Occupation / Current Position
Small Business Owner, Political and Policy Advocacy Strategist
Education
B.S., Sociocultural Anthropology, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor; M.P.H., University of Michigan School of Public Health
Qualifications and Experience
Former Congressional Chief of Staff to Rep. Cori Bush and senior legislative staffer to Reps. Andy Levin and Rashida Tlaib. Authored dozens of pieces of legislation that passed the U.S. House of Reps.
I'm the son of generations of educators and a proud graduate of our public schools. I know what good public education looks like and what underinvestment takes from our communities. Flat funding formulas leave high-need schools and students behind. Testing gets overused to evaluate our teachers instead of as a resource for students. Good educators are burning out and leaving. I'll fight for weighted equity funding, recruitment and retention programs, a testing system built around student growth, and to ensure public dollars aren't diverted to private schools.
I grew up in a working-class household that relied on Medicaid to get by. During Trump's first term, I took on his agenda and won, delivering millions in water and cash assistance to working families. Just as I've done as a staffer, I will champion lower costs as a legislator. I support raising the minimum wage, strengthening the right to organize, and cracking down on wage theft. I'll fight to lower energy bills, expand affordable housing, and win universal healthcare and childcare. We get there by electing leaders accountable only to the people. That's why I've never taken money from corporate special interests and never will.
During Trump's first term, I helped advance federal PFAS legislation and secured millions to replace lead pipes in communities like ours. Michigan families pay some of the highest energy costs in the Midwest and get some of the worst reliability in return. I'll fight to tie utility rates to measurable reliability performance, expand rooftop and community solar, and pursue aggressive PFAS cleanup with polluter-pay laws. I'll also stand up against any data center projects that serve the profits of global corporations over the interests of communities, which is why I've organized alongside Allen Park residents to oppose one proposed locally.
I'm married to an attorney who specializes in civil rights, and I understand what it means when these rights are treated as optional. Due process, First, and Fourth Amendment rights apply to everyone in Michigan regardless of status. They don't disappear at the border. During Trump's first term, I worked with ACLU Michigan to draft bipartisan legislation by Reps. Levin and Moolenaar to protect Iraqi Americans from unjust deportations. Today I'm organizing against ICE's expanded presence and raising funds to bail young people abducted out of ICE detention. I support banning local cooperation with ICE and prohibiting masked enforcement actions.
Occupation / Current Position
Manufacturers Representative
Education
Bachelor of Science Accounting and Data Processing
Qualifications and Experience
Former Police Officer who moved into private security. I have held various management positions leading into sales. For the last 12 years I have been self employed.
Michigan educational system needs help. Our children are falling behind. Our national scores on reading and mathematics have been following. We need to look at the states who have improved and see what they did and try to implement their successes. We also need to look at what is taught, how it is taught, parental involvement and the school environment.
I think that employer who in the past have taken advantage of wage workers. The consequence is a minimum wage. I believe a system of for profit schools to teach people the skills they need could be implemented by a joint venture of the private industry and the state. We need to get trained people in all skills.Michigan
I think the move by the power companies to a 50% renewable energy status is not practical and cost effective. We need to move more towards nuclear and gas fired generation. I think people forget we have the 5 months of the Michigan grays. I think that family homes and factories who want to use solar panels to reduce their electric cost is a good idea. Using our farmland for solar panel farms is also not a good decision. We need all the land we can get to feed our people. Have you been near a windmill? Talk about noise.
Michigan residents have these rights. People who enter this country illegally do not. I hear that illegals have better free health care, free room and board and paid more money than some seniors on Social Security and veterans. We need to take care of our seniors and the veterans first.
Education
Mackenzie and Cody in Detroit. Got my GED at age 32. I take college courses online. My real education is with my experiences in life working and getting to know the people I work with.
Qualifications and Experience
I have been a worker all my life. I can speak for workers who have held paper routes, janitors, security guards or worked in gas stations. Who better knows what life is like in these jobs?
The way the schools are funded now isn't working. Schools should be better funded. Period. And some school districts need even more, like in Detroit. Sometimes there is not enough toilet paper or books. And, class sizes are too high. We are told that the lottery money is supposed to go to the schools. So where did it go?! The resources are not going to where they are needed.
As a Working Class Party candidate, I say that everybody has the right to a decent paying job. Workers should be receiving a living wage. And $15 an hour is not enough. You can't live on that! Wages need to be higher. There should be more training for people to have the proper education for the jobs that are coming up now. It shouldn't be legal to have all these part-time jobs and temporary jobs.
We should have the right to a clean environment, but these big companies put profit first and don't care if our kids have asthma. I can say that every time I drive through Southwest Detroit or River Rouge, the air stinks. In River Rouge, it comes from the river, and probably the steel mills. In Southwest Detroit, it's places like Fords and Marathon Oil, where you can see the pollution coming right out of the pipes.
As a Working Class Party candidate, I would say that if workers ran these plants, we would figure out something different to make sure that producing energy or anything else wouldn't be so harmful.
I support all workers, no matter where they were born or no matter where they live or need to live. Every person in this state and in this country should be treated as the human they are. Trump and the capitalists want to pit workers living here against the workers coming here seeking a better life.
We all have the same fight--for a better wage and life, and against the same enemy, the bosses who want to screw us all. They win when we fight against each other.
Everyone here should have the same rights, and we need to all join in the same fight.
