U.S. House of RepresentativesCandidate for District 4

The drought--and the devastating wildfires it has created the conditions for--are the greatest direct threats to our lives, homes, businesses, and communities at large here in California’s 4th District. If I am successful in my bid for Congress, I would aim to use every tool available at my disposal as a Federal leader and steward to our environment to ensure that water conservation and management efforts are supported and well-funded so that we are collectively prepared for the worst in the event of future disasters. This would include collaboration with my Congressional colleagues who share jurisdiction over the watersheds in our respective districts to work in tandem with local, state, and federal agencies (such as the State Water Resources Control Board, National Marine Fisheries Service, the Sonoma, Napa, Lake, Solano, and Yolo County Farm Bureaus, and the California Department of Water Resources) to ensure that our communities are well-equipped to preserve water. I believe that the State of California's decision to reduce State Water Project allocations from 15% to 5% is wise given the present drought conditions, and I will use my platform to encourage my constituents to conserve water as much as possible in our communities until drought conditions have run their course.

I believe that the US should provide greater opportunity for immigrants to come here legally to meet employer needs and that Dreamers should be allowed to stay in the U.S. permanently with a clear path to citizenship. We are a nation of immigrants from every land, culture, and society. I believe that we are the Citadel of Liberty for all who are or would be free, and it is my belief that those who would be our brothers and sisters in freedom should be encouraged to join us with greater support for assimilation than what we currently provide. Those who would pay our taxes, follow our laws, and participate in our grand experiment should be welcomed rather than shunned and it should be easier to come here through proper legal channels than we’ve made it. The American Dream applies to “all men,” and I hold to this notion with conviction and love for all. E Pluribus Unum.

I plan to continue the work of the civil rights leaders who came before me to ensure that we establish a more perfect Union, first and foremost by defending the right to vote through efforts like passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and making Election Day a National Holiday. We must ensure that we have equality of opportunity for all of our citizens under the law, and that our rights are not infringed by tyrannical governments or increasingly powerful private corporations and their lobbyists. As such, I would also like to add my voice to the cause of overturning Citizens United to get corporate money out of politics as well as support ranked-choice voting initiatives to break the duopoly of the two-party system.

Climate change is a global issue, but affects our local communities directly in the form of droughts and wildfires, and I plan to use this platform to take on climate change head on through legislation that influences the largest greenhouse gas emitters in energy, agriculture, manufacturing, and single-use packaging to encourage greater development of green, renewable, and sustainable alternatives to preserve our environment for future generations. Instead of providing billions in subsidies to the failing coal industry, we should be investing in the next generation of green energy. We can build thousands of charging stations across rural areas to make the idea of an electric car more realistic. An investment in green energy like this would create millions of good-paying, blue-collar, union jobs (Jobs that only require a high school degree in many instances).

What’s more, Congress has failed to do anything meaningful to curb the production single-use “disposable” plastics. World-wide less than 10% of plastic items are recycled, meaning that of the 300 million tons of plastic produced each year, most of it ends up in landfills or the environment, particularly in our water supply. There is only so much voting that consumers can do with their wallets to put a dent in the manufacturing of this plastic packaging, and I would seek to put Federal regulations on the production and sale of non-recyclable, single use plastic materials to facilitate investment in and the production of sustainable alternatives. This would greatly facilitate the reduction of microplastics in our food chain and water supply, as well as crack down on one of the leading sources of carbon emissions produced in manufacturing. If we want to tackle pollution and climate change in tandem, attacking non-sustainable waste is a great place to start.