Our Vision for Minnesota: Prioritize Equity In Everything

Ensure Healthcare for All

As a Nurse, I understand healthcare through and through. I’ve worked on a transplant team, as the Executive Director of the Minnesota Nurses Association, and served as a leader at the Capitol on health and human services. It is urgent that our state choose Minnesota families over corporate profits.

I am a supporter of single-payer. I co-authored John Marty’s Minnesota Health Plan. While we cannot implement true single-payer without the federal government, we can start by making MinnesotaCare available to all Minnesotans, contracting directly with providers (and cutting out insurance companies), and ensuring that mental health, dental, and vision care are available to all Minnesotans. In 2014 I passed legislation that expanded public options to school employees who now have better care with lower costs.

We should aim to put Minnesotans’ care in their own hands. We should also invest in our healthcare workforce by investing in training programs for nurses and other care workers, to both help meet the needs of our patients and invest in local economies.

Invest Heavily in Public Education

Minnesota’s kids deserve the best education in the world — that means every child, in every public school. Our schools are incredibly underfunded. We must urgently and heavily invest in our education system, and we must be willing to ask wealthy Minnesotans to pay more to make it possible.

As we add to the formula we also need to specifically invest in early learning, funding full-service community schools that support students and their families in and outside the classroom, and ensuring our educators reflect the growing diversity of our students.

We must also ensure our kids have the most qualified educators. The best way to do this is protecting our educators right to collectively bargain and ensure a high-quality teacher licensure process.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Here at the state level, I support two free years of post-secondary education, I also know that’s not enough. Our focus must be on ensuring a successful financial transition for those who complete four-year degrees—to that end I support free tuition for families who make $150,000 or less a year.

I support creating an office of the ombudsperson to help those who have already graduated with student debt, as well as expanding refinancing options and loan forgiveness programs.

We must also invest in technical programs and apprenticeships during high school. Trades and hands-on career pathways allow students to imagine their own career possibilities. This will revitalize our workforce and give students great opportunities upon graduation.

Achieve Workers Rights & Economic Justice

I will be a fierce advocate in the Senate for workers’ rights, including policies that ensure living wages, safe working conditions, and a voice on the job. I will prioritize equitable economic opportunities for women, especially women of color and Indigenous women, and non-binary folks.

In my time as a legislator I heard over and over that too many Minnesotans are struggling to get by. I will fight to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr indexed to inflation, and ensure Minnesotans have the benefits necessary to provide for themselves and their loved ones.

I will collaborate with labor leaders and legislators to expand collective bargaining. All working people in Minnesota deserve the support that my family and I received as union members.

I support paid family leave for every Minnesotan. As a nurse, I’ve seen the impact that one person’s illness can have on a family. It’s wrong to make workers choose between their livelihood and their health. I will fight for creating safer and healthier communities by making family leave universal.

We must also fight to reduce the cost of childcare because too many Miinnesotans with children are also cost-burdened by the system.

Advance Minnesota’s Infrastructure

Minnesotans experience the underfunding of roads, bridges, transportation infrastructure daily. We need large investments in infrastructure to give Minnesotans the resources they need to move their goods, services, and ideas throughout the state.

Minnesotans must come together as we have in the past to ensure our communities have consistent sources for transit funding so people can get around regardless of where they live, their abilities, and whether or not they can afford a car.

I will work to index the gas tax to inflation to make sure that our investment in our roads, bridges, and transit will never again fall so far behind our needs. I'll lead the fight to leverage federal transportation funds for both our roads and bridges, and also for transit projects like bus rapid transit, light rail, and high-speed transit initiatives.

Minnesota has a long-term need of $11 billion in new and replacement waste and drinking water infrastructure. We also need to invest in clean energy infrastructure and technology. We must also expand broadband access and increase the use of electric vehicles. As we build our state, we must build the prosperity of working people as well, ensuring that union workers, earning a living wage receive those contracts.

Uplift Environmental Stewardship & Climate Justice

Climate change is a fundamental threat to Minnesotans. We must ensure a transition to 100% clean energy, end pollution, protect our air and water, and create a future that is sustainable for all Minnesotans no matter where they live.

Indigenous communities and communities of color are disproportionately affected by pollution and environmental degradation — we must take corrective action immediately. This means respecting Indigenous sovereignty and divesting from pipelines that only fortify dirty fossil fuel infrastructure.

I oppose the building of Line 3. I don't believe it is needed and I hope we never build another pipeline. The climate crisis we are facing demands a clear, serious, bold, urgent, and committed response. We won't get there if we keep building fossil fuel infrastructure.

For years I have said that projects like PolyMet should be held to very high standards and judged through a fair process. It's clear that hasn't happened, and we cannot allow PolyMet to proceed. I have always opposed the proposed Twin Metals mine. The threat to the BWCA is too great and not worth the risk.

We also need to invest more to protect and restore the health of our water, our soil, and our land. This includes investing in the development of perennial crops to help farmers grow crops that have a market, and working towards saving the habitats of bees and pollinators.

Promote Criminal Justice Reform

People of color and Indigenous Minnesotans are treated differently by our criminal justice system.

I support legalizing recreational marijuana that includes record expungement—this means releasing non-violent offenders, and supporting them as they transition out of the criminal justice system.

We must also restore the vote for Minnesotans who have served their time for felony convictions. Voting is a sacred right and it is a powerful tool in building strong, powerful communities.

Protect Reproductive Justice

I am unequivocally pro-choice, and will always work to protect reproductive freedom and choice for all Minnesotans.

I will pursue reproductive justice for women of color, trans folks, and women living in low-wealth and rural communities, because no one should be denied access to the reproductive care they need because of their circumstances. Beyond just ensuring that there is choice, I will also fight to ensure that there is access to contraception, women’s health clinics, and abortion services.

As a State Representative I authored the contraception equity bill for many years, requiring Minnesota health plans to provide prescription drug coverage for contraception without charging a copay.

Eradicate Sexual Violence

Sexual harassment and assault is a pervasive issue, not only on the national stage, but here at home on campuses, in workplaces, at the Capitol, and in our communities.

I support and have championed affirmative consent legislation, under which Minnesota universities must define consent as a fully informed “yes,” given without the influence of drugs, alcohol, or intimidation.

Under no circumstances should victim-survivors assume the financial burden of health costs associated with their assaults. I will fight to make sure health insurance covers those costs, and that the state does when health insurance doesn’t.

I also believe we must be proactive in addressing sexual assault and harassment by providing an age-appropriate curriculum to K-12 students that teaches personal boundaries, bodily autonomy, and respect, as part of a strong, broader comprehensive sex ed program.

Foster LGBTQ+ Justice

I have worked with advocacy groups to expand rights for the LGBTQ+ community, and when I was Majority Leader we passed marriage equality with the help of thousands of Minnesotans. We know we can’t rest on that work and that LGBTQ+ Minnesotans still face equity issues and threats to their well-being that must be addressed.

Right now the ability for trans Minnesotans to access the care they need depends on what their insurance will cover. That’s not right, and I’ll fight to ensure trans Minnesotans get the coverage they need, and that when they do, they aren’t forced to jump through unnecessary hoops to access it.

I vehemently oppose efforts that discriminate and dehumanize LGBTQ+ Minnesotans, like conversion therapy and so-called “bathroom bills” dictating who can use public bathrooms. I’ll also work to streamline processes related to changing one’s gender or name on official identification cards so that LGBTQ+ folks can more easily and safely rent, travel, and access important services.

End Gun Violence

We’ve lost too many lives to gun violence and related suicides. It is essential that we lift the ban on researching gun violence as a public health issue.

Minnesota must take the lead by implementing strong measures for gun violence prevention. This includes banning assault weapons, restricting magazine capacities, and requiring universal background checks.

We must also recognize police violence as a facet of gun violence, one that impacts the most vulnerable in our communities. The gun violence conversation is incomplete without addressing the ways in which legally armed state and local law enforcement officers inequitably threaten the lives of people of color, indigenous people, and LGBTQ+ people.