VOTE411 Voter Guide

If re-elected, my focus will remain on the issues important to the community I've served for the past six years; make healthcare work for all New Yorkers by improving access, lowering costs, strengthening the healthcare workforce, and ensuring patients, not bureaucracy, come first; address the affordability crisis by fighting for tax relief, lowering everyday costs, supporting good-paying jobs, and making New York a place where families, seniors, and small businesses can afford to stay and succeed; find common ground and bring people together by rejecting partisan gridlock, listening to all sides, and working with anyone willing to deliver practical results for our communities.

First, we should expand a diverse mix of clean energy, including nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, energy storage, and emerging technologies. Clean hydrogen should be a key component, particularly for manufacturing, transportation, backup generation, and other uses that are difficult to electrify. Second, we must modernize the electric grid, expand transmission capacity, and streamline responsible permitting while protecting local input and preventing higher costs for ratepayers. Finally, New York must invest in resilience by upgrading stormwater systems, roads, bridges, water infrastructure, shorelines, and the power grid. Better flood forecasting, emergency preparedness, and climate-resilient construction standards will help protect families, businesses, and first responders from extreme weather.

Every New Yorker deserves dignity, equal opportunity, and access to essential services, regardless of race, income, disability, or ZIP code. I will continue to work to strengthen the social safety net so it helps people overcome challenges and build greater stability. As Ranking Member of the Health Committee, ensuring that Medicaid coverage provides meaningful access to care has and will been a priority. Having an insurance card means little if patients cannot find a doctor, dentist, specialist, mental-health professional, or home-care provider. We must improve provider participation, strengthen reimbursement where access is inadequate, reduce administrative barriers, and address shortages in underserved urban and rural communities. I will also continue my support for quality education, safe and affordable housing, and workforce opportunities, in a manner that pushes for practical policies that remove barriers and allow every New Yorker to live a healthy, secure, and productive life.

Partisan manipulation of district lines is wrong when Republicans do it and wrong when Democrats do it. New Yorkers deserve a stable, transparent, and predictable process with rules that do not change whenever political control shifts. I would oppose making mid-decade redistricting a routine weapon of partisan retaliation. When every state claims it must “fight fire with fire,” eventually all that remains is ashes. Two wrongs do not make a right, they only produce more wrongs and further weaken public trust. Our state Constitution should provide enduring guardrails, not opportunities for temporary political advantage. New York should follow established rules, respect voting rights, and preserve a redistricting process focused on fair representation and the long-term health of our democracy.

Running a local family auto shop, I see the financial squeeze people are in every day. My top three priorities are built around taking that pressure off of working families:

-Passing the New York Health Act: Tying healthcare to employment is a massive burden on both everyday people and small businesses. We need comprehensive, single-payer care so nobody goes bankrupt just to get healthy. To make this happen, we need to tax large corporations and the ultra-wealthy to ensure they pay their fair share and actually take care of the working people.

-Fully Funding Public Schools: Every child deserves a fully funded education, period. Your zip code shouldn't dictate the quality of your school or the resources you get.

-Holding Utilities Accountable: Monopolies are driving utility bills through the roof for renters and homeowners. We need to pass the NY HEAT Act to cap bills and stop forcing ratepayers to foot the bill for fossil fuel expansion.

We have to tackle climate change in a way that actually protects working people instead of just passing the costs down to them. The smartest immediate step is passing the NY HEAT Act. It stops utility monopolies from forcing us to subsidize their new gas lines and caps utility bills. Beyond that, we need to aggressively upgrade our local power grid and shift to renewables like solar and wind, but we have to make sure those projects create strong, union jobs within our district. We also need serious state investment in local infrastructure to handle the extreme weather we’re already seeing. Nobody should have to worry about their neighborhood flooding every time we get a heavy storm.

Justice starts with the basics: education, healthcare, and housing. We have to dismantle the systemic hurdles that keep marginalized communities behind. First, that means fully funding Foundation Aid for our schools, so every student actually gets a fair shot. Second, healthcare is a human right. Passing the NY Health Act is the most direct way to eliminate the massive racial disparities in health outcomes. Third, as a long-time renter, I know how vulnerable tenants are to being priced out of their own neighborhoods. We need to expand affordable housing and strengthen tenant protections to prevent the displacement of communities of color. Finally, we need to protect democracy itself by pushing for same-day voter registration and fully restoring voting rights.

The Supreme Court's decision was a devastating blow to the Voting Rights Act. It essentially created a massive loophole that lets mapmakers dilute the political power of minority communities as long as they claim it was just for "partisan" reasons. With the federal courts rolling back these protections, New York has to step up and act as a firewall for democracy. We need to fully fund and aggressively enforce our own John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York to make sure all local and state redistricting is fair and transparent. I also strongly support pushing for constitutional amendments here in New York that explicitly outlaw both racial and partisan gerrymandering at every level of government. Voters should pick their politicians, not the other way around.