areas.
Northeast and Como are ideal for biking, and improving bike infrastructure will reduce congestion, help the environment, and save lives. The 18th Avenue bikeway has been a tremendous success, and I will support similar projects to ensure that anyone who wants to bike feels safe doing so. Improving permanent and semi-permanent transportation infrastructure will yield long-term benefits, helping enmesh our community more tightly in the surrounding city and region.
We can take immediate steps at the state level to help transit riders feel safe and supported. I support changing fare evasion from a misdemeanor to a civil penalty. Local bus service is the backbone of our transit system and we need to continue to improve it as well as bus shelter infrastructure.
Long term, Minnesota must make a commitment to fully fund our transit system. I support a fare-free system that treats transit users and operators with dignity and respect they deserve.
Climate change is the existential threat of our time and we must take immediate action across all sectors to both dramatically reduce our carbon output and achieve 100% renewable energy by 2030.
Protecting and Enhancing Minnesota’s Natural Beauty: Minnesota is the most naturally beautiful state in the country and it is imperative that we take action to protect our special places like the Mississippi River, the Boundary Waters, and Lake Superior from pollution and large scale industrial projects. This means examining and strengthening our current environmental permitting processes to account for health and economic impacts as well as cultural impacts, especially as we examine projects that are on ceded territory. As our urban riverfront deindustrializes, we must improve public access to the Mississippi River and complete the missing link through Northeast in Minneapolis’ Grand Rounds.
Cleaning Up Heavy Industry and Superfund Sites: I have asthma. I am well aware the effects air pollution has on our community and those across the river. We have made progress, such as retrofitting Xcel’s Riverside coal plant along the river, but Northeast and Como still contain multiple superfund sites that impact our health and quality of life. We must strengthen the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s ability to protect our air and water by prohibiting self-reporting of emission levels from large scale polluters and cleaning up existing heavy industrial pollution which blocks our riverfront and creates adverse health effects. The legacy of concentrated heavy industry in low-income and diverse communities demands that I will also continue to push the local and state agencies to continue to monitor long term impacts from the Northern Metals site- especially from a racial equity lens. We should prioritize clean ups of site in communities hit hardest by industrial pollution- which is especially true in communities of color.
Diane Loeffler was an incredible advocate for Minnesota’s most vulnerable and I will uphold her legacy in making sure everyone has access to quality healthcare.
Healthcare is a human right. I ultimately support Medicare for All, but we can take important steps to protect and expand health care at the state level by:
Defending Minnesota’s Health Care Access Fund – More than 1.2 million Minnesotans rely on Minnesota’s Health Care Access Fund for essential health care services. I will fight back against any attempts to treat it like slush fund and will protect the Provider Tax, its primary funding source.
Providing a public option – We can and must expand MinnesotaCare to give every Minnesotan the option to enroll in high quality affordable public health insurance.
Holding Big Pharma accountable – It’s time to make all price gouging of lifesaving prescriptions illegal. Period. Passing the Alec Smith Emergency Insulin Act next session to provide emergency insulin for all is the first step.
Abortion is healthcare. I will strongly oppose any attempts to restrict a person’s right to have an abortion. I believe that individuals and their doctors are the best people to make medical decisions. I will also work to undo existing restrictions on abortion in Minnesota.
Conversion therapy is fraudulent, dangerous and abusive. I will fight to ban the traumatizing practice, which increases the risk of depression, substance abuse, and suicide in those subjected to it.
With Trump’s Supreme Court, it’s never been more important for us to fight attacks on reproductive rights at the state level. My life is better because I’ve been able to make my own health care choices. As your State Representative, I will fight any attempts to restrict access to abortion, and work to undo existing restrictions that stand in the way of our reproductive freedom. Abortion is health care. Abortion is moral.
Shameful opportunity gaps persist in Minnesota, by race, gender identity, class, and sexual orientation. I will fight alongside our community to stand up to discrimination in all of its forms and correct the inequities that have plagued marginalized groups for too long, from housing to education to health care access to environmental justice issues and more.
Minnesota leaders like Roy Wilkins, Walter Mondale, and Hubert Humphrey played groundbreaking roles in protecting civil rights and promoting racial justice. But racial discrimination still persists in many industries, and communities of color still bear the scars of historic discrimination and segregation. It is harder for Minnesotans of color to get a job, get a home loan, or access K-12 education. These disparities are truly intolerable in a rapidly diversifying state. Minnesota must take strong, proactive steps to ensure equal access to jobs, education, and housing, and adopt a zero-tolerance policy for any form of racial discrimination in the public or private sectors. Historically disinvested communities, and newly diverse communities, must be first in line for public resources and funding.
Too many Minnesotans, have to choose between missing work when they’re sick, or caring for a loved one, and taking a hit on their next paycheck. And still today many low-wage workers do not have sick days. I will fight to expand access to affordable childcare and work to pass paid family leave, medical leave, and earned sick and safe time for all Minnesotans.
We must also continue to fight for LGBTQ rights. Our fight for full equality and inclusion did not end when we defeated the anti marriage amendment in 2012 and it will not end until we ban conversion therapy statewide, remove barriers to updating state IDs to reflect changes in gender identity, and pass Logan's Law to give equal rights to all parents regardless of gender identity.
Minnesota’s criminal justice system must be narrowly focused and fair for all. We must reduce incarceration rates, focus on rehabilitation and growth instead of punishment, and eliminate practices that create racial and economic disparities.
The current bail system penalizes working-class people in the criminal justice system. When pretrial defendants are required to pay money bail to secure their release, lower-income defendants are faced with a range of terrible choices: stay incarcerated, plead guilty without a fair trial, or turn to a predatory bail bond industry for help. Cash bail should be eliminated in Minnesota, and replaced with a pretrial release process that is fair for all and does not privilege people with greater financial means.
Cannabis should be legalized. Too many lives have been ruined by cannabis-related offenses. In tandem with legalization we must expunge the criminal records of those who have been penalized or denied opportunity because they were victims of the misguided war on drugs policies.
Evidence and experience shows that many nonviolent drug-related offenses are best addressed in specialty courts that stay in regular contact with defendants, and combine rehabilitation and treatment with drug testing and oversight. Known as treatment courts, this approach has been proven to work in Minnesota. Drug court, DWI court, veterans’ treatment court--which focuses on former servicemembers, family dependency court, juvenile court, and mental health court focus on serving the individual under strict conditions and helping them rejoin their community and live a sober life. I support funding for the statewide formula to expand these courts as a key method of rehabilitating with drug-addicted defendants.
Hundreds of Minnesotans are killed by gun violence every year. Nationally, 100 Americans are killed with guns every day. Enough is enough. Minnesotans deserve to go about their daily lives without living in fear of being shot. I will fight to pass common-sense gun safety “red flag” and background check laws, as well as an assault weapons ban.
I grew up in a union household in a union town. I have worked for labor unions, walked on picket lines, and been a union member myself; workers’ rights are my core values and the lens with which I view policy. I will always defend individuals’ rights to organize and collectively bargain in an environment free of harassment, coercion, or interference. I will vociferously fight so-called Right to Work legislation and any other proposals that weaken a union’s power to organize and bargain. I believe that all working people must be treated with dignity and respect.
While an organizer at the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, I worked with organized labor, workers, faith groups, and activists on a policy package for the city of Minneapolis that included earned safe and sick time, fair scheduling, and raising the minimum wage. I will proudly take my passion for workers rights to the state. In addition to workplace protections and a fair, livable wage, I believe working families must have access to paid family leave and earned safe and sick time. We must also find solutions at the state level to affordable child care.
If you live in Minnesota, you're a Minnesotan, and you deserve the full protection of this state's government and its laws. The current presidential administration has endangered many people who are already vulnerable, especially Minnesotans who are immigrants or a member of a community of color.
Minnesota should become a sanctuary state, with public agencies that do not cooperate with federal agents seeking to deport or jail our neighbors. We have to stand up for members of our community when they’re in danger. Diversity is our strength, and no Minnesotan should be forced to live in the shadows because of where they were born.
All Minnesotans should have access to basic tools they need to live, go to school, and find a job. Driver’s licenses should be available to all state residents who can pass driving exams.
The Trump administration has strained American democracy like no administration in modern times. We must act to protect and strengthen our system of government, by ensuring wider ballot access and easier participation in government.
Minnesota’s strong support of voting rights and its civic culture has produced one of the consistently highest voter turnout rates in the nation. But we can do better. No one should have to choose between voting and earning a paycheck. Election Day should be a state holiday, so that everyone has time to participate in democracy if they choose. I was happy to see a Ranked-choice voting provision in the House Elections bill in 2019 and would support similar measures.
A wave of states are adopting automatic voter registration, and Minnesota should join the list. There is no reason to force residents to jump through hoops simply in order to choose their representatives. Every Minnesotan should be able to turn up to the ballot booth, secure in the knowledge they’ll be allowed to cast a vote.
Voting rights should not be stripped away from people who are convicted of a felony or incarcerated. Because of racial disparities in the justice system, this practice disproportionately disenfranchises communities of color. Studies have shown that people who have had their voting right stripped are often less integrated into their community after release from conditions. I will work to enfranchise and empower Minnesotans by supporting legislation for defendants to keep their voting rights and support curbside voting in corrections facilities.
