Candidate Statement
I am a Democrat running for Indiana House District 39 in Hamilton County, Indiana. I am a dedicated mother and a six-year resident of the district, and am well-aware of the challenges facing my fellow Hoosiers. While this is my first time running for public office, public service is in my blood. As the granddaughter of Slovakian immigrants and the daughter of two public school administrators, I grew up learning the importance of hard work, family, and community. On this legacy, I have built a highly fulfilling career as President & CEO of Girls, Inc. of Greater Indianapolis, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering girls and building community. As a mother of three, I care deeply about strengthening our public school system and ensuring the rights of women and girls are protected. Above all, I know how important it is to make Indiana affordable for families. I will bring these priorities to the Indiana Statehouse.
Education
Political Science and Communications at DePauw University (undergrad); Public Affairs at Indiana University (masters)
Occupational background
Nonprofit CEO
Lowering the cost of living is essential. People in Carmel and Westfield are struggling with housing costs, rising utility rates, and childcare costs, to say nothing of high gas prices and other expenses. Hoosiers need a break. As state representative, I will advocate for various affordability measures.
Firstly, I will advocate for a statewide tri-share model to save families thousands on childcare costs. In this model, the state, an employer, and an employee each pay for one-third of the cost of childcare for that employee. This is would reduce childcare costs by two-thirds for most families!
To reduce the cost of housing, I will support building more affordable housing in the city centers while enforcing rental caps on neighborhoods, which will ensure that large corporations can't buy up housing stock and drive up prices.
Furthermore, we need lower utility bills. This is why I oppose the sale of our utilities to private equity firms, and support a temporary moratorium on rate hikes.
In Indiana, healthcare costs continue to be one of families’ biggest expenses. Those who are on Obamacare are seeing premiums rise. Those on Medicaid are seeing their coverage cut. And those who are in the private market are still getting squeezed by for-profit insurance companies that just act as middlemen. As state representative, I will work tirelessly to ensure that families have access to affordable healthcare.
Nearly three quarters of all voters, Democrat or Republican, believe that the Indiana state government should do more to protect local hospitals. Meanwhile, our state government has chosen to cut Medicaid and fail to invest in small hospitals. I will work bipartisanly to ensure we have good hospital coverage all across the state and that Medicaid is funded for those who need it.
I am the daughter of two public school principals. I attended public school. My three children attend public school. Good public schools are the backbone of a healthy society and a strong economy, and we must fully fund them.
I support ending Indiana's school voucher program and redirecting the funds to public schools. People should always have the choice to send their kids to private school, but the current voucher program acts as little more than a subsidy to the rich. Furthermore, 2025's SEA-1 law massively cut public schools across the state, forcing school districts to cut staff and programs while being expected to maintain the same educational standards. We must keep investing in the next generation by ensuring all public schools are fully funded.
Every citizen of Carmel and Westfield deserves to feel safe. As a community, we’ve made great strides toward this, but cannot ignore the crime that does happen. Furthermore: too many innocent people are in prison, and too many guilty people walk free.
As state rep, I will champion policing augments such as mobile crisis response teams and deescalation training to make our communities safer, while working bipartisanly to ensure that no criminals are exploiting our bail system and getting out unfairly.
Our Carmel & Westfield Police Departments do a wonderful job keeping our district safe. As a member of the Carmel Citizen Police Academy, I know the important work of these law enforcement members, and I pledge to ensure they are fully funded and have the resources they need to keep us safe.
Indiana is well-positioned for continued economic growth, and I will work to keep it that way. But let me be clear: we cannot have "growth" that comes at the expense of our own community. We cannot have huge tax breaks for massive, highly profitable corporations, and all industrial development must be done only with the permission of the community it is in. To pursue economic growth, we must make investments into communities, not take from them.
An affordable childcare bill. I support a tri-share model where a third of childcare costs are each paid by the state, an employer, and an employee. This is a proven model currently used in Noble County and in Michigan, and I believe it is something that could attract bipartisan support. I am also advocating for universal pre-K. To pay for this, we would leverage our budget surplus while redirecting voucher program dollars into childcare support.
Candidate Statement
I have had the wonderful fortune of serving the people of House District 39 since 2024, when I first won election to the House. I have nearly 20 years experience in both the political and private sectors, experiences and relationships I am able to leverage on behalf of our communities. These include serving as Deputy Chief of Staff to Governor Holcomb, Chief of Staff to then LG Holcomb, and Executive Vice President of Pacers Sports & Entertainment, in addition to numerous boards and commissions through which I am able to make impact for our district and our state. I serve on the House Ways and Means Committee, where I actively help write our state's budget, reform our tax codes, and incent economic development.
Education
Master of Science - Sport Administration, Marketing, & Promotion
We have taken important steps to begin lowering property taxes in Indiana, and my priority as a member of the House Ways & Means Committee has been to find a balance between ensuring our schools and cities have the resources they need and providing relief for Hoosier taxpayers from double-digit increases in property taxes. That is ongoing work, and much of the next several sessions will likely be dedicated to this effort as we fully stairstep implementation of recent legislation. Last session, I also carried legislation through the House aimed at containing healthcare costs for Hoosier families, particularly in the Medicaid space. I also co-authored legislation to expand childcare access across Indiana counties. There is much to do on energy costs and healthcare costs, in particular, including building on our House Bill 1002 from last year which constrained costs utilities pass on to Hoosier ratepayers.
As we have for several sessions, the state plays a critical role in reducing healthcare costs on Hoosier families. For one thing, we must bring down our error and fraud rates in our Medicaid system, something that could cost our state hundreds of millions of dollars with the implementation of the new federal tax law. We also must continue to press our providers and insurers, jointly, on the many "hidden" ways fees end up in the lap of our families. This includes things like address issues in prior authorization, efficiencies in our hospitals, and dealing with Pharmacy Benefit Managers. We have also expanded opportunities and created incentives for employers to partner with providers to, for all intents and purposes, cut out the middle man and tailor plans specifically for their employees at lower costs. This model, implemented by some organizations already (the City of Fishers, for example) can be more widespread with the incentives we have put in place. That's our proper role.
Indiana has taken important steps to ensure that your tax dollars truly follow your child, regardless of what educational option is best for him or her. The fact is that, for too long, we have treated education as a one-size-fits-all system, though we have pivoted to making sure that we are funding a child's education and not a particular system. In places like Carmel and Westfield, our schools are exceptional and our educational outcomes are first-rate, so our families continue to choose our public school system. Where the system is not working for our children, we must ensure that families and their students aren't locked into educational situations that aren't right for them. Additionally, one of the things I have been vocal about is making sure we are not continually shifting the sand under the feet of our educators. Teaching is challenging enough without making it so that teachers have a different set of rules and regulations under which to play each school year.
Last year, I authored a significant reform of the Judiciary that is going to have important ramifications for public safety across all of central Indiana. My reform bill, HEA 1033, created new accountability measures to ensure judges are held accountable and there is greater communication across our criminal justice system, and the structural changes my bill put in place in Marion County, specifically, were steps that had not been tackled in a decade. Given that 4 of 10 inmates in donut county jails are Marion County residents, what happens in our capital city is truly important to the rest of the region. Moreover, we must continue to support our local law enforcement by giving them the tools to deal with the people we ought to be scared of while we have off ramps or alternative programs for folks who need treatment, not punishment.
We actually have a long track record of success, both in attracting high-wage jobs and investment to our state. In 2024, Indiana's capital investment number was nearly $40 billion, and more and more companies from across the country and the globe have opted to relocate their headquarters to Indiana. We must continue to be aggressive in this space, even while we work toward greater transparency. In 2025, I carried legislation through the House to enhance that transparency while not hamstringing our economic development agencies from continuing the important work they do in job attraction and retention. Last session, a number of my economic development bills merged into HEA 1406, including a new tax credit for investments in smaller Indiana communities and a commitment of $50 million in redevelopment tax credits for regional projects in central Indiana and beyond. My language also set up a framework for Indiana's new drone testing hub opportunity.
Without question, HEA 1033 will be as consequential a reform to the judiciary as we have seen in some time. I am proud to have worked hard with stakeholders and the judiciary itself to get to the right outcome, and there are additional reforms we will continue to seek that will make places like Carmel, Westfield, and other communities in Hamilton County safer. I also had the chance to co-author the Department of Local Government Finance bill last session, the catch-all bill that dealt with everything from Hamilton County's innkeeper's tax to new investments in our economic development apparatus. Finally, I had the opportunity to expand access to Indiana's venture capital tax credit program this past session, an effort that means greater investment into tech and innovation in our state. These are the kinds of issues on which I will continue to spend my time, as they are the types of things that truly move the needle for our residents in Hamilton County.
