VOTE411 Voter Guide

Health care.

Every Missourian deserves affordable, quality healthcare. We have far too many Missourians who are uninsured or underinsured, and high healthcare costs are a strain for Missouri families.

No one plans to have a health crisis, and unexpected medical bills leave many Missourians struggling. As your state representative, I will work to implement policies that will increase access to healthcare throughout the state.

I will fight to protect a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions without interference from the state. We need to ensure that all women have access to comprehensive reproductive health services including contraception and it is imperative that we overturn Missouri’s radical abortion ban which includes no exceptions for rape or incest. Complicated medical decisions are best left to women, their families and their doctors – not the government.

Education.

I am a product of Missouri public schools from kindergarten to college and will treat education as a top priority.

I believe that we need to increase educational opportunity and access to education by investing in technical schools, increasing public funding for state colleges, and fully funding and protecting K-12 education.

It is vital that schools across our state have the funding to provide quality education from early education to post-secondary. We must end the cuts to education and invest in our students. Investing in our students is an investment in our state, as we ensure students have the skills needed to enter the workforce.

I will fight to attract and retain great educators by increasing salaries and supporting teachers in the classroom.

I’m keenly interested in issues that affect our state’s infrastructure, most importantly, roads and bridges serving our rural citizens. I’m concerned our MODOT administrators could be doing a better job and streamlining the bid process to include design-build more frequently. I’m also passionate about economic development here in my district.

I would like to see the state implement stronger policies to fund education, in particular, teacher salaries. We can’t afford to see good teachers leave for better pay in adjacent states. I’m also wanting to see stronger regulations put on credit unions in order to help our hometown banking businesses have fair competition in the lending world.