Platform

Healthy, Housed, and Together

We are at an inflection point in our state’s history. We must make significant and sustainable progress on our most pressing issues in an environment wherein competition for resources is fierce and there are legitimate questions about whether those resources will continue to be available. This means that the 2nd District’s next State Representative will need to be able to help community leaders craft self-sustaining solutions and then locate the funds needed to realize those solutions. It also means that the next State Representative from the 2nd District must be willing and able to use the prestige vested in the office to convene key stakeholder meetings and coordinate the public-private partnerships needed to hasten progress toward building a healthier, adequately housed, and more unified district. Under the headings of Healthy, Housed, and Together you’ll find the policy areas I’m focused on and the work I’ve already begun in each.

Healthy

When neighbors tell me what keeps them up at night, gun violence is near the top of the list. Gun violence is a public-health crisis as much as a public-safety one. The good news is that we know what works. Experience has borne out the 2015 CDC reports guidance that “focusing comprehensive wrap-around services to individuals at the highest risk of violent crime involvement” can go a long way toward reducing gun violence. I will treat it as the health emergency it is by making sure the people most at risk can reach quality care before a crisis turns deadly, by closing the gaps that lead to needless accidental deaths, and by funding the programs the evidence says actually save lives. Specifically, I will:

Gun Violence

Quality Mental Health Care: I will work to ensure that constituents can access the quality mental health care that prevents crises from turning violent, and I will propose legislation requiring paramedics to respond, alongside police, to all mental health crisis calls.
Higher Standards for Firearm Licensure: I will raise the training standards required for firearm licensure, so we can stem the accidental deaths that come from inadequate preparation.
Evidence-Based Intervention: I will expand funding for the direct-intervention programs that focus comprehensive, wrap-around services on the individuals at highest risk of involvement in violent crime, an approach the CDC has found can meaningfully reduce gun violence.
Rehabilitative Prisons & Better Reentry Programs – I will work with local community leaders, educational institutions, and non-profits to design better inmate education, workforce training, and re-entry programs, and I will pursue legislation that both expands resources for these programs and reduces sentence time for incarcerated citizens who complete these programs.

Environmental Justice

Environmental justice means transitioning from a status quo wherein the most vulnerable populations bear the majority of environmental burdens to one where there is a fair allocation of both environmental advantages and burdens. I will work to ensure that environmental justice is done by pursuing the following:

Increasing Flood Resiliency – In addition to working directly with federal agencies to increase flood mitigation, prevention, and resilience, I will propose legislation that will allow residents living within a floodplain to write off all expenses associated with flood preparedness and recovery as well as qualify for a per event refund of up to $5,000 to cover expenses not covered by flood insurance.
Increasing DNREC’s Regulatory Powers – I will also pursue legislation that changes DNREC’s regulatory authority from advisory to compulsory so that rigorous remediation and stewardship of Delaware’s soil, water, and air are the law rather than suggestions.
Increased Green Spaces & Urban Farming – I will work with government and community leaders in the 2nd District to create a Community Gardening Collaborative and I’ll propose that DNREC be allotted an annual budget of $100,000 to support urban farming and greenspace reclamation initiatives through the state.

Housed

Owning or holding onto a home in the 2nd District shouldn’t feel like a fight to keep your ground, but for too many of our neighbors it has become exactly that. Speculators, opaque valuations, and rising costs are pushing longtime families out of homes they’ve held for generations. I’m committed to helping our neighbors stay put. To that end, I will:

Expanded Tax Abatements: I will expand the tax abatements that help homeowners, especially seniors and longtime residents, afford to remain in the homes they’ve worked so hard to keep.
Honest Home Valuations: I will pursue legislation regulating home-valuation and comparison standards, so families aren’t priced out of their own neighborhoods by arbitrary, inflated, and/or inconsistent assessments.
Legal Tools Against Speculation: I will partner with our local law schools to help neighbors targeted by real-estate speculators use estate-planning law to protect their homes and pass them on to the next generation.
Rent Price Regulation – I will propose legislation that introduces new tax incentives and price caps on rent designed to incentivize landlords to pass along savings from tax-advantaged expenses and disincentivize practices such as price gouging and speculation in the rental markets.

Together

If the Trump years have taught us anything it is that our collective safety is more endangered by internal threats than external ones. In keeping with this key insight, this part of my platform deals with the policy areas of education and good government, which allow us to defend ourselves from division, apathy, and disinformation.

Modern Civic Literacy

Digital and Media Literacy: I will expand access to digital- and media-literacy programs in our schools, so the next generation can tell fact from fabrication.
Responsible AI: Having seen firsthand both the promise and the peril of artificial intelligence. I will pursue sensible rules for how AI is used in our schools and across the public sector to ensure that the technology serves our neighbors rather than misleads them.
A United Party: I will continue working to revive the Delaware Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus, giving us a constructive way to address the infighting that distracts us from the people we’re here to serve.

Education and Youth & Family Services

As the next State Representative from the 2nd District, I will work to put children’s educational futures back in the hands of their families and trusted community leaders by proposing policies that render educational benchmarks clear and culturally relevant. I will also work to ensure that students are well-positioned to minimize their post-secondary education expenses by adapting State programs such as SEED to account for recent developments in post-secondary education. Specifically, I will seek the following changes:

Equal Educational Resources – I will pursue legislation that directs the Secretary of State to work with the Division of Libraries to ensure that State Literacy Standards and State Exam Study Guides are published in hard copy at every government-run library in the State and that every student in the state automatically receives a library card and access to online learning resources on their 5th birthday.
Expansion of Exploratory Programming – I will work with local community leaders and non-profit organizations to identify and secure grant funding and other resources and partnerships needed to expand programs that support improved educational outcomes, college matriculation rates, and workplace readiness.
Youth Employment & Training – I will pursue legislation that makes DoL Workforce Training resources available to high school juniors and seniors who have decided to forego collegiate studies.
Expansion of SEED Program – I will propose legislation that will make stackable credential programs eligible for SEED funding.

Efficient, Responsive, and Accountable Government

If our government is to be effective it must be open, efficient, responsive, and accountable. Far too often the several levels of government don’t communicate or coordinate effectively. I will work assiduously to change this. I will also seek to ensure that ethics rules are applied evenly and without the appearance of impropriety, as this is key to addressing the distrust in government that is feeding record-high apathy levels and record-low voter turnout. Specifically, I will pursue the following pieces of legislation:

Moratorium on Settlement NDAs – I will pursue legislation that bars state agencies from forcing litigants in administrative proceedings from using nondisclosure agreements to hide their wrong doing and its costs to taxpayers.
Efficiency Metrics – I will also pursue legislation that requires agencies to track efficiency KPIs and submit them to the General Assembly with any requests for new or sustained funding.