Gerrymandering needs to go. Independent redistricting commissions, nonpartisan criteria, auditable maps. The party in power drawing its own districts is a conflict of interest we've embarrassingly normalized.
Voting access and security aren't in tension. Automatic registration, early voting, and mail-in options expand participation without compromising integrity. Voter ID can work if free IDs are genuinely accessible. They usually aren't, by design.
Real election security means paper trails, auditable systems, and post-election audits. That conversation gets drowned out by culture war noise.
And dark money distorts representation just as much as a gerrymandered map. Fix the maps, fix the money, get out of voters' way.
Housing is the biggest lever. We have a supply problem. Reducing bottlenecks in zoning and permitting, while respecting existing neighborhoods, means more homes get built and prices reflect actual demand instead of artificial scarcity.
On groceries, when a handful of companies control most of what we eat, prices stop being honest. Breaking up that monopolies through real antitrust enforcement is the answer.
Wages stopped keeping pace with productivity a long time ago. Raising the minimum wage is overdue.
Investing in renewable infrastructure brings energy prices down and creates jobs doing it.
Rage drives engagement, engagement drives revenue, and the entire media ecosystem is built around keeping you angry.
Break up media consolidation. Force algorithm transparency. Platforms profiting off outrage should have to answer for it.
Ranked choice voting matters too. Primaries reward whoever fires up the base hardest, producing legislators whose jobs depend on being the most extreme version of their party. Change the incentive, change the behavior.
Gerrymandering feeds this. Safe seats make the primary the only real election, which means the most partisan voters are the only ones who matter.
Fix the structure. The civility follows.
America's role in the world has to be grounded in clear national interest, not ideological crusades or nation building. Twenty years in Afghanistan should have settled that.
Alliances matter. Relationships built over decades have real deterrence value. Treating them as transactional or stating we do not need allies erodes something hard to rebuild.
China is the long game. Economic interdependence doesn't equal safety. Supply chain sovereignty, semiconductor investment, and a serious Pacific presence are all part of that picture.
On defense spending, more money doesn't automatically mean more security. The Pentagon has never passed an audit. Accountability has to come with the budget.
Cyber is now as important as any physical domain. We are not adequately organized for that fight.
The border is a real problem and pretending otherwise loses people's trust on everything else. Illegal crossings at scale are unsustainable.
The answer isn't cruelty. Mass deportation of people who've been here decades, built lives, raised American kids, is neither practical nor just.
The legal system is badly broken. We turn away skilled people who want to contribute while backlogs stretch decades. Fix that and you reduce pressure on illegal pathways.
Asylum needs clarity. More judges, faster processing, real consequences for fraudulent claims, real protection for legitimate ones.
Employers hiring undocumented workers to undercut wages face almost no consequences. That has to change.
Both sides profit from keeping this broken.
Training and Experience
Been involved in local politics for 23 years, including serving as Second Vice President of the Licking County Democratic Club (2016), serving as Chairman/President of the Freedom School of Licking County (2017), serving on the Newark Charter Review Commission (2017), and presently serving on the Executive and Central Committees of the Licking County Democratic Party for Newark 2-C (since 2024)
Volunteer/Community Service
I helped organize a local chapter of the Occupy Movement in 2011. We called it "The 99% of Newark and East Central Ohio". In 2016, we made history with one of the first two initiatives to make it to the ballot in Newark.
I strongly believe that voters should be automatically registered upon attaining the age of 18, and I believe that Election Day should be a national holiday. There also needs to be more available polling places and an extended period of time for early voting.
Moreover, I am supportive of a requirement to provide proof of citizenship while voting, but only if doing so does not create a financial burden for the voter. In other words, as long as the state offers voter ID free of charge, then I am 100% supportive of requiring it. As for those citizens who have lost their birth certificate and other essential forms of ID, I believe that we should offer assistance in obtaining replacements. No voter should be left out. Period.
Lastly, I support ranked choice voting and/or open primaries.
We need a living wage standard in this country. It is appalling that the Federal Minimum Wage is an abysmal $7.25 per hour, and that it has gone unchanged since 2009. For starters, we need to raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour (and that is a compromise, in my opinion), and then that rate needs to be attached to inflation so that we can avoid this stagnation of wages happening again.
Next, we need to crack down on price gouging where ever it is happening, and break up the monopolies. More competition and transparent pricing can go a long way in helping to stem the steep rise in our cost of living.
The tariffs need to be tamed as we make sure they are only targeted where they need to be, and - last, but not least - we need to incentivize the building of new (affordable) homes.
I am pretty far left on the political spectrum, but my ideological leanings have NEVER precluded my willingness to talk to people with whom I disagree. On a daily basis, I intentionally reach out and talk to people on the opposing side. This is essential for a vibrant democracy. The experiment of a Constitutional Republic collapses the moment we decide that our views are the only ones which matter.
One of my key objectives in this race is advocating for an amendment to the Constitution to overturn the 2010 Citizen's United ruling while also establishing term limits for all elected officials and for the judiciary. Amending the Constitution can NOT be done by one side alone. Instead, we have to create a bipartisan coalition to make it happen, and doing so will ALWAYS be a primary objective.
For far too long, the United States has considered itself to be the de facto "world police". I adamantly oppose interventionism unless it is unavoidable to preserve liberty and international security.
I am a pacifist at heart, but I recognize that the world is far too dangerous to ever let our guard down. Still, we have to have some introspection about what our deeds over the past century have wrought for humanity and the planet as a whole.
We must end our covert meddling in the political machinations of other nations. Furthermore, we need an audit and an eventual overhaul of the surveillance state that we have created.
Peace and diplomacy must be our default position, and it is long past time to wind down the influence of the military industrial complex.
It's time for common sense.
I fully support conditional amnesty for all nonviolent undocumented immigrants, complete with a fee for the misdemeanor of being here illegally.
We can use the fees collected to help pay for more immigration judges as we modernize our immigration system to streamline it so that we can avoid this crisis from continuing to fester.
I will not allow xenophobia or flat-out racism to influence my views on this. Migrants from south of the border are a great addition to our nation and culture, and I want to see them welcomed with open arms by a grateful nation (and yes, we should be grateful for all they've contributed to our society).
Meanwhile, those migrants who commit heinous crimes should be deported immediately. To this end, I support boosting border security.
Also, abolish ICE.
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