The Trump administration is shredding the Constitution and terrorizing communities. This takes many forms, including masked ICE agents detaining and disappearing our immigrant and BIPOC neighbors off the street, federalizing and deploying national guard troops domestically, trying to impose a White Christian Nationalist perspective on academic institutions, libraries, and public school curricula by whitewashing and erasing history and science, and trying to stop trans adults and children from being themselves and just allowing kids to play. 

We need to stand with and fight for our neighbors and our rights. 

• Ensure that there is a complete separation between ICE and state and local law enforcement, and prohibit county sheriffs from contracting with ICE or using our local jails as ICE detention centers for our neighbors. 

• Protect Minnesota from being coerced into accepting any funding conditions that would require erasing Black, Brown, Indigenous, or queer people, by nullifying the harmful experiences in our past and present. 

• Maintain and strengthen Minnesota’s status as a reproductive freedom and trans-refuge state to ensure that the state doesn’t interfere with the personal and private doctor / patient relationship and that adults and children alike can live freely and authentically as themselves. 

The Trump administration is attempting to dismantle our democracy and rig our elections to consolidate their power. We see this in the rush to radically gerrymander maps in Texas and other states with GOP trifectas, Executive Orders to limit mail and early voting, and to require voters to show a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. 

Our elections should reflect the will of the people and not be for sale. I will continue the work I’ve done defending democracy for the last two decades and fight to:

• Overcome Citizens United by enacting state legislation to get corporations out of our politics by prohibiting them from spending in Minnesota elections

• Expand the use of Ranked Choice Voting locally and adopt it for state and federal races

• Strengthen transparency and conflict of interest disclosure at all levels of government, including requirements to reveal cryptocurrency holdings

• Prevent voter-bribery schemes like Musk’s fake $1 million sweepstakes

Access to affordable healthcare is a basic human right, no matter our zip code or the color of our skin. Right now premiums are skyrocketing, but healthcare wasn’t affordable or accessible even before the Trump administration began dismantling the system.

• Move to a single payer health plan, like the Minnesota Health Plan.

• Reverse the policy we were forced into accepting by the House GOP and restore undocumented adults’ access to MinnesotaCare.

• Prevent insurance companies from requiring preauthorizations for treatment that a medical professional has recommended.

We need to provide affordable, high-quality early childhood education. But right now, costs are far too high and too many parents are financially forced to stay home and provide the care themselves because their pay doesn’t cover the costs of care. And yet child care workers are underpaid and provided insufficient benefits (if any), making it difficult to attract and retain people in these positions for the long term. Our child care system is fundamentally broken and needs to be changed. 

• Provide resources to cap child care expenses at 7% of a family’s income and raise wages for the workers, as outlined in the Great Start Plan 

• Long term, look at an even lower cost system for childcare services, like they have instituted in Quebec, where families don’t pay more than $10 per day for care, and after 15 years, the system more than pays for itself due to the increased economic activity from having so many more parents in the workforce. 

Everyone, regardless of ability, age, or income, should be able to age in place if that’s their preference and enjoy a high quality of life. We need to do more to ensure they can access high-quality, affordable services with a flexible response that meets their needs whether they live at home, in assisted living, or in a skilled care facility. Similar to the child care model, this system too is broken; despite the high cost to families, the people who provide these services are overworked, underpaid and receive few if any benefits, and we need to take corrective steps to make these positions that people can afford to stay in. 

• Make providing home health care more attractive and allow seniors and people with disabilities to stay in their homes by raising wages for and providing a defined contribution retirement plan to public sector home health care workers.

• Long term, look at Washington State’s WA Care Fund as a model for Minnesota. It is a public long-term care insurance program funded by a .58% payroll deduction that then provides families with flexible resources to cover many long term care needs, including in-home, assisted living, and nursing home care.

Both rent and home prices are out of control. For those seeking to buy a home, it now takes a six-figure income to do so in Minnesota. Too many renters and homeowners are forced to choose between paying for housing costs and paying for food, medicine and other essentials, never mind saving for retirement or even a vacation. We cannot accept this. Estimates show that we need 100,000 more housing units of all kinds across the state to begin to bring prices down.  

In addition, no one, across race or place or circumstance, should be forced to sleep outdoors, in their car, or to couch surf; housing is a basic human right. Not only is it morally right to ensure every Minnesotan has a safe place to call home, it’s also economically smart: the housing first model has proven more effective than any other, as people struggle to hold a job, go to school, or get clean if they do not have a place to call home. 

• Remove barriers and incentivize building housing of all kinds, including transitional and supportive housing, deeply affordable housing, multi-generational housing, and housing in our urban centers and in Greater Minnesota: Yes to Homes! 

• Prohibit landlords from refusing to rent to individuals and families because they receive housing assistance

• Increase funding for homebuyer downpayment assistance.

• Expand funding to the Family Homeless Prevention and Assistance Program to support keeping renters in their homes.

• Establish stable, dedicated funding for housing at the state level, that doesn’t disappear when times are lean.

The cost of higher education is also skyrocketing out of control and too drowning in thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands of dollars, of college debt. It is preventing them from making other investments in themselves or their families, like a mortgage to buy a home or loans to start a small business, which is stalling the whole housing market and holding back the economy. People should have affordable access to technical training and higher education, at least at public institutions, without mortgaging their futures.

• Continue the Northstar Promise, which provides free college to students from families that earn less than $80,000. 

• Expand educational assistance for those who want to get technical or other industry-specific training that does not require a traditional 4-year degree.

• Combat Trump’s efforts to destroy higher education with Minnesota-specific investments that create options for our students, including educational loans that allow folks to get advanced degrees without resorting to private lenders, expanding loan forgiveness options, creating an independent state-TRIO program to help students overcome class, social and cultural barriers to higher education, and funding research with state dollars.