education

Having grown up surrounded by teachers, I have a great respect and admiration for the educators who work daily on shaping the future of our communities. To strengthen our education system for the next generation, I believe we need to find new and better solutions to prepare our students with the skills of the future. As your legislator, I will continue to work towards:

• Fully funding our public schools

• Advocating for high-quality universal pre-K programs taught by licensed educators.

• Supporting an increase in discretionary funding for K-12 schools to add teacher aides and other support professionals to bring down the student to educator ratio and promote the education and safety of our students.

• Fostering STEM programs to prepare students and especially girls for the good paying jobs of the future. This includes high demand fields like IT cybersecurity.

• Funding for more nurses and mental heal resources.

• Providing greater opportunities in the trades.

• Reducing the cost of college tuition

• Allowing college students to renegotiate the interest rates of their existing loans.

Taxes

Growing up in a family where my parents taught me the value of a dollar and my grandmother was a prudent saver, I am a big believer in fiscal responsibility. I believe we should be good stewards of the peoples money, balancing the budget, maintaining fiscally sound policies on spending and investments and prioritizing critical investments in Minnesotans and our community though childcare, education, transportation, public safety, clean air and water, and the health and wellness of our families.

I remain more fiscally conservative and believe good management and wise investments are the key to our future.

• For our seniors, removing the remaining tax on social security.

• For homeowners, increasing the amount of families eligible for property tax refunds and the amount of those refunds. Specifically targeting our elders looking to age in place and enjoy the golden years or young families pinched by daycare and diapers.

• For charitable gaming organizations, reductions on the charitable gaming taxes allowing organizations like the Lions, OMGHA and Fire Relief organizations, to keep more money on their mission and reinvest it back into our community.

• For the bottom line, paydown stadium debt early saving taxpayers 48 Million (approx.) because it if the fiscally sound thing to do.

Affordable health care

Minnesota's uninsured rate is climbing and thousands more have insurance they can barely afford or use, with high premiums and high deductibles. I believe all Minnesotans deserve access to affordable quality care for themselves and their families. As your legislator, I will continue to work towards:

• Implementing the MinnesotaCare Buy-In Program to give consumers an affordable and trusted public option.

• Protecting coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, and put families and consumers first ahead of powerful insurance companies.

• Protecting women's health choices and ensuring that women's care remains between her and her doctor — not employers, politicians and bureaucrats.

• Holding Big Pharma accountable for the opioid crisis that is devastating families.

• Working to lower the cost of lifesaving prescription drugs, like insulin and Epipiens.

• Working with advocates to ensure our seniors are safe from abuse and neglect.

Economic security

There is a great deal of influence that the state government can have on the daily lives of Minnesotans. Nowhere is this more evident than in the promotion of residents’ economic security. As your elected official, I will keep working to:

• Fight for good incomes and wages to ensure the dignity of everyday families.

• Preserve the hard-earned benefits of our seniors.

• Ensure that all taxes are spent responsibly on programs that directly impact our district.

transportation

Minnesota’s roads, bridges, and infrastructure are some of the best in the country, but still need continual maintenance, repair, and expansion. We need to make an investment in this critical state resource through continued investment funding, not at the whim of the legislature every two years. This means forward-thinking funding solutions that are not part of the biennial bonding bill. As your legislator, I will continue to work towards:

• Improving road safety by restoring or replacing deteriorating roads and bridges.

• Increasing funding for fixing bottleneck areas that slow traffic and extend commutes.

• Investing in transit options to prevent future traffic congestion and costly road repairs.

Empowering Small Business

Small businesses not only create more jobs than all of the Fortune 500 companies combined, but they instill a feeling of pride amongst their owners and employees. Having been a part of several small businesses, I know that it’s not easy to start and grow a small business. As your elected official, I will keep working to:

• Simplify the tax code to make sure small business owners can focus on running their business.

• Find common ground with legislators to reduce the cost of providing health care to employees.

• Promote the expansion of broadband to greater Minnesota to ensure small businesses can flourish statewide and allow younger generations to live where they grew up.

• Passing Small Business Tax Conformity for Shuttered Venues in our community.

Gun Violence Prevention

Common sense gun safety must protect the constitutional rights of our citizens while ensuring the safety and security of our community. We must keep firearms out of the hands of those who mean to harm members of our community. I will work to listen to survivors of shootings to understand how we can balance protecting life and protecting our liberties. As your legislator, I will continue to work towards:

• Promoting universal background checks.

• Advocating for safe storage laws to prevent unforeseen tragedies, particularly among our children.

• Advancing extreme risk protection orders to assist to prevent senseless deaths and tragedy before it occurs.

• Stiffer enforcement for those creating devices that convert a gun into an automatic weapon and frequently used in violent crimes.

• Defend Minnesota state law by standing firm for the laws already on our books.