Standing proud in the 47th: Fighting for our community
Since being elected in 2018, I have successfully passed bills to strengthen our social safety nets, address public safety, protect our elders, support workers, and invest in training for our frontline responders. However, the unprecedented global pandemic and economic crisis threaten the progress we have made.
Front and center in my recovery efforts are uplifting our local businesses and lowering food, housing and healthcare costs. I will also focus on ensuring first responders have the resources they need to effectively keep us safe, work to make higher education more affordable, and invest in high quality childcare.
Public Health and Safety
Data driven public safety
Healthy communities require diverse approaches to keep our neighbors and families safe in addition to creating a brighter future for our youth. This means working in partnership with first responders as well as bringing other experts to the table in order to strengthen and expand our public safety systems. By working together, we have the opportunity to increase accountability and take care of our officers by allowing them to prioritize their duties.
I am committed to:
Creating and maintaining a police accountability standard that includes independent investigations and prosecutions when deadly force is used
Diminishing the root causes of criminal activity by investing in community support and social programs that offer mental-health care, housing, food assistance, rehabilitation and violence-reduction services
Building a viable public safety response by involving social workers, crisis providers, trained counselors and mental health agents in order to strengthen mediation and de-escalation, allowing officers to intervene when necessary
Implementing hiring standards for police officers that emphasize education, anti-bias training and commitment to public safety
Protecting consumer rights
Our data, identities and information are being exploited, circulated and manipulated without our informed consent. As citizens and consumers, we have the right to keep our identities and data private, and understand how our data is being used and monetized. This misuse of data and exploitation of digital consumer rights is leading to companies profiting off of our personal information, our identities being stored in surveillance databases, and an increase in racial biases in law enforcement due to false identifications. With facial recognition software falsely identifying faces of people of color 10 to 100 times more than their white counterparts (Metz and Singer, 2019), more people of color will be mistakenly facing unwarranted interrogations, police encounters and arrests – only magnifying existing issues of racial discrimination (Brill, 2020).
I am committed to:
Fighting for legislation that requires private industry and government agencies to inform consumers about the personal data, information and photographs that they are collecting and how they are using it in clear and comprehensive language for people to understand
Protecting consumers by enabling them to control what data is shown and who can see it
Ensuring that private industry and government agencies ask for permission and are granted informed consent to store, share and monetize consumer data, information and photos
Community and Economic Resilience
Support for local and small businesses
“The coronavirus pandemic has left Washington’s farmers with at least a billion pounds of potatoes they can’t sell, a new crop growing without any buyers and millions of dollars in debt they have no way to pay” (Marantos, 2020).
Our small businesses, farmers and ranchers have been hit hard by Covid-19. While farmers are facing surpluses of food with no buyers, thousands of small businesses have been temporarily closed or permanently shut down. Both have been left with insurmountable amounts of debt without the resources to help their businesses stay afloat. We need to invest in stronger infrastructure that prioritizes integrity in our food quality, relationships with food growers, and local business vendors.
I am committed to:
Investing in economic resilience and recovery plans to assist small businesses
Ensuring that vulnerable parts of the workforce, which include lower-paid, lower-skilled, and less-educated workers, are provided with priority training that will enable them to reskill, upskill and remain competitive
Improving food supply logistics that connect agriculture sector to communities in order to prevent food shortages for vulnerable families
Community health and security
The public health and economic strains of Covid-19 have highlighted the pitfalls in our contingency structures for our communities. With over 800,000 workers in our state filing for unemployment over the last two months (Roberts, 2020), it is an imperative our constituents have access to essential resources and services that enable them to feel secure - crisis or no crisis. As someone that was raised in a low-income housing project, I understand and have experienced the difficulties that surface during uncertain times, which is why I am driven to protecting our communities by ensuring that everyone has access to housing, food security and quality healthcare.
I am committed to:
Providing our communities with housing stability, childcare and healthcare services through times of need
Making social welfare more accessible and facilitating the extension of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs (TANF)
Investing in social programs that offer safety nets to jobless workers that include rental assistance, food security and eviction prevention
Supporting programs that offer transitional support services to individuals and families in need
Strengthening our
transportation system
From dropping off our children at school to making our way to the office, transportation is an integral part of our lives. Bringing equal access to transportation and mobility to the 47th is essential to enabling our communities to fully thrive. As we start rebuilding our economy, we need to invest in stronger infrastructure and better transportation systems that support our constituents in their everyday lives, especially those who are medically vulnerable or use special needs transportation.
I am committed to:
Strengthening our transportation system for medically vulnerable, elderly and special needs people
Providing labor support for frontline health providers and essential workers through public and private partnerships
Investing in stronger infrastructure and secure public transportation systems that enable our communities to move safely and efficiently
Education and Investment in Diversity
Education quality and access to essential utilities
We must recognize that technology, telecom and connectivity are essential utilities. These are necessities that all students, from pre-K to non-traditional adult learners, must have access to – crisis or no crisis. With the rise of Covid-19, we have seen how our education system has failed to provide our students with the utilities that they need to continue to learn. We must also ensure we meet our teacher’s needs and do not leave them behind. It is imperative to equip them with the literacy and training that is required for our students to excel academically.
I am committed to:
Providing quality education and access to essential utilities
Ensuring that we have systems in place that provide students requiring special education or needs to have access to assistive technologies and additional support
Establishing the infrastructure needed to support and train educators to teach remotely while the quality of teaching remains at highest standards
Education investment equity
Communities of color receive less financial assistance, have fewer resources, and at the same time face greater barriers to success. Public, technical and community colleges, which have a higher enrollment of students of color and receive less than half of the funding that public four-year universities receive.
“Nationally, as a result of these spending gaps, public colleges spend approximately $5 billion less educating students of color in one year than they do educating white students” (Garcia, 2018).
I am committed to:
Investing in post-secondary institutions in order to increase affordability, graduation rates and education equity for all students
Increasing financial assistance with comprehensive supports to meet all students’ basic needs, emotional support, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food security options and overall well-being
Funding programs that increase the availability and use of broadband in order to bridge the homework gap
Protecting Consumer Rights
I am committed to:
Consulting our parents and trained educators throughout the process of writing and implementing the curriculum
Providing parents with the option to have their children not participate in lessons
Allowing school districts to create and use their own curriculum that is evidence-based and age-appropriate
Comprehensive sexuality education is focused on introducing sexuality education curriculum that is age-appropriate and evidence-based to students. Students in lower grades, such as kindergarten, would learn about keeping their bodies safe.
These lessons aim to encourage healthy relationships among our students as well as provide them with the tools to communicate effectively.
References
Brill, J. (2020, January 24). The new Washington Privacy Act raises the bar for privacy in the United States. Microsoft. Retrieved from https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/01/24/washington-privacy-act-protection/
Garcia, S. (2018, April 5). Gaps in College Spending Shortchange Students of Color. Center for American Progress. Retrieved from
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-postsecondary/reports/2018/04/05/448761/gaps-college-spending-shortchange-students-color/
Hyde, K. (2020, September 16). More than 100 Faith Leaders Issues Statement in Support of Sex Education. Approve 90 WA. Retrieved from
https://www.approve90wa.org/press/more-than-100-faith-leaders-issue-statement-in-support-of-sex-education
Marantos, J. (2020, May 3). Coronavirus leaves Washington farmers with a big problem: What do you do with a billion pounds of potatoes? Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-05-03/what-do-you-do-with-a-billion-taters-and-the-folks-who-grow-them
Metz, C., & Singer, N. (2019, December 19). Many Facial-Recognition Systems Are Biased, Says U.S. Study. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/19/technology/facial-recognition-bias.html
Roberts, P. (2020, May 10). It could take years for Washington state’s economy to rebound from coronavirus crash. The Seattle Times. Retrieved from https://www.seattletimes.com/business/economy/no-more-v-shaped-recovery-economists-expect-washington-could-take-years-to-get-over-the-coronavirus-crash/
Photo credits
Education investment equity - Christina Morillo
Data privacy and digital consumer rights - ThisIsEngineering
Support for local and small businesses - Megan Markham
Community health and security - Martin Cheung