VOTE411 Voter Guide

Economic security for all. NY is in an affordability crisis, utility bills, housing, childcare, groceries, & healthcare costs are crushing working families across the 102nd. Economic security means lowering energy costs through public power & real PSC reform, expanding the housing supply, supporting small businesses & family farms, and making both healthcare & childcare more accessible and affordable in rural communities. Rural economic development that actually reaches our communities. I've worked supporting our small businesses & rural municipalities, and I know that the state programs designed to benefit us too often skip over our communities. I'll fight for real investment in our Main Streets, agriculture, broadband, the trades, and the communities that are the backbone of our district. Championing a New York we can believe in. That means protecting the natural resources that make this place so great, and giving our district a voice in the future of what NY SHOULD aspire toward.

On damage already done: we need serious investment in flood resilience for the Schoharie Valley, the Catskill watershed, and other vulnerable rural systems, and a workforce pipeline so the clean energy transition creates jobs here in the 102nd rather than passing us by. We also need to stand firm on the goals, values, and policies of the CLCPA, and invest in what's needed to reach those goals, not just punt on them for political expediency. We need to focus on effective implementation of the CLCPA to ensure that rate payers are left holding the bill for climate efficiency. Another potential avenue is exploring alternatives to concrete in construction, including through investing in and growing industrial hemp which has myriad practical uses in the construction trade. Focusing on fully funding the Environmental Bond Act, the Environmental Protection Fund, and farmland and forest conservation programs that make working lands part of the climate solution.

Racial and social justice can't be something that only happens downstate. Rural communities of color, our immigrant neighbors , and working families across the 102nd deserve the same protections, opportunity, and representation as anyone else in NY. I would champion policies such as NY for All, and work to ensure our immigrant communities are safe and destigmatized. I would champion fixing foundation aid so kids in both rural and urban under-resourced districts gets the education they deserve, as well as true universal Pre-K. NY Needs to continue to strive for equity across the state and that means rededicating ourselves to those values as the Federal Government seeks to erode them. We need to ensure that gender affirming care remains available, we need to continue to unravel the legacy of redlining in our cities, and we need to ensure that in NY, we're standing for justice.

The Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais gutted Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act, the provision that for 60 years gave voters of color a tool to challenge racially discriminatory maps. It was a shameful decision by the Supreme Court that will disenfranchise millions of BIPOC Americans. NY pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York, in 2022, which created a state-level analogue with its own preclearance system that took effect in 2024. With federal protection now hollowed out, the NYVRA needs to be defended, and strenghtened. The Attorney General's Civil Rights Bureau needs the staffing and budget to actually run preclearance and enforcement at scale. The legislature should examine whether coverage and protected-class definitions need updating in light of Callais.

I would also examine NY's redistricting process with an eye, not towards enhancing partisan representation, but ensuring fair representation for our communities that reflects their makeup.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are my top three priorities. People are being forced to choose between essential life needs including housing, food, and healthcare and more. People must be provided with a means to pay for survival for themselves and their families. Taxing the rich more fairly is an option that must be mandated, the small amounts placed on the wealthy will affect them minimally but help those in need enourmously. ICE and in the recent past and present the targeting of people of color are impacts on the liberties of many, and these liberties are extending to those in the past who were more privileged, including those who would fight for others. Women are becoming targets with the loss of Roe vs. Wade, and the continued lack of the ERA amendment's passage, their rights are being removed incrementally. How can people enjoy life when worries about living and being able to move freely are rife. A WPA style creative works program might be a way to help.

In NYS enforcing and strengthening the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (clcpa). Mandating strong protections for old growth forests and wetlands due to their huge carbon sink capacities. Stopping the use of fossil fuels full stop needs to be done in order to curtail the green house gas emissions causing the climate disruption, including stopping the production and proliferation of petroleum based plastics. Reduction of energy use as far as possible needs to be encouraged, incentives to do so need to be found. Of course alternative energies, such as solar, wind, geo thermal, and especially hydro in NYS have to be continually developed and expanded. THE decimating impacts of Data bases and cryptomining must be reigned in their energy and water sucking needs are going to reverse much work already done. Of course ways to strengthen the grid are much needed.

NYS needs to be certain that the initiatives of the Civil Rights Act that are being destroyed on the federal level are granted strength in NYS. BIPOC and all poor people must be protected from the environmental harms that happen so frequently when infrastructure like power plants and highways are built in their neighborhoods. ICE again needs to be curtailed as does police policies and prison policies that target BIPOC and poor folks. The prison system needs to be overhauled. It's institutionalized slavery.

Remapping to push numbers seems to be a necessary action to counter the effects that this will have in states which will fully take advantage of this means to counter the voting rights and ability of people to run for office. We must also push to assure that the constitution is not shredded any further.

1. Improving healthcare access for all New Yorkers. 2. Reducing energy costs. 3. Transitioning New York State funding for municipal infrastructure programs from a grant-based model to a predictable reimbursement model.

1. Funding and implementing the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. 2. Promoting housing and growth of communities that are person-centered and not car-centered. 3. Increasing Shared Services projects to include public transportation expansion across town and county lines with reduced paperwork (red tape).

In the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter rallies nationwide, New York State undertook a study of potential reparations. In 2024, the state established a New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies. I will be following closely the findings of that commission.

Redistricting must not disenfranchise minority groups. Any redistricting must include safeguards to ensure that all New Yorkers have representation. New York should uphold the tenets of the Voting Rights Act that have been dismantled by this decision. New York took similar steps to uphold personal liberties and protections after the Supreme Court's decision to reverse Roe v. Wade.