Occupation / Current Position
City of Detroit Director of Small Business Affairs
Education
Columbia Law School
Qualifications and Experience
Detroit's Director of Small Business Affairs, Adjunct Law Prof. at Detroit Mercy School, Organizer for the Sierra Club, former DNC Delegate, and board member of United Community Housing Coalition
Michigan’s education system is underfunded, uneven, and too often shaped by zip code. As the son of a teacher and a professor at Detroit Mercy Law, I believe we must invest in educators, students, and safe school buildings. I support establishing a permanent School Infrastructure Fund, fighting for equitable funding, higher teacher and staff pay, and expanding skilled trades/CTE. On testing, accountability matters, but we should end duplicative overtesting and stop using test scores to punish schools or unfairly evaluate teachers.
Michigan families need higher wages and lower costs. As Detroit’s first Director of Small Business Affairs and given my work teaching Labor Law, I have worked to support small businesses, startups, neighborhood growth, and workers. I support raising wages, cracking down on wage theft, protecting collective bargaining, repealing the ban on project labor agreements, expanding local hiring, and helping small businesses access capital. To address affordability, I would fight to lower utility, housing, prescription drug, medical, childcare, and auto insurance costs.
I began my career as an environmental justice organizer in Detroit and Downriver, helping pass the Detroit River Protection Ordinance and standing up to polluters. Michigan needs reliable energy, but it must be affordable and clean. I support cumulative impact protections, Polluter Pay, strong air and water enforcement, lead line replacement, and requiring polluter fines to benefit impacted communities. I also support investing in energy efficiency/weatherization, stronger shutoff protections, and water affordability legislation so no family goes without.
I believe due process, free speech, and constitutional rights apply to everyone in Michigan. On immigration, I support protecting sensitive locations like schools, hospitals, and houses of worship from federal Trump administration overreach; strong workplace protections; and transparency so families are not mistreated.
Occupation / Current Position
Insurance
Education
Graduate 1980
Qualifications and Experience
Former business owner Fisher Waller and Paint , Insurance with license in Auto,Fire,Life and Health.
To ensure Michigan students graduate with measurable reading, math, and practical life skills, we must execute a complete turnaround of our education system through investment and accountability. We need to increase teacher salaries to attract top educators, while updating our funding system to guarantee schools have the learning tools students need. Alongside these investments, we must implement strict academic guidelines and mastery benchmarks, ensuring no student is allowed to graduate without proving they have fully conquered the educational basics.
To foster an affordable Michigan where every resident earns a living wage, the state can offer employer tax credits tied to cost-of-living wages and expand tuition-free programs like Michigan Reconnect. Additionally, implementing developer density bonuses, MI Tri-Share child care expansions, and clean energy rebates will directly lower housing and daily household expenses for struggling families.
To lower DTE Energy bills while securing Michigan’s grid, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC)must require DTE to optimize its existing infrastructure and maximize efficiency rather than continuously building costly new projects. We can protect reliability and drive down rates by tying DTE’s corporate profits directly to performance metrics—penalizing them for lengthy outages rather than automatically rubber-stamping their frequent rate hike requests. Furthermore, heavily expanding state-funded energy efficiency and home weatherization programs will directly lower household energy waste.
Due process under both amendments means the government must follow fair rules before interfering with your rights. For the First Amendment, the state cannot censor your speech or stop a protest without a clear, public rule. For the Fourth Amendment, police cannot search you or lock you up without a neutral judge signing a warrant first. To make this better for all Michigan residents, including noncitizens, the state could pass laws requiring a judge's warrant before local police can help federal agents detain anyone, ensuring a court checks the facts first.
