Working families and seniors need immediate relief from the rapidly increasing cost of living; from gas, groceries, housing, healthcare and the everyday items in-between.

Rising home and rental prices are in large part due to low housing supply. I’ve supported plans to build more housing and will continue to work to build more homes in our urbans cores to bring down costs everywhere.

I’m committed to tax reform that reduces the burden on working families and seniors. Addressing income inequality and tax fairness requires more than simply raising taxes on the wealthy – it requires more accountability and efficiency and must also deliver real tax relief for regular folks.

Federal cuts to healthcare are putting many Washington families are risk of losing coverage and raising costs for those who still have insurance. I support increasing competition among hospitals and healthcare providers to rein in costs, while fighting against Federal cuts.

As State Representative, I sponsored legislation to fund more police officers and to increase penalties for sexual assault. I pushed back on violence against women in my legal career and I will continue to push back against violent crime and fight for victims in Olympia. Our laws should focus on helping officers investigate murders, find missing kids, respond to shootings and domestic violence, find stolen cars, and fight human trafficking. Through my work as an attorney, I have seen firsthand how disruptive crime can be to victims, especially to those who are already struggling to make ends meet.

Creating opportunity starts with ensuring that every kid has access to a high-quality education. My mom’s a teacher, I’m a proud graduate of Peninsula High School, and we have awesome schools across our region. But we have work to do. Here’s how I plan to make education better:

I’m proud to have helped complete a new trade school in our district – West Sound Tech in Bremerton. I’ll continue to prioritize investing in our career and technical schools. We need to recognize the vital role they play in creating good paying jobs that not only ease supply chain issues, but keep the lights on, the water running, and society functioning.

I’m committed to finding dedicated funding and a pathway toward universal Pre-K which is one of the most effective way to improve academic achievement by graduation. It will put cash back in the pockets of working families by addressing our childcare shortage, allow working parents to return to work sooner, and improve educational outcomes for the next generation.

Government shouldn’t be involved in our most personal decisions, whether that is reproductive freedom, who we love, or who we are. This also means ensuring that access to reproductive healthcare isn’t limited by high costs or availability.  I’ll always stand up to those trying to take away our rights, both nationally – such as by supporting Washington’s lawsuit against the Trump Administration’s attempt to restrict mifepristone – and here in Washington.

Other important issues:

While the “top issues” tend to be all you hear from most politicians, I want to get to work for you on a host of different policies that will improve everyday folks’ lives and livelihoods and restore common sense to Olympia.

Infrastructure

Creating opportunity for all also means building up our infrastructure. Our district has some of the most critical transportation infrastructure needs in the state, and here are the projects I will prioritize:

Lowering the Narrows Bridge tolls: I helped ensure tolls did not go up, and will continue pushing for toll relief.

Gorst: The Navy has said it’s a national security risk to not fix the problem. We need to support the Gorst Coalition, which is pushing hard to get this done. Fixing Gorst is important for both traffic and safety.

Purdy We need a solution for Purdy better than hoping that the light turns green and the historic bridge is having a good day.

Wollochet: The Wollochet entrance ramp’s poor design leads to a crash about every 10 days, endangering lives, costing damages, and snarling traffic in our region’s main artery. We secured a million dollars to make improvements, but we need to keep working toward a better solution.

Fox Island: Fox Island residents face a growing threat from an old bridge unless the county, state, and federal governments step up. In the past, fixing the bridge is a problem that has been too big for the county and too small for the state. This presents a great opportunity to bring county and state officials together to fix the bridge without tolls.

Rural Broadband: It’s time to make sure rural communities in Pierce and Kitsap finally have broadband.

Having someone in the majority party in the House who will make these projects state priorities is what we need. Another representative in the minority party simply won’t get these projects done.

Homelessness

In my housing work, I see how folks become and stay homeless. Dealing with homelessness has to be the main focus of upcoming legislative sessions. We cannot keep treating mental illness and drug abuse with emergency services that asks too much of our firefighters, police officers, and medical responders.

We have incredibly low capacity to deal with mental illness and drug abuse and not enough incentives to make sure people get the treatment they need.

We need more accountability at every level from individuals to governments. We need more coordination between agencies, non-profits, and the private sector.

Unaffordable rent due to low housing supply is a massive issue forcing out people on social security and with disabilities, for example. We have to make it easier to build the housing we need where we need it.

Jobs

From the Bremerton shipyard, to fisherman, to healthcare workers and small businesses, we have incredible industries and entrepreneurship in our corner of Puget Sound. Here is my plan to continue to create and grow well-paying jobs:

1. Small Businesses: When my granddad retired from the Navy, he started his own laundromat, liquor store, and burger joint. My dad owned his own landscaping business for over a decade where I worked digging irrigation trenches and hauling rocks and bark.

2. The fact is that small businesses are the engines of our country, and they’re one of the best opportunities for climbing the economic ladder. I’ll support small businesses and make it easier to become an entrepreneur by lowering B&O tax and providing assistance with permitting, licensing, insurance, and more.

3. Supporting Technical Schools By expanding educational access to technical schools, we’ll provide more opportunities for people to get well-paying jobs in the trades.

4. Apprenticeships Expand apprenticeship opportunities to meet folks after graduation and create more career pathways in supply chain, seafood, and emerging clean energy industries.

5. Fishing and Shellfish Farming Our region depends on these jobs, from the fisherman to the shellfish farmers and people working at seafood restaurants (like I used to). We have to protect Puget sound and get more seafood locally.

6. Clean Energy The economic success stories of the next decade will be those communities who took Initiative on clean energy jobs. We’re already on a bipartisan path to prioritizing creating clean energy in Washington. I want to expand career and entrepreneurial opportunities in this area. When we have more diverse sources of energy, we’ll lower energy bills too.

Safeguarding Our Democracy

We also need to protect our democracy and the freedom that comes with it and having our vote count without fear and intimidation.  I voted to ban law enforcement – including ICE – from wearing face masks in WA. We need to ensure our State Representatives are more loyal to the Constitution than to Party or to the man who serves as President.  I believe that we must stand up and use the courts to fight against illegal executive actions and go after corruption to uphold the rule of law.