Issues

Most Americans now believe our government is more responsive to money than to its own citizens. Unfortunately, this is based on a strong degree of truth. Elections are bought through SuperPACs while our representatives are insider trading. Lobbying is another better-known form of corruption, but our government’s bureaucracy has also grown corrupt via regulatory capture by industries. Regulators who are responsible for regulating industry often pass through revolving doors from government roles to high paying executive roles in industry. As a result, our bureaucracy tends to align with industry perspectives and even relies on industry funding and research for expertise and information, rather than protecting Americans.

We will overturn Citizens United to end corrupt elections. We will ban stock trading in Congress. We will end revolving doors. And we will rebuild a more independent government and competitive public workforce from industry to ensure controls in our economy and society protect our fundamental liberties, adhere to the public interest, and respond effectively to the needs of the People. 

The state of housing in California is past the breaking point. The overwhelming cost of housing also means intransigent homelessness, young people cannot afford to start families, our elders are at risk of poverty in their retirement, and other unbearable cost of living conditions. By phasing out unfair deductions and loopholes that reward vacancy and rent extraction, we can restore housing’s true purpose: shelter, community, and stability. 

At the federal level, I will act to open supply chains for housing materials, incentivize regional participation in housing development, reduce development costs through domestic manufacturing incentives, improve public housing developments, and reform the tax code to disincentivize speculative homeownership and the use of housing as an investment vehicle. 

The state of healthcare in America is indefensible. Millions remain uninsured or underinsured, costs continue to skyrocket, and families face bankruptcy for simply getting sick. We are the only developed country with a system like ours and we shouldn't tolerate it. Employers and workers alike shoulder crushing premiums, while pharmaceutical and insurance companies extract billions in profit. Healthcare should not be a privilege, but a public guarantee.

I will work to establish a universal, single-payer system, like "Medicare for All", to ensure every person in this country has access to high-quality, affordable care. By reducing the inefficiencies of middlemen and private insurers, and negotiating fair drug prices, we can redirect billions toward direct care, prevention, and medical innovation. 

The Bay Area stands at the front line of the climate crisis. Our oil refineries are closing, our agricultural regions are drying and flooding in the same year, and the workers who literally power California’s economy will be left behind if nothing is done. Entire industries are being reshaped by forces far larger than any one county, yet our policies remain reactive and piecemeal. We cannot allow climate action to mean community abandonment. A "Green New Deal" for the Bay Area would mean investing in a just transition by rebuilding the economic foundation of our refinery towns, retraining workers for clean energy industries, and restoring agricultural resilience through sustainable water, soil, and energy practices.

I will work to pass the Green New Deal to expand clean energy supply chains, incentivize domestic renewable production, and direct federal funding to regional climate adaptation led by local communities. We will mobilize public investment to create new industries, new jobs, and a livable planet. 

Immigration to the United States has always been among the principal contributions to our greatness. We are all immigrants if we are not indigenous, and we should share the same opportunities we had with others who continue to believe in the American Dream and strive for a better life here.

I will support immigration reform that would allow anyone with the goodwill to become an American to enter and succeed fairly, just as we should expel those who harm others or partake in illicit activities, and punish domestic industries who criminally incentivize and employ illegal immigrants as a form of indentured servitude.  

The aggregate amount of student debt in America is reaching $2 trillion. Americans' futures, and the economy itself, cannot continue to sustain this amount of debt. Among the principal reasons for this much debt are the low subsidization of public education and high interest rates.

I will work to free Americans of this unreasonable debt, greatly expand funding for public education, and end the practice of applying above-inflation interest rates on government loans to unleash the full potential of citizens seeking education for the benefit of our civic life and the economy. 

Social Security is the greatest program devised by Americans to end the blight of poverty in our country. Shamefully, the Social Security trust fund is being targeted by wealthy interest groups who want to privatize it and gamble our earned benefits on market uncertainty. This would put the one thing that guarantees income to millions of deserving and vulnerable Americans at risk of financial insolvency during a market crisis; precisely when they would need it most.

I will vote to protect Social Security and expand it by lifting the payroll tax cap so that the most well off pay their fair share.