Minnesota Congressional Election 2018 Political Courage Test

Abortion

1. Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation?
- Pro-choice

2. Other or expanded principles
- I support the body autonomy of women and girls. I support comprehensive sexual health education that covers information about birth control, sexually transmitted infection, affirmative consent, gender identity, sexual orientation, puberty, & healthy relationships in a manner that ends stigmatization surrounding these topics. I support decriminalizing sex work to better insure the safety of sex workers and their rights to police protection and seeking justice through the courts when they are victimized by clients, bosses, landlords, or police.

Budget

1. In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket?
- Yes

2. In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing defense spending?
- Yes

3. Other or expanded principles
- I support the Robin Hood Tax, financial transactions tax well as closing loopholes that benefit the rich and increasing the taxation on the top one-percent of income earners. Some of this revenue can be spent to decrease the federal debt, but much of it must be spent on rebuilding the social safety net and public infrastructure. I oppose excessive spending on militarism. As Eisenhower said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

Campaign Finance

1. Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions?
- Yes

2. Other or expanded principles
- No Answer

Economy

1. Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth?
- Yes

2. Do you support lowering corporate taxes as a means of promoting economic growth?
- No

3. Other or expanded principles
- No Answer

Education

1. Do you support requiring states to adopt federal education standards?
- Yes

2. Other or expanded principles
- No Answer

Energy & Environment

1. Do you support government funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, thermal)?
- Yes

2. Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions?
- Yes

3. Other or expanded principles
- I support a carbon tax, to trigger development and accelerate adoption of technologies that will help us reverse the climate crisis. Part of any carbon tax must be spent on managing extensive public lands to sequester carbon, preserve biodiversity and ensure public enjoyment of wilderness and guarantee fresh water supplies and other ecosystem services.

Guns

1. Do you generally support gun-control legislation?
- Yes

2. Other or expanded principles
- Simple legislation must be passed to restrict the manufacture and sale/resale of bump stocks and similar devices to enable high rates of fire. Simple legislation restricting the sale of high capacity magazines is also needed. We must also repeal the Dickey Amendment and allow the CDC to study the problem of death and disability due to the use of firearms in the U.S. Global controls on international trade in small arms and ammunition are warranted, foreign conflicts are fueled by U.S. weapons exports.

Health Care

1. Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")?
- No

2. Other or expanded principles
- I do not favor repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act without replacing it with Improved and Expanded Medicare-For-All. I support the plan proposed by Physicians for A National Health Plan.

Immigration

1. Do you support the construction of a wall along the Mexican border?
- No

2. Do you support requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship?
- No

3. Other or expanded principles
- We need to meet our treaty obligations to accept refugees and asylum seekers. We can do more to stem the flow of refugees fleeing violence in their home countries by reducing our arms exports and applying sanctions to uphold human rights.

Marijuana

1. Do you support the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes?
- Yes

2. Other or expanded principles
- This is needed to reduce the disparities in incarceration rates for people of color. We need to fully explore the medicinal uses of cannabinoids to address chronic pain, to help solve the opiate addiction crisis.

National Security

1. Should the United States use military force in order to prevent governments hostile to the U.S. from possessing a nuclear weapon?
- No

2. Do you support increased American intervention in Middle Eastern conflicts beyond air support?
- No

3. Other or expanded principles
- We need to use soft power to fight the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Sanctions and treaties have helped slow the spread of nuclear weapons. We need to uphold human rights by preventing the sale of U.S. arms to states that commit human rights violations.

Administrative Priorities

Please explain in a total of 100 words or less, your top two or three priorities if elected. If they require additional funding for implementation, please explain how you would obtain this funding.
- * Student loan forgiveness. Free education at public universities and technical colleges. (Robin Hood Tax) * Ensuring measurements of economic conditions faced by the rural poor are accurate. Fair Market Rent rates set by the federal government are unrealistic across our district. Suggested food budgets for families on SNAP are not realistic. * Find out how prevalent the situation is where Medicare or Medicaid are paying to treat workplace injuries that workers compensation insurers should be required to pay for. We need to make sure Medicare remains solvent and that injured workers get the care they need.