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- COVID-19 Containment and Relief
- WE NEED LEADERSHIP THAT CAN MANAGE OUR RECOVERY FROM THE PANDEMIC RESPONSIBLY AND MAKE SURE EVERYBODY STAYS AFLOAT.
- With more and more vaccinations being administered every day, we have reason to be optimistic about the end of this devastating pandemic. That being said, we still have to remain vigilant by encouraging people to mask up, socially distance, and test while waiting for their vaccine.
- We also have to recognize that it will be impossible to simply go back to ‘normal’ when we try to put COVID-19 behind us. The pandemic has exposed and deepened deep inequalities and flaws in our government, economy, and society that need our attention. My campaign is committed to not just building back to where we were, but building back better, fairer, and more equitably than before—and that’s reflected across our policy platform.
- UNTIL THIS PANDEMIC IS COMPLETELY OVER, OUR CAMPAIGN WILL PROVIDE COMMUNITY RESOURCES TO SUPPORT VIRGINIANS TO FIND ACCESSIBLE PLACES TO GET VACCINATED OR TESTED FOR CORONAVIRUS.
- Reimagining Policing and Criminal Justice
- A MORE COMPASSIONATE MODEL FOR PUBLIC SAFETY PUTS REHABILITATION OVER INCARCERATION AND WORKS TO END THE LEGACY OF RACISM IN OUR SYSTEM.
- The murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor reignited the Black Lives Matter movement. Communities across America are grappling with the persistent racism in our justice system. For decades, our legislators, our courts, and our law enforcement have viewed incarceration as a solution to our societal problems.
- Virginia held on to a legal code that was born out of the Jim Crow era. Our laws emphasize punishment and criminalization over rehabilitation and restoration. Instead of treating crime as the result of systemic failures, we’re creating never-ending cycles of incarceration. We can create a better way to ensure public safety with justice, transparency, and accountability.
- MY AGENDA FOR REIMAGINING PUBLIC SAFETY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE INCLUDES:
- Legalizing cannabis possession immediately, automatically expunging past cannabis convictions, freeing those incarcerated only for cannabis-related crimes, driving the benefits of the new cannabis markets to communities disproportionately impacted by marijuana prohibition, and investing new state revenues into our education system.
- Ending mandatory minimums so that judges can use their discretion and ensure sentences fit the circumstances of each case.
- Defelonizing all drugs, so that addiction and drug dependence is treated as a public health crisis rather than a criminal matter.
- Ending the disenfranchisement of incarcerated Virginians.
- Ending cash bail and reforming pre-trial detention to stop putting Virginians – who are presumed innocent under the law but can’t afford to buy their freedom – in jail.
- Banning private prisons.
- Investing in mental health, housing, and education rather than jails, prisons, and police.
- Ending Qualified Immunity for police officers so Virginia’s law enforcement can be held accountable for their misconduct.
- Creating a true parole system for Virginia.
- Reassigning duties like routine traffic stops, assisting the unhoused, and mental health crisis intervention to civil servants other than police.
- Removing armed ‘Student Resource Officers’ from our schools and tackling the school-to-prison pipeline.
- Empowering public defenders in every locality to successfully perform their important role in the court system.
- An Economy that Works for All
- OUR ECONOMY SHOULD GUARANTEE FUNDAMENTAL ECONOMIC RIGHTS AND A HIGH QUALITY OF LIFE FOR ALL AND NOT JUST THOSE AT THE TOP.
- It’s no coincidence that in the same year Virginia was ranked the best state for business, we were also ranked the worst state for workers. Big businesses and those at the top have reaped the gains of Virginia’s rapid economic growth, and the multi-racial working class has been left behind.
- In recent years, the costs of housing, healthcare, childcare, and higher education have skyrocketed while wages have barely budged. Black, brown, and low-income neighborhoods lack basic access to transportation, quality schools, and even healthy food, water, and air. Rural Virginians have seen good-paying jobs consolidate to a few successful areas of the Commonwealth without any tools to even the playing field. Women, and especially women of color, go underpaid compared to their men colleagues.
- We didn’t make this two-tiered economy through inaction. We made it through deliberate policies that cater to the interests of the privileged few. In the race to be a ‘business-friendly’ state, we’ve forgotten that our economic agenda needs to focus on making Virginia a more affordable, healthy, and prosperous place to live for all. Investing in our working class is a surefire way to create a competitive economy where everyone who contributes to our Commonwealth’s success can benefit from it.
- MY VISION FOR VIRGINIA’S ECONOMY INCLUDES:
- Strengthening the ability of workers to organize by repealing the so-called “Right to work” law that hurts workers and keeps wages low.
- Extending the right to collectively bargain to all public sector employees.
- Ensuring Virginia’s minimum wage is raised to keep up with the true cost of living over time.
- Guaranteeing paid sick, family, and parental leave for all Virginians.
- Investing in public education through equitable funding, more support staff, and competitive pay for teachers.
- Providing affordable childcare and universal PreK to all of Virginia’s parents.
- Expanding Medicaid to cover more working class Virginians, offering a public option through a controlled state insurance exchange, and pushing for a federal Medicare-for-all system.
- Creating thousands of new affordable housing units and promoting planning and zoning changes that address decades of racial and economic segregation in Virginia’s neighborhoods.
- Strengthening tenants’ rights and protecting renters from eviction.
- Empowering rural Virginia with green jobs in the infrastructure and technology sectors, improved connectivity, state funding for rural schools, and universal broadband.
- Realigning our tax code to promote families and small businesses rather than big corporations.
- Providing the Virginia Employment Commission with the resources necessary to ensure no one is left behind by our unemployment insurance system.
- Stopping the Climate Crisis in its Tracks
- OUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE. IT'S TIME TO MAKE VIRGINIA A NATIONAL LEADER ON CONFRONTING THE CLIMATE CRISIS AND FURTHERING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE.
- We are in a climate emergency and the evidence is all around us. Hurricanes intensify, wildfires rage, flood waters rise, cities bake—and still politicians refuse to take any bold action that could upset fossil fuel interests and corporate polluters.
- What’s worse is that there’s consistent proof that climate change and environmental neglect is affecting poor, Black, and brown communities the most, worsening existing inequities in health, housing security, and more. Meanwhile, public utilities who have monopolized the energy sector dominate Virginia’s politics and profit off of Virginians without adequate regulation.
- The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) was signed into law in 2020 to put Virginia on a track to phase out fossil fuels by 2045. But the truth is we’ve wasted so much time failing to address this crisis that we have no choice but to fight for a plan that is more aggressive than the VCEA’s compromise approach. That’s why I back a Virginia Green New Deal.
- A Virginia Green New Deal would work to decarbonize our economy, provide good-paying green jobs for affected communities, and ensure a liveable future for my daughter’s generation.
- MY PROPOSAL INCLUDES:
- Accelerating the VCEA’s timeline to reach 100% renewable energy sources by 2035, including a true phase out of natural gas and natural gas pipelines in favor of wind and solar.
- Enforcing a moratorium on all new fossil fuel infrastructure in Virginia.
- Investing in clean public transit such as subways, regional rail, buses, bicycling networks, and sidewalks, and adopting policies that encourage adopting of these alternatives to driving.
- Investing in technical education, green jobs, and resiliency projects for communities affected by climate change and the clean energy transition.
- Creating fair regulations and election reforms that can curb the political influence and profit-seeking of public utilities.
- Promoting smart local land use for housing, commercial, and agriculture that can slash carbon emissions and harmful sprawl.
- Leading the nation in research, development, and implementation of new sustainable technology and agriculture.
- Promoting public green spaces and natural preservation.
- Ensuring labor rights are protected during the transition to a clean energy economy.
- Good Government, by and for the People
- VIRGINIANS DESERVE A MODERN, 21ST CENTURY GOVERNMENT THAT INVOLVES THEM DIRECTLY IN A FAIR DEMOCRATIC PROCESS.
- As a former investigator who worked with Rep. Elijah Cummings on the US House Oversight Committee, I have a passion for honest government that is rooted in service and integrity. One glance at Virginia’s system of elections and lawmaking reveals deep flaws that rig the game against regular people who want to be active participants in their democracy.
- Our “anything goes” campaign laws allow big corporations and wealthy donors to contribute unlimited amounts of money to political candidates and make their voices the loudest on the critical issues facing our Commonwealth. Political campaigns and their donors lack transparency to the public. Although we’ve made groundbreaking progress on securing the right to vote, there’s more we can do to shake the legacy of voter disenfranchisement.
- Virginia’s General Assembly, where all laws are written at the state-level, is stuck in an 18th century model of legislating, where our Delegates and Senators are part-time officials who are only expected to be in Richmond a few months out of the year.When the General Assembly is open for session, legislators have to cram extremely complex and consequential decisions into a small window of time with limited resources, which leaves regular people like you and me crowded out of the process and without the constituent services we deserve.
- Both the successes and failures of other states that have reformed their processes show us that there is a common sense way forward for Virginia.
- THAT INCLUDES:
- Getting big money out of politics with serious campaign finance reform, including reasonable contribution limits, bans on contributions from public utilities, and restrictions on what campaign funds can be spent on.
- Modernizing Virginia’s government and professionalizing the General Assembly, allowing Delegates and Senators to treat their duties to the people as a full time job while removing barriers to public service.
- Establishing stronger transparency and ethics standards for government officials to be held accountable to.
- Protecting and expanding voting access for all Virginians, including providing funding to support fully automatic voter registration.
- Finding a lasting solution to the redistricting process that ensures districts are representative of the real communities they encompass.
- Providing voters a stipend through the tax code to give to campaigns of their choice and help level the playing field for candidates without wealthy donor connections.
- Moving towards ranked choice voting that gives Virginians more freedom to vote for candidates they believe in.
- Protecting our Commonwealth and the vote with cybersecurity leadership.
- TRUE EQUITY IS A CONSTANT DEDICATION TO UNDERSTANDING AND TACKLING THE UNIQUE DISADVANTAGES THAT MANY VIRGINIANS FACE.
- Virginia’s legacy as the capital of the confederacy isn’t as far in the past as some would like to think. It wasn’t until just months ago that statues of confederate generals who fought to enslave Black people started coming down in our Commonwealth.
- We shouldn’t be surprised that Virginia’s state policies have historically been stacked against women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and anyone else who’s had to fight for their right to exist and prosper.
- Virginia has made a lot of progress in a short amount of time to become a more equitable Commonwealth, but there’s still more progress to be made.
- THAT INCLUDES:
- Enshringing the constitutional right to choose to have an abortion and ensuring affordable and accessible reproductive and contraceptive care.
- Closing gaps in outcomes for LBGTQ Virginians in mental health, education, housing security, and policing.
- Guaranteeing gender-affirming healthcare for transgender Virignians.
- Addressing gun violence by prohibiting domestic abusers and perpetrators of hate crimes from purchasing firearms, banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and establishing meaningful waiting periods for gun purchases that can curb impulsive acquisition of weapons.
- End all cooperation between ICE and the Commonwealth to ensure our immigrant friends and neighbors are safe in their communities.
- Reforming Virginia’s approach to healthcare by advocating for raising or eliminating income and asset caps for SSI recipients, raising new funding for Medicaid waivers, and reforming the waiting list system so that Virginians with the most need aren’t left behind.
- Eliminating subminimum wages for people with disabilities.
- Combatting hate crime through community-based data reporting, condemning bigoted rhetoric regardless of party, rejecting policies that target marginalized communities, and passing robust anti-discrimination laws.
- Decriminalize sex work and ensure sex workers are safe from violence.
- Removing the last of Virginia’s Confederate statues and memorials to slavery.
- Recognizing our place on stolen land and working towards justice for indigenuos Virginians.
- Supporting Black-, brown- and women-owned small businesses.
- Bringing high-skill jobs training to poor and rural communities by improving access to vocational schools, funding apprenticeship programs, and improving educational attainment in public schools.[2]
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