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, and then increases 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.

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 disasterously 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 middle men 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 over $100k/yr for families. 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 consitution gives us the right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the environment, but many of our cities of 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, demand grid upgrades, 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 legsilative 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-violet marijuana use and send the additional taxdollars to the communities that bore the brunt of the War on Drugs.