Long Covid

I will fight for:

• Abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and establish an Office of Citizenship, Refugees, and Immigration Services under the Department of Labor. Redirect all funding to processing centers that connect/provide immigrants and refugees with resources for housing, work, and healthcare upon arrival.
• Prosecute all ICE and CBP agents who committed human rights violations.
• Grant amnesty to every single undocumented person in the United States, and implement a path to citizenship with expediency.
• Provide whistleblower visas for immigrants who report labor violations or exploitative work conditions.
• There are concentration camps on US soil. Our "immigrant detention" programs are cruel, inhumane, and dangerous. We must close every single one of these camps, now, and stop locking up and/or deporting people immediately.
• Repair all structural harm to “sanctuary cities” that have been deprived of resources for their humane position on immigration.
• Expand refugee programs and improve the housing conditions for all refugees during resettlement. Remove stringent requirements for linguistic assimilation and employment, and expand mental health services for refugees.

I will fight for:

• End all exceptions in wage laws and workplace protections for individuals with disabilities, such as the sub-minimum wage.
• Expand Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Social Income (SSI) to a living wage (Cost of Living + 10%).
• Expand access to Social Security/SSDI/SSI, including provision of public lawyers to assist in SSDI application process.
• Eliminate SSI waiting period.
• Eliminate requirement to “prove” disability.
• Update the American with Disabilities Act in accordance with the varied needs of the disabled community, with the changes to be informed by the disabled community.
• Fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
• Pass the Disabilities Integration Act.
• Expand funding for the Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs).
• Federal investment to upgrade existing public housing to be accessible, as required by the ADA, plus any additional accessibility needs requested by the resident.
• Federal investment to upgrade public schools to be accessible, as required by the ADA, plus any additional accessibility needs requested by students and faculty.
• Create a federal “Disability Education Services Agency” to ensure all public schools have the resources and staff training needed to support students with disabilities.
• Implement anti-gentrification measures by prioritizing public housing for people with disabilities and historic area residents.
• Pass a permanent Money Follows the Person (MFP) program to resist institutionalization and ensure a Right to Return to homes and community.
• Eliminate small business exemptions to the ADA. Appropriate federal funds to assist with compliance in smaller businesses and anywhere that cannot readily afford it.
• Pay family caregivers and expand caregiver hours.
• Ensure community based supports are fully covered under Medicare For All.
• Establish a federal community-care agency to provide community-based supports, long-term in-home and in-community care, and visitation care to seniors and the disabled community; then expand this Agency nationwide.
• Federalize workers' compensation.
• Guarantee long-term care in a person’s home and community as a right to all Americans under Medicare for All.
• Make it illegal for individual’s possessions or property to be kept by an assisted living facility after death.
• Eliminate Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) and other burdensome compliance requirements and enact protections against healthcare surveillance.
• Establish federal marriage equality for individuals with disabilities
• Ensure opioid pain management protections for those with chronic and debilitating pain
• Ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Ensure that disabled immigrants are afforded the same immigration rights as non-disabled immigrants.
• Improve research and funding for rare diseases.
• Forgive medical debt.
• Ensure a federal jobs guarantee covers the disabled community, particularly in regards to limited work schedules or nontraditional job roles.
• Legalize cannabis and include medicinal cannabis coverage under Medicare for All.

BLACK LIVES MATTER

1. Policing in the US was established to maintain white supremacy.
2. Policing doesn't keep us safe.
3. Reform measures will not end the cycle of police violence.
4. The money spent on policing could be better used for programs that would reduce the perceived need for policing
5. Black organizers want divestment from policing and investment in human needs.
6. There are more humane and just alternatives to policing.

1. Defund the police and reallocate resources to impacted communities.
2. Demilitarize the police.
3. Eliminate discriminatory policing, prosecution, and sentencing.
4. Institute complete law enforcement transparency and accountability.
5. Independently investigate all police crimes and abuses.
6. Install community representation, oversight, and safety measures.
7. End strategic counter-protest violence.
8. Apologize and provide reparations.
9. End the war on drugs.
10. End carceral punishment.

To combat this, I believe we must:

• Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment
• Pass the Paycheck Fairness Act (HR 7) to ensure women are paid equally for equal work. Pay discrimination is unacceptable.
• Pass the 2021 Violence Against Women Act.
• Ensure that domestic abusers cannot own or buy a gun.
• Federally fund and expedite all rape kit testing.
• Ensure full reproductive rights and bodily autonomy for women.
• Codify Roe v Wade.
• Repeal the Hyde Amendment.
• Provide free birth control and menstruation products.
• Repeal FOSTA/SESTA which targets lawful sex work and puts sex workers at risk.
• Decriminalize sex work.
• Expand the WIC program.
• Guarantee universal and quality affordable childcare.
• Guarantee paid family leave.
• Protect and enforce Title IX.
• Ensure that sexual harassment and violence in the military is prosecuted.

I will fight for:

• The Equality Act, the PRIDE Act, the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, and other bills to prohibit discrimination by the United States (including the military), any state or local government and private industry
• The PrEP Access and Coverage Act to require all private and public insurance cover HIV prevention medication and related services with no out of pocket costs.
• Legislation to develop and implement LGBTQIA+ inclusive public education and to combat bullying, as anti-LGBTQIA+ bullying in school can quadruple the likelihood of suicide, and LGBTQIA+ are more than three times as likely as their peers to be physically threatened or assaulted in school, and 91% more likely to be bullied or harassed.
• LGBTQIA+ history to included in school curricula to counter the deliberate erasure of the community's history.
• Community Training so that students and administrators alike will guarantee that "all school community members have a thorough understanding of the party they play in making their school an environment that welcomes all students
• Providing community spaces for LGBTQIA+ students, and provide support such as GSA's and offering LGBTIA+ specific school counseling
• Legislation to prohibit “conversion therapy”, a harmful practice which attempts to change orientation and identity
• Homelessness relief programs specifically targeting LGBTQIA+ youth, who are disproportionately represented in unsheltered populations across the board.
• Removing punitive requirements for legal name changes and create fee waivers for ID replacement as a result of a legal name change.
• Declare trans murder and suicide rates a national emergency.
• De-gender (or add nonbinary gender options, where applicable) all public documents, federally.
• De-gender all school dress codes, and guarantee protection from gender-normative discrimination as a result of dress in all workplaces.
• Both the original Equal Rights Amendment, as well as the Amendment for Constitutional Equality, which adds a more inclusive set of protections in the U.S. Constitution for marginalized groups.
• Prohibiting insurance companies from declaring trans affirming procedures as “not medically necessary” or “cosmetic” until corporate insurance has been replaced by a trans-inclusive Medicare for All program.
• Remove “transmedicalist” language from all education materials relating to trans individual, as the “transmedicalist” viewpoint is deliberately antagonistic to nonbinary individuals and not rooted in any scientific understanding of gender.
• Specifically prohibiting the discipline or firing of trans employees for enforcing of their gender/pronouns with customers, clients, or other individuals in the workplace (this includes, but not limited to, refusing to acknowledge requests of customers, clients and co-workers who insist upon using incorrect gender/pronouns).
• Legislation prohibiting mutilative surgeries on intersex infants.
• Legislation mandating that police adopt policies to ensure fairer interactions with transgender people, especially transgender women of color who are often targeted in an unfair fashion, and mandate training programs to promote compliance with the new policy.
• Ending “gay panic” and “trans panic” defenses in violent crimes.
• Ending misgendered imprisonment, which is cruel and unusual punishment and must end immediately nationwide.
• Prevent and repeal any legislation or policy that purports to “protect” religious liberty at the expense of the rights of others.

I will fight for:

• Ending homelessness and housing insecurity with a Homes Guarantee.
• Funding social housing as part of the Green New Deal to build at least 15 million green, union-built, publicly-owned homes over the next 10 years.
• A “Universal Tenant's Bill of Rights” requiring just-cause for termination of tenancy, providing public legal counsel in all eviction cases and landlord/tenant disputes, and expanding protections of tenants' rights to livable housing.
• Expanding House Choice Initiatives, and providing full funding to all existing project-based rental assistance contracts.
• Prohibiting, at the federal level, taxes on primary residences, as part of comprehensive progressive tax legislation which will fund schools and other local governmental needs.
• Universal rent control and a prohibition on rental deposits.
• A federal rent freeze with a sunset clause tied to national homelessness rate.
• Taxes on unoccupied homes (vacancy tax) and investment rental 'homestay' properties to curb speculation.
• Repealing the Faircloth Amendment, so that HUD can build public housing again.
• Prohibiting predatory lending, requiring all mortgage costs are clear, risks are visible, and nothing is buried in fine print.
• Supporting first-time home buyers by expanding HUD and USDA Rural Development Programs for first-time home ownership, particularly through down-payment assistance and direct guaranteed loans; as well as pre-purchase housing counseling.
• Reinvigorating federal housing programs that build publicly-owned housing for families, for the elderly and for the disabled.
• Curbing foreclosures and allowing people facing them to have more options to work out resolution with their lenders and provide public legal counsel to those facing foreclosure to represent their interests; and expanding all foreclosure mitigation counseling.
• Expand and protect the homeowner mortgage interest benefit, and eliminate the “second home” and yacht” loopholes.
• Nationally adopting “Housing First” practices. When investing in direct relief for unsheltered persons, all government programs should utilize the Housing First model, which has proven to improve outcomes when compared with mitigation-based approaches to homelessness

I will fight for:

• The For The People Act (HR 1/S 1).
• The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
• Overturning Citizen's United and Buckley v. Valeo.
• Public financing of elections, like “Democracy Vouchers”.
• Prohibiting lobbying of Congress by former members of Congress.
• A modern Voting Rights Act, including non-partisan redistricting commissions and same day voter registration nationwide.
• Automatic voter registration (AVR).
• Making Election Day a federal holiday.
• Making vote-by-mail an option for all elections, and expand polling locations.
• Enacting prepaid-vote by mail nationwide.
• Abolishing the Electoral College.
• Ending all discriminatory voting laws and ending the purging of minority-community names from the voting rolls.
• Allowing those who are under supervision or incarcerated to vote in elections, and be counted in the districts they formerly reside in rather than where they currently live if in an institution.
• Alternate voting systems (such as RCV & STAR) for primaries and general elections nationwide to end the spoiler effect.