Education and early learning
Work should buy a life. Learning should enlarge it. Education should develop judgment, curiosity, and the ability to make something of your own. Give teachers and students useful tools without turning learning into a machine's answer sheet.
Start public education at age three, with a serious plan for the teachers, places, and funding needed to make it work.
Childcare and paid leave
You can't call parenthood a choice while pricing people out of it. Time to care for a child, reliable childcare, a secure home, and healthcare belong in the same conversation. Families need support they can actually use, and the people providing care need work they can live on.
Immigration enforcement and ICE
End armed civil immigration policing. Preserve necessary criminal investigations, but put immigration status before an independent civil court, with due process, counsel, and detention only by individualized judicial order. Stop abuses and build lawful pathways for people who contribute to our communities and workforce.
Cannabis and the drug war
Legalize cannabis federally. Period. End federal prohibition. Protect rights equally. Regulate cannabis honestly, with practical public education. That is not a policy of legalizing every drug or pretending all substances carry the same risks.
First Amendment and civil liberties
Government should not punish protected speech, choose a favored faith, or make belief a condition of belonging. I will defend a free press, religious exercise and nonbelief, peaceful assembly, lawful protest, and the right to petition, especially when the speaker is unpopular.
Reproductive liberty
Reproductive liberty is a tender topic that really requires a personal touch, and it's almost impossible to put anything in print that doesn't seem like I'm a grandpa bloviating about women's bodies. I'm also keenly aware of the male gaze—girl dad of four and grandpa to another—and the predatory threat that some men pose. If you have a question, my number is on the site: call me.
But since people want to know, I should assure you that I have no desire to expend any more political capital on the issue of abortion. I think the politics built around Roe, and the single-issue voting that has surrounded it for so long, spoiled too much of our public life and served as an issue that politicians took advantage of with actual little care for women. I want room for nuance, and for people to live their lives.
A woman seeking abortion may be facing a breakdown in the system—whether that is from fertility education, societal coercion (financial, familial, or other), or fear of what it means to carry a baby to term (including concerns about racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality). I don’t imagine a young girl dreams about having an abortion when she is older. We can do better. We must do better for women by tackling the roots of the problem, not prosecuting, targeting, or blaming them.
My priorities are stated in the five pillars, including healthcare for all. I want to reduce abortions through real support for women before and after pregnancy, including ectopic care, not punishment. I want to provide that practical support while protecting women from harm that comes from anti-abortion legislation that hasn't been thoroughly vetted by doctors. Healthcare, childcare, housing, and time to care should make choosing parenthood an actual possible choice.
Frankly, some pro-choicers and pro-lifers will probably accuse me of not being enough on their side. I believe an unborn person is a person regardless of his status of wanted or unwanted. And like the rest of my platform, people are people and people have rights. But the answer is not to blanket-ban everything, collect bounties, and leave women to fend for themselves. Anyone who has taken the time to listen to women knows there are layers and layers of nuance, and often the laws restricting abortion put women in positions where they are further panicked and not given help or time to really consider what is in front of them, what possibilities are there, and what resources may be available. Coercion of any form is not pro-woman, nor is it pro-life or pro-choice.
Dobbs is the law of the land. States are considering bills and constitutional amendments, and those processes still have to play out. I am running for a federal position, and I will assess the proposals that come before me on their actual terms. I do not care to curtail legal access to abortion. There is only so much political energy, and this is not where I intend to expend mine.
To me, the Postal Service is a Ben Franklin institution—basically untouchable. I don't support messing with the mail system to restrict abortion access, either.
Housing and eviction protection
Build more homes people can afford, and protect people from being pushed out of the homes they have. Support tenant representation and stronger eviction protections. Address the energy and materials costs that go into construction, and use AI to help with administrative and permitting work. A useful tool should help people get through a process; it should not erase accountable public decisions.
Connected commitments
Voting and public accountability · Healthcare · Congress and war powers
Liberty Cap
A continuing public obligation on extraordinary wealth, with incentives for major projects that deliver public value. Communities help choose. The public keeps control.