🧭 LIFE

- Housing Support for Veterans! Disabled Veterans deal with life long injuries and illnesses received from service to our country, but then also struggle to make ends meet financially. My proposal? Any disabled veteran making under $100K in household income annually will be exempt by a percentage of property tax equal to their disability rating. For example if you are 100% disabled,  you pay 100% less (meaning nothing)! If you are 50% disabled, you pay  50% less, and so on! 

- Universal Health Care (Pass AB 2200)! I want state‑run, single‑payer healthcare that includes child care, elder care, dental, and mental health services by default. Californians pay around $10,000 per year on just healthcare. Universal Health Care would likely split that number by 50%!  You shouldn’t have to budget to take care of yourself or your families. 

- Solving Homelessness! Countries like Finland and Norway have reduced homelessness by up 50% by offering free housing and free counseling services with no strings attached!  According to the Legislative Analyst Office, the cost of incarcerating someone in California is about $133,000 annually. While the cost of both housing and counseling is estimated to be around $20,000 per person annually. Its time we treated our homeless neighbors like the human beings they are. We can't afford not to. 

- Using tech to generate power & protect water! I want to cover aqueducts and waterways with solar panels, taking Project Nexus statewide! This already tested idea has shown to reduce  evaporation by up to 60% which translates to billions in saved water resources annually. This also reduces harmful algae blooms which clog filters, and the cooling effects of the water make solar panels more efficient! Lastly, this also reuses our existing infrastructure instead of taking up valuable farm land for solar fields! 

- Publicly Owned Grocery Stores! In Bolivia, the state-owned Empresa de Apoyo a la Producción de  Alimentos (Emapa) supports local farmers and guarantees that staple  foods are available to the public at fair prices. I will pass legislature to adopt this same proven approach here in California! This will add a public owned grocery store option to purchase and sell produce & other staples at cost in order to drive market prices down to fair levels. 

- Cutting red tape to encourage housing development! The median price of a home in California is around $900,000 in large part because of a huge demand and low supply of housing. I will build upon landmark legislation like SB 9 and SB 79 to up-tier select areas for high density housing, streamline permitting into a single office that manages the process and fees from start to finish, and universally lower permitting fees in order to make building a home affordable for all Californians.

- Housing is for people, NOT for profit! I will champion a ballot measure to amend Proposition 13, adding a 2% surtax on every third or more home owned by speculators, with all revenue going directly to a fund to help long-time renters and first-time buyers with down payments. Furthermore, I will outright ban for-profit companies from owning residential property in the state. This is a targeted reform that ensures homes are for people, not a corporate commodity. 

- Protecting Human Rights! Everyone deserves to live a life of decency and respect without interference from the government or from anyone else. No one should dictate how you live your life, who you love, who you marry, or what consenting adults do together. I will push for an amendment to the California constitution to enshrine all rights (Racial, Gender, LGBTQ+, etc.) as HUMAN rights. This is to safeguard Californians from any federal action that would diminish these fundamental rights.

- Common Sense Gun Laws! I am a gun owner, and believe that the 2nd amendment exists to protect the people from a tyrannical government. This has no political affiliation, and is rooted in the idea that authoritarianism has no place in the United States. I believe in two things, first there is absolutely NO ROOM for gun violence in our communities and we cannot accept even a single instance of gun violence no or into the future! Second, gun laws that only effect law abiding citizens are detrimental to the previous. To address this, I want to form a committee made up of experts in the field (Law Enforcement Officers, Military Armorers, Subject Matter Experts), to review and / or amend each piece of legislation regarding firearms and gun violence using the most relevant data, research, and evidence based solutions. We cannot allow politics to stand in the way of keeping our communities safe.

- Right to Bear Arms Responsibly! I was trained in firearm safety by the US Coast Guard, and by the Alaska State Trooper commander. Military members are expected to stay proficient and handle firearms safely, and it should be the same for all people. I want to replace the current firearm safety requirements in California with a 2-part training: a classroom instruction led by a qualified firearm instructor, and a practical in order to apply learned material and learn to handle firearms safely. Completion of this class will provide a license that is good for 5 years, and shall cost no more than $100. This does not infringe on the right to bear arms, it simply set the standard for responsible handling and ownership. 

- Essential Utilities MUST be publicly owned! Private utility providers have a monopoly on essential services like water and power, and because of that they are able to price gouge in the name of profit. I will pass legislation (similar to the Netherlands) to make it illegal to privatize essential utilities like gas, water, and electricity. All essential utilities shall operate as a public service, not for profit, ensuring that the quality of these services is never determined by a company's bottom line. Furthermore, all existing private utility providers shall transition to public ownership over the course of 2 years. 

- No Masked Law Enforcement! Pass Senate Bill 627 (SB 627) and Senate Bill 805 (SB 805), the "No Secret Police Act" and the "No Vigilantes Act," respectively! ICE and DHS refuse to properly identify themselves and hide their identities under masks. There has also been a large uptick in law Enforcement impersonators because of it which is a direct threat to all people. Law Enforcement is accountable to the people they serve, and any erosion of that accountability is unacceptable. All Law Enforcement must properly identify themselves to maintain public trust. 

- Community Based Law Enforcement! Police Officers have a very stressful and often unforgiving duty to the public. Their interactions with the public are often during those people's worst moments, which doesn't always help build a good long-term relationship. I want to see programs similar to the Safe Streets Teams enacted in California that have Officers regularly meeting with members of their community, building trust in each other, and fighting crime through positive collaboration. We are all part of the same community! 

- Election Day as a State Holiday: Election day is arguably one of the most important days in our society, and we should treat it as such! I want to make Election Day a state holiday, in order to allow more people the opportunity to vote. Democracy works better when more voices are heard! 

- No Surveillance without Public Oversight! I will pass legislation to prohibit the use of surveillance technology without a public vote and an approved use policy. This ensures that the people, not a secret process, decide what surveillance is acceptable in their communities. 

- Public Transit that WORKS! I want to massively expand public transit across the state, based on the effective models in the European Union. I want to create a new office within CALTRANS that brings all public transit systems together in a meaningful way, while respecting their individual structure and needs. I envision transit systems working together to have a unbroken line of public transport from one end of the state to the other! Additionally, I want to see a single charge card that can be used for any public transit in the state of California! You simply swipe the card, and it sends the fee to the appropriate transit authority! 

- All Schools must operate as Non-Profit within California. Germany has state subsidized education that makes tuition virtually free. Their universities produce some of the most cutting edge research and high quality graduates anywhere in the world. Learning from their example, I will push legislature that all schools in the state must transition to a non-profit business model over the course of 4 years, or be ineligible for any California state grants or funding. Its time to stop predatory tuition practices that keep low‑income learners from earning a degree, and keeps graduates saddled with lifelong debt! 

- Support Educators, not politics! We would never allow someone without medical experience to run a medical board, yet we continue to allow our school boards to be run without the expertise of our educators. My plan will bring common sense, professionalism, and true accountability to our local school boards with a system of checks and balances. My plan has three parts:

• Ensuring Expertise! I will champion legislation requiring that at least one-third of the members of every school board must have formal teaching experience. This will ensure that our decisions are grounded in the realities of the classroom.
• Teacher's Check on Power! I will empower teachers with a formal voice. If a simple majority (over-half) of all teachers employed in a district vetoes a decision made by the Board of Education, the board must re-discuss it. To pass the decision, it will then require a super-majority (two-thirds) vote from the board, ensuring that a widely opposed policy cannot be rammed through by a simple majority.
• Final Recourse for Teachers! If a decision is still passed by the board's super-majority, I will give teachers a final recourse. A super-majority of teachers may petition the decision to be escalated to the county or the next highest authority for a binding review. This adds a crucial layer of accountability and ensures the professional judgment of our educators is never ignored.

- A market based Corporate Tax Rate! The current corporate tax rate in California is 8.84%, and flat taxes aren't exactly fair to lower income / smaller businesses. Instead, I want to tie the corporate tax rate directly to the amount of employees (and contractors) who qualify for both state and federal assistance programs.  Corporations making under $5-million per year will enjoy the lower 5% tax rate by default, while any corporation making over $5-million per year will face a 15% tax rate that can be lowered to 5% if none of their employees (or contractors) qualify for government assistance. 

- Closing Tax Loopholes and Supporting Society! I want to modify the California income tax system to include a surtax of 25% on income above $250M annually. Additionally, if a taxpayer borrows against unrealized gains, they must pay a temporary withholding tax on the amount borrowed, similar to the federal “interest‑income withholding” regime. Money is made BECAUSE of our infrastructure. Our roads, our bridges, our ports, and our assistance programs. It is morally and ethically wrong to not pay back into the very system that allowed the money to be made in the first place!