| What is your political philosophy?
To serve the interests of the community, creating social, economic, and environmental prosperity.
Is there anything you would like to add?
Children & Families
Today, parents are often forced to work more than 40 hours a week. Parents deserve livable wages, affordable housing, lower taxes, paid family leave, and affordable childcare in order to take the stress of raising a happy, healthy family. Children deserve quality education, good healthcare, and access to nutritious food.
In the United States, more than 20 percent of children under 18 are living in poverty. America has one of the the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world and Bristol has 4 public schools under the poverty line.
Senior Citizens
Social Security is the most successful government program in our nation’s history. Before it was signed into law, nearly half of senior citizens lived in poverty. Today, the elderly poverty rate is 10 percent. Although still much too high, that’s a dramatic improvement.
Programs like Medicare and Social Security can't be taken from our older generation. Those who have paved the way to this generations success must be cared for and treated with respect.
Veterans
We can disagree on what is or is not just cause for war, but there is no argument that Connecticut has a moral obligation to provide for those who have put their lives on the line for our nation.
Bristol has a strong and proud history of Veterans service which we must always be respectful of. We have both old and new generations of men and women who have served our nation calling Connecticut home. We must provide good PTSD treatment, service dogs, and the best VA benefits possible.
Education
Public education within my district, and statewide, needs to be better funded. The current system overpays wealthy towns, and underpays places like Bristol.
College: All public colleges and universities should be affordable. Student loan interest rates should be heavily reduced, with refinancing and debt forgiveness options.
Educators: teachers and professors deserve fair pay and good benefits. No educators shouldn't be able to pay their bills.
Troubled Youth: Schools need more on staff social workers, not police officers, to help break cycles of poverty, violence, and crime.
Healthcare
Americans pay the highest global price for prescription drugs and this is unacceptable. We must no longer let pharmaceutical companies manipulate the prices of necessary and life saving medications to the detriment of public health.
When a person is sick the burden of medical bills shouldn't prevent them from seeking care. There are too many people in my community who have given up decent jobs because healthcare is better if they are unemployed. No one should lose their job because their child gets sick and they need extra care.
Bristol Hospital will always be a priority for this campaign.
Public Infrastructure
We must repair our broken funding for roadways, bridges, and hospitals. While our bus systems has helped a great many people gain mobility throughout Connecticut, we need to turn our attention to issues which have remained stagnant throughout the city and state for far too long.
Our public maintenance has left cities in disrepair, roadways cratered throughout town. We need a better schedule of maintenance for walkways, fences, light posts, benches, and other public amenities. Bristol would benefit greatly from looking towards global innovation being made in public infrastructure; how can we be the best town possible?
Budget & Taxes
We must balance the budget. We must find more efficient ways to increase or maintain quality of life without creating further deficit. We need to continue to make good long term investments while seeking more effective ways of running the programs already in place.
Property taxes are among the highest in the nation and simply must come down. Connecticut has the highest level of income inequality in the nation. If we want to decrease the burden of taxes we must broad our tax base, this means fixing the state's jobs and culture problem that has the skilled workforce fleeing to other corners of the globe.
Economic Inequality
Connecticut is often portrayed as a scene from Gilmore Girls, but the reality is that average Bristol family struggles to survive and lives paycheck to paycheck. Connecticut has the highest income inequality in the nation and that is a shameful fact.
Families are struggling, forced onto welfare or into poverty, because wages are low, rents are high, and they pay an unfair burden of the taxes. The wealthy capitalize on economically trapped workers unable to move up the ladder, while they hold most of the wealth.
Business & Jobs
Raise the minimum wage and develop better business policies and practices for both large and small business. Connecticut needs to make sure that small businesses have access to low-interest loans and other forms of support, along with legislating for fair wages and paid family leave.
We must aggressively create an economy and culture attractive to the tech savvy, creative industry leaders which GE went to Boston to find. Job creation, entrepreneurship, and business innovation will only grow we specifically focus on making Connecticut culture a nationally recognizable hub for education, employment, and entertainment.
Drug Reform
Connecticut is in crisis. We have lost too many lives in this city and state to drug abuse. We need better methods of keeping people off drugs and making sure those who end up trapped in a cycle of bad choices can get help. The 'war on drugs' has not quelled the drug-use epidemics facing the nation. Treatment for drug addiction, not punishment, is much more effective.
Prohibition doesn't work: Connecticut should legalize marijuana for medical and recreational purposes, it does less damage than alcohol and is much safer to the public when regulated.
Criminal Justice Reform
Abolish privatized prisons, and focus more on rehabilitation through education and job training. This will reduce recidivism and crime.
The U.S. incarcerates far too many people, with a disproportionate percentage being people of color. Let's not waste resources to incarcerating the poor who commit misguided crimes to survive.
Law enforcement deserves fair wages and benefits for their dangerous and difficult work but also be held accountable when they do wrong.
FIrearm Safety
Prohibition of gun sales is as ineffective as the prohibition of alcohol. It doesn't work and gives disproportionate access to people who use illegal channels to acquire them. A handgun will protect your home under castle doctrine or your self in defense, there is no need for the use of automatic or semi-automatic assault weapons.
We should require better mental health screenings at time of sale in order to reduce violent homicides/suicides. Impose that for every gun sale a gun safe must also be purchased or proof of ownership shown. We must end the violent crime by tackling issues of poverty and education.
Women's Rights
Women’s bodies are theirs, and they deserve access to high-quality reproductive and sexual healthcare. This includes access to contraceptives, and the right to choose a safe abortion.
Women deserve equal pay for equal work — end of story.
Education preventing rape should be built into the public school system. Only 68% of sexual assaults are reported to the police and this is an alarming statistic that must be corrected.
Dissolve the 'Tampon tax' - feminine hygiene is a necessity, not a luxury.
LGBTQI RIGHTS
The LGBTQI community deserves equal rights in schools, the workplace, and the military. This means preventing discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation or gender identity. All humans deserve to live a life of dignity and respect, free from fear of violence or losing their job based on their identity.
Violence against LGBTQI people must not be tolerated, just as violence against any person must not be tolerated. Hate crimes against people based on their identity must be taken seriously.
Worker Rights
Labor unions and worker co-ops must be supported and encouraged. We must stand against disastrous trade deals that drive business out of Connecticut.
Enough is enough. We need to reverse the trend of workers working more hours and earning lower wages than ever before. The minimum wage must be increased to $15 an hour.
American workers are now forced to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet. 66.5 percent of women and 85.8 percent of men are working more than 40 hours a week, many without paid vacation or paid sick leave.
Physical & Sexual Violence
Connecticut must be judicious and unwavering in protecting the innocent and persecution the guilty. Men and women who have endured abuse, children who are subject to violence, and any victim of sexual harassment or rape deserves to feel like they are systematically safe and protected. All people deserve a safe existence free of harassment and assault.
Strengthen the laws on stalking and increase funding for domestic violence victims and prevention programs. All rape kits must be tested and all accusations seriously investigated.
Homelessness
Our re-housing process, I am proud to say, is a leader in the nation. However, the first steps of getting people off the streets and into the appropriate programs are still flawed. We do not have any form of mobile response which, especially on cold nights, is imperative to saving lives.
If someone is homeless they should be able to call homelessness services and immediately get access to a shelter. Mobile response could be equipped to distribute thermal blankets, food, or other life saving amenities.
Reducing the cost of housing would also greatly aid this issue.
Hunger & Childhood Obesity
The American diet has proven itself time and again to be failing the public in terms of meeting global standards of health. Christy has drafted a proposal for Connecticut to become a leader in public schools offering local and fresh produce within their cafeterias.
This would help better fund the school system, help support local agriculture, and simultaneously aid those low income communities who receive free or reduced lunch - which statistically are most disproportionately affected by childhood obesity.
Privacy & Digital Rights
Mass surveillance should be curtailed, occurring only when the government follows due process, obtains warrants, and adheres to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
Net Neutrality: The Internet should be free and open, and Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks equally—without prioritizing some customers, sites, or services over others.
Science & Technology
Stem cell research represents an exciting and promising line of research that could provide treatments and cures for many debilitating diseases.
Vaccines are an effective deterrent to dangerous diseases.
Medical research and STEM education deserve better funding, the leaders of industry have a strong grasp on the digital world. This means children should have access to the internet and be encouraged into science, technology, engineering, and math.
Religious Freedom
Supports people’s right to freely congregate, practice, and express their faith within legal bounds. Allows Americans to honor diversity, respect personal autonomy, and voluntarily choose to practice or abstain from religious faith.
Public laws ought to be independent of any one particular faith in order to maximize religious freedoms for all.
Human & Civil Rights
People in poverty, the homeless, women, people with physical & mental disability, LGBTQI, immigrants, Muslim, Jewish, Black, Hispanic, Asian American & Pacific Islanders, Middle Eastern, Native & Indigenous people; Bristol has a diversity of voices and Christy will actively work to include all of them and end violence and discrimination against them.
Christy is an ""Intersectional Feminist"" - aka, a human rights activist that focuses on empowering communities with social and economic suffering caused by racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. All communities deserves safe lives of dignity and respect.
Protecting Democracy
Connecticut's public funding of elections promotes a more even playing field where all Americans can participate. This is one of the leading publicly funded election programs in the country and has helped make this campaign possible.
Connecticut should continue to embrace democracy by creating a state holiday on election days to encourage voter turnout. Automatic voter enrollment at the DMV should be supported as it makes voting more easily accessible.
We should also curb redistricting and gerrymandering as well as stand against voter suppression and overly specific ID laws.
Climate Change & Energy
Christy stands behind the findings of the National Climate Assessment and the IPCC’s fifth assessment report.
Climate change is real, catastrophic, and largely caused by human activities. Only aggressive immediate action can offset its future impacts. It is the great planetary crisis we now face.
The United States must transform its energy system away from fossil fuels such as oil and coal, and towards energy-efficient, sustainable, clean, and renewable energy solutions such as wind, solar, and geothermal.
Animal Rights
No animal should be subjected to inhumane commercial breeding habits nor should they be contained within neglected and inadequate shelters.
All animals that are raised for food should be treated humanely with minimum standards of care.
All animals must be protected from all forms of cruelty, suffering and abuse, whether in captivity or in the wild. This means banning animal testing.
Agriculture
We need sustainable agriculture and access to healthy food and education for working families. By supporting legislation that invests in family farms, affordable nutrition, and protecting consumers and immigrant workers, we can make positive changes to one of our country’s most vital industries.
Connecticut should require labels on foods containing “genetically modified organisms” (GMOs) based on the consumer’s right-to-know.
Arts & Culture
Any globally recognized city has a distinct culture; the sum of it's languages, values, arts, literature, tradition, economics, and government. Connecticut right now is lacking in organic culture, a product of poor logistics in terms of placement of employers, relative universities and community space.
This is a problem which, in Bristol, we currently have unique opportunity to tackle. With space for downtown re-development we need to ensure that planning is considerate of creating 'good culture' which will allow not only business but community to be fostered; it is at the intersection of 'community' and 'business' where true innovation occurs.
Environment & Pollution
We must protect our citizens from poor water and air quality. Flint, Michigan is an example of how government failure in protecting our resources directly harms the public. Pollution harms quality of life and decreases property values.
When we destroy our environment - it costs us money. The services provided by something as simple as bees increase domestic crop value of approximately $15 billion annually. We must meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future in such a way that balances social, economic, and environmental well being.[5]
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Cara Christine Pavalock Incumbent
