ISSUES AND PRIORITIES
Healthcare for All
Health care equity is unquestionably a human right. HD 2, like the rest of Colorado, faces an increasingly confusing and unjust health care system. Even before the enactment of the draconian cuts of federal HR 1, individuals with high-cost health care needs were unable to survive in an employer-based system. In addition, among low-income communities of color, and disability, current health care spending has not translated into sufficient health outcomes. Medicaid and Medicare without a profit motive, while imperfect, allow more equity. Now, with the advent of HR 1, they are under attack by corporate systems and the politicians that serve them. We must stabilize and preserve the Medicaid and Medicare systems while shifting to a far more efficient and ethical single-payer system for everyone.
Economic Policy
As they currently stand, wage and tax structures favor the wealthy and lock the working class into generational economic stasis. Determinants of social mobility like education, home ownership, healthy credit ratings, and safe communities are out of reach. Inequality of income creates inequality of power. Powerlessness is internalized, freezing people into poverty. A disintegration of social safety-net programs further drives families into hopelessness, even in HD 2. I believe in sustainable economic policy that guarantees a living wage and respect for the workforce all of us depend on.
Criminal Justice:
Despite great efforts and strides in the past few sessions of the Colorado General Assembly, criminal justice has vast room for improvement. Justice-involved individuals are too often funneled into the carceral system when earlier interventions could have encouraged socially beneficial outcomes. We need increased community support in HD 2 for programs like STAR and diversion systems, which, happily, exist but should be more robust. Public safety for victims of crime requires community programs that heal the social fabric of neighborhoods affected by crime.
Affordable Housing
As a human rights scholar and practitioner, I have no doubt in my mind that housing is absolutely a human right. Like many rights, it is however not a right when it is inaccessible to many or most individuals within a community. Skyrocketing housing costs in both the purchase and rental markets must be curbed in a variety of ways that are tailored to community desires and involvement. These may include taking advantage of accessory dwelling units, denser housing, or even well-stakeholded and crafted rent stabilization and negotiation processes.
Education
​Quality public education is the basis for becoming a critical thinker. It loads our internal library with ideas upon which to assess new information. It develops discernment and lays the foundation for democratic civic practice. It prepares us for the jobs that foster a thriving community, be that through fully-funded pre-school through grade 12, trade schools, colleges and universities, or continuing education. We must maintain teacher excellence by assuring a respectful wage.
Energy, Environment, and Climate Change
Every Coloradan, in HD 2 and beyond, has a human right to an environment that promotes health instead of illness. Citizens must protect our natural resources as the federal government can no longer be trusted to do it. We must transition to a green economy that respects clean air and water and is powered by renewable sources, even as it maintains job creation and access to clean energy development. Our infrastructure must be environmentally sound and our public lands cherished and responsibly maintained. Protecting Colorado's environment and addressing climate change are nothing less than existential mandates, essential to our population's health, economy, and future. We must preserve what is for the common good rather than private gain.
Promoting a Healthy Democracy
Our constitutional democracy is under unprecedented challenge and attack. It is the basis for the security citizens used to feel around our elections. There can be no place for authoritarianism and yet, authoritarianism is taking hold in extremely destructive ways. Anti-democratic activity has metastasized into all areas and levels of our government, including our congressional representatives and the Supreme Court. The law, at its best, is the guarantor of equality and it is no longer respected. We must deflect attempts to overturn laws guaranteeing voter rights and enfranchisement, congressional apportionment, and the peaceful transition of power. Lies must not be normalized. “Facts” must be verified.
Organized Labor
As someone who helped pass a living wage for janitorial and culinary staff in college and tried to unionize the people who cleaned our school and fed us our meals in graduate school, I believe in the value of workers. We know that strong American labor unions help increase wages and job standards for workers across the Colorado economy. The rights of Colorado workers who want to organize and speak in one voice have always met with resistance and do to this day. We must make Colorado a worker’s rights state.
Immigration
As part of the multicultural city that is Denver, HD 2 thrives on diversity. As such, I believe in a law and justice-based immigration policy that is both fair to immigration applicants and considerate of existing citizens' rights and concerns. I honor and defend the rights of all people no matter their race, color, ethnicity, religion, gender identity/sexual orientation, national origin, or citizenship status. I embrace diversity and value the contributions of immigrants and refugees to Colorado’s economic, intellectual, and cultural life. I believe there must be a pathway for aspiring immigrants and refugees to earn citizenship and legal status and, as such, advocate for comprehensive and compassionate immigration policy reform that will secure our border without trampling on human rights and dignity.
Affordable Housing
As a human rights scholar and practitioner, I have no doubt in my mind that housing is absolutely a human right. Like many rights, it is, however, not a right when it is inaccessible to many or most individuals within a community. Skyrocketing housing costs in both the purchase and rental markets must be curbed in a variety of ways that are tailored to community desires and involvement. These may include taking advantage of accessory dwelling units, denser housing, or even well-stakeholded and crafted rent stabilization and negotiation processes.
Cost of Living
Residents of HD 2, and Colorado as a whole, are suffering from a cost-of-living crisis where wages are not keeping up with prices. All the while, businesses, especially large businesses, still see massive benefits given to shareholders and top-level executives. While we must work with small businesses, who often have far less astronomical margins, I promise to search for and eliminate loopholes that allow large businesses to retain massive profits with no trickle-down benefits for middle and working class Denverites.
Abortion and Reproductive Justice
The ability to begin a family, or decide not to, is a fundamental human right, as dictated by Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Reproductive rights, including the right to abortion and contraceptive services are fundamental components of health care and healthcare equity. Colorado must continue to adequately provide for and fund such services and stand strong against efforts to curtail the progress both Colorado voters, including myself, and elected officials have made in positioning Colorado as a leading state for reproductive rights no matter what community needs them.
TABOR and Taxes
While eliminating TABOR will require a long fight, I promise to both take steps towards its eradication and support the equalization of monetary benefits given to citizens as rebates. While I support efforts to democratize and include citizen participation in budget and taxation discussions, we must find alternative ways to do so, such as municipal participatory budgeting, while eliminating the perniciousness of the current TABOR structure that strangles state and local government’s ability to provide for a genuinely robust safety net. In addition, I wholeheartedly support efforts to implement a progressive and graduated state income tax.