Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives - New York 2nd Congressional District in 2020 New York General Election.
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Get StartedPeople from underrepresented groups, like people of color, immigrants, the LGBTQIA+ community, people with disabilities, and people at the intersection of those groups especially deserve to have their voices heard and respected by their leaders, and I’m committed to listening to and supporting you. I intend to make sure that my congressional office staff is diverse to ensure that your perspectives are “in the room where it happens." Learn more
We need much less funding for police officers as we think of them now, and more for people like social workers and community advocates. For example, most car accident reports don’t need a person with a gun and an itchy trigger finger on the scene to take photos and fill out paperwork. Beyond overhauling the accountability after the fact (or lack thereof), we need to take measures to stop people from getting killed by police in the first place, like anti-racist training and not using deadly force first. Learn more
We also need to fully legalize marijuana & decriminalize other drugs, stop incarcerating people just for having a substance abuse problem – they need social support & treatment rather than a jail cell. These laws have overwhelmingly been used to persecute BIPOC to keep for-profit prisons full, to give them criminal records that will exclude them from competing for lots of better paying jobs, so records need to be expunged of drug crimes at the same time. Learn more
Climate change is the greatest danger to the survival of our species. As the country with the highest GDP, it behooves us to take the lead on fixing the problem that we’ve done more than our fair share of causing – only China emits more greenhouse gasses than the US, and they have over 4X as many people. Learn more
What we need is a Green New Deal. That’s front and center of our platform, and we’re committed to an ecosocialist way of doing it, so that the People control the resources democratically and locally, rather than all the profits being gobbled up by billionaires who then pretend they’re broke and need taxpayer money to bail them out the moment they start losing money. Learn more
When it comes to restrictions on the types of firearms people are allowed to own, in my experience they are generally ludicrous. For example the NY SAFE ACT places restrictions on cosmetic features of guns that don’t impact their lethality in the slightest. All it did was spur the creation of “SAFE ACT-compliant” AR-15s and other rifles. These look weird and are extra expensive because they’re made in much smaller quantities since nobody outside NY needs one, but they still hold the same number of bullets of the same caliber, the rifle is the same size, and they all shoot one bullet per pull on the trigger. It’s like the law was written by people who have never shot a gun before. Learn more
On the subject of so-called “Red Flag” laws, I’m very much in favor of police being allowed to take guns away from someone facing credible accusations of domestic abuse, with a court order and for a strictly limited period of time. Any extension should require a formal indictment from a grand jury. Learn more
My preferred solution is a national healthcare system, owned cooperatively by the people it serves, not by “investors.” That way the people vote directly for who the executive leadership will be and how surplus funds are treated, rather than it always going to already-rich people. If “Medicare for All” is the best proposal we can get the votes for, I won’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, so long as it isn’t a giveaway to Big Insurance/Big Pharma in disguise with an Orwellian name. Learn more
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