A Progressive Vision for Los Angeles

The great challenges facing our nation - from our costly and ineffective healthcare system, to the existential threat of climate change, to worsening racial and gender-based income inequality, to skyrocketing rates of houselessness, to our militaristic immigration system - did not start with Donald Trump. They have long preceded Donald Trump. The injustices in our nation are the rotten fruits borne out from the generational impacts of institutional racism, classism, and unfettered capitalism - rotten fruits cultivated by broken leadership in Congress. Our elected leaders - both Democratic and Republican - have been financed and controlled by corporations who lobby for legislation that improves their bottom line at the direct expense of working class people.

Here in Los Angeles, our community has directly experienced the destructive impact of corporate welfare on housing affordability, rates of poverty, and access to healthcare, to name a few. Brad Sherman has represented the San Fernando Valley in Congress for over 23 years. During his tenure, Rep. Sherman has failed to champion a single piece of progressive legislation to address the most pressing socioeconomic issues in our community. Instead, Sherman continues to raise hundreds of thousands from corporate donors including private equity firms, commercial banks, defense contractors, and agribusinesses that are actively thwarting action on progressive policies - like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and universal basic income.

Our community deserves representation that fights out front for us, not one that fights in jest. 

We need new leadership here in Los Angeles. We need bold, progressive policies that meet the needs of working class people. We need to take this fight to the highest levels of power. And we need to use every resource to build political movements for justice in our communities. This grassroots and people-first campaign is focused on exactly that - creating a new political coalition here in CA-32 committed to transformative change to our systems of government.

Housing for all

Housing is an inherent human right. It is past time that our federal laws recognized that truth and worked to eradicate the systemic racial inequities in housing affordability and access. We must champion a national housing-first model and a new federal Tenant Bill of Rights.

Green New deal

Climate change is the existential threat of our generation and a colossal public health crisis. The environmental impacts of climate change have tangible, significant, and severe impacts on human health and continue to worsen racial health disparities. We need to strengthen collective bargaining rights for workers in the renewable energy industry, transition to a 100% renewable energy economy, invest billions in public health services for communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and create millions of union-backed living wage jobs in green-energy infrastructure development.

Medicare for all

The U.S. healthcare system constitutes nearly a fifth of our GDP, and costs us $11,582 per capita annually - more than double the comparable industrialized country average. Much of the spending comes from the costly process of dealing with insurance and pharmaceutical companies that have rigged the system for maximum profit. I support Medicare for All because I believe healthcare is a human right. We must also rebuild our crumbling public health infrastructure, create a pipeline for youth to enter the healthcare workforce, and invest in preventive health services.

decriminalized immigration system

Our common narrative is that we are a nation of immigrants, yet we build private prisons to incarcerate immigrant children and have millions lay in fear as they wait for a citizenship status that may never be offered. This is outrageous, undemocratic, and unbecoming of our national values of justice under the law. It is our duty to establish a new people-centric and inclusionary immigration policy that celebrates the essential role of immigrants in our nation’s past, present, and future; and is grounded in dignity, justice, and equity.