Our minimum wage has been frozen at $7.25 for 17 years. Every state that borders us has a higher minimum wage. That’s a disgrace. I will raise Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $45,000 ($22/hour), then increase it each year with the cost of living. This will demand a gradual change so employers can plan ahead. This way, one job will be enough to live a comfortable, dignified life.

I’m not against technology. If AI makes your work easier, good for you. But that’s not what’s happening at a lot of companies. They’re using it to cut people loose, keep the savings, and hand the bill to the rest of us.

You’ve seen it at the grocery store. There used to be four cashiers up front. Now there’s one employee watching six self-checkout machines. The company’s payroll went down and those workers lost their paychecks. When they need unemployment, or Medicaid, or help finding something new, taxpayers cover it. The company doesn’t pay a dime of that.

That’s backward. Here’s what I’ll fight for in Harrisburg.

Big companies that replace Pennsylvania workers with AI or automation should pay into a fund for those workers, based on how many jobs they cut and how much in wages. That money goes to the people who got hurt: retraining, job placement, and help paying for health insurance so nobody loses coverage for their kids the same week they lose their job.

If a company took Pennsylvania tax breaks or grants to create jobs here and then swaps those workers out for machines, it pays the money back.

Workers deserve a real heads-up. Federal law only requires 60 days’ notice for big layoffs, and plenty of layoffs don’t even count. I want a stronger Pennsylvania law, with longer notice and severance, so nobody finds out they’re done when their badge stops working at the door.

When a company cuts jobs because of AI, it should have to say so publicly. We deserve to know who’s doing it and how many people it’s hitting.

And a computer shouldn’t get the final say on your life. Not on whether you’re fired, whether your insurance claim gets denied, or whether you get the state benefits you’re counting on. You should know when AI made the call, and you should be able to have a real person review it. Same goes for companies using software to track every bathroom break or quietly set your pay. That needs limits.

Technology’s always going to change. The basic deal shouldn’t. If you’re getting rich by replacing working people, you don’t get to stick the bill to them.

Pennsylvania has no standard process for assessing property values, pushing costs onto counties. That means that some houses are paying property taxes based on their values from the 60s! In Lehigh County, I found that this broken system meant that rich people living in the largest houses were underpaying property taxes, while low-income residents living in modest homes were overpaying. I will push to standardize property assessments, ensuring that wealthy homeowners pay their fair share, while easing pressure from school taxes.

PPL is the 10th most profitable utility company in the entire country, and about 20 cents of every dollar on your electric bill goes straight to its shareholders. That is not a free market. It is a monopoly built on corporate greed, answering to investors elsewhere instead of the families it is supposed to serve. I will require every rate increase to justify itself in plain numbers before it takes effect, and build a real consumer advocacy office to fight for families in every rate increase. Electricity should never price families out of living here.

The federal government has disastrously cut Medicaid, making it harder than ever for working Pennsylvanians to afford basic healthcare. I will fight to protect Medicaid and reduce costs before you get the bill by requiring real price transparency from healthcare providers, capping out-of-pocket costs for essential drugs like insulin, and cutting out middlemen that drive up drug prices. In Lehigh County, I’ve already taken on the biggest healthcare companies and exposed their waste and abuse. In Harrisburg, I will take on those companies again and save money for every Pennsylvania family.

An average nursing home in Pennsylvania can cost families over $100k/yr. In one of the hardest times for adults and their parents, we ask them to go bankrupt. We should use the state budget to protect home healthcare, nursing homes, and rural hospitals, and make sure people don’t lose coverage over a missed form or a confusing system. Let’s raise wages for home healthcare and nursing home workers so the care actually exists, and tighten rules on nursing-home ownership so facilities aren’t gutted by absentee investors. People should age with dignity, not debt.

Our state constitution gives us the right to clean air, pure water, and the preservation of the environment, but many of our cities have some of the worst air pollution in the country. We can and should do better, while creating jobs. I will work to raise clean energy standards and build renewables, battery storage, and grid upgrades with apprenticeship-backed trades jobs. We should make sure polluters don’t leave communities holding the bill.

Politicians talk a lot about affordable housing, but they don’t do much about it. The first problem is that most “affordable” homes aren’t really affordable. Low-income families can’t benefit from support because of a broken system based on Area Median Income. I will ensure that low-income Pennsylvanians get access to the housing made for them and that middle-income Pennsylvanians can stay in their homes by reducing our reliance on property and school taxes.

Data centers have gone too far. Corporations are building massive data centers across Pennsylvania that increase energy costs, strain the grid, and threaten our communities. That’s why I support a moratorium on data centers to give the State Legislature time to pass laws to require data centers to pay for grid upgrades, force public hearings before electricity rates go up, and make regulators answer to Pennsylvania families instead of utility shareholders.

Unions are good for workers and good for business. I will use every legislative tool to empower workers to unionize and stop retaliation, wage theft, worker misclassification, and union-busting. I will ensure that state contracts don’t go to companies that mistreat workers, require strict labor standards on major public projects, use Project Labor Agreements, raise prevailing wages, and expand apprenticeships.

The decision to continue a pregnancy belongs to a person and their doctor, not a politician. I will write reproductive freedom into Pennsylvania law, protect access to contraception, and expand access to IVF. That also means codifying reproductive and adoption rights for LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians into law.

Police exist to respond to emergencies, solve crimes, and keep streets safe, but the federal government is threatening our neighbors with illegal deportations. Tangling local police with federal civil immigration enforcement makes communities live in fear and makes it harder for police to build trust. I will make sure that our state and local law enforcement can protect and serve our communities without succumbing to federal pressure.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that we underfund our schools so much it was literally unconstitutional. As a state, we must increase funding to our schools so that our children have access to a quality education with enough well-paid teachers, supplies, and safe buildings while easing the pressure of local property taxes. We can do all of this and give every child free lunches so that they don’t have to learn hungry. Our children are our future; let’s mean it.

Weed has been illegal for simply far too long. Pennsylvania made the right step by legalizing medical use, but we’re losing billions of dollars a year to states like Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York that have legalized recreational use. Let’s legalize marijuana for adults 21+, regulate it for safety, and tax it fairly. We can expunge the records of those wrongfully convicted of non-violent marijuana use and send the additional tax dollars to the communities that bore the brunt of the War on Drugs.

Fully and explicitly protect LGBTQIA+ Pennsylvanians under state law so no one loses a job, is denied housing, or is pushed out of public life for who they are or who they love. Overhaul the name- and gender-marker change process so documents match who you are without a lawyer, a maze of paperwork, or public outing. Secure access to gender-affirming care and therapy, and properly train health workers to care for LGBTQIA+ people with dignity.