Candidate Q&A
Why are you running?
Last summer, as I was traveling the district and walking in parades, a woman approached me and asked “is our democracy going to survive?”
That question, in some fashion, has loomed over too many conversations in recent years. The era of Donald Trump has scared people. They saw ICE murder an American citizen in Minneapolis, watched women lose their rights in the Dobbs decision, watched a mob descend on the Capitol on January 6 all while simultaneously seeing a Senate that refused to hold the perpetrators to account and a Supreme Court that chose to bestow immunity on the President rather than uphold the bedrock principle of equal treatment under the law. Our former colleague Elijah Cummings used to remind us that “we are better than this.” Too many Americans are wondering whether that’s still true.
I think we are. There are those on both ends of the political spectrum who have inflamed our more populist impulses by promising to destroy all of our institutions. There are others who insist that our institutions are fine, and just need to be allowed to work. I am committed instead to making those institutions work better for us all. Because that’s the only way we have ever made real, durable progress.
What do you think is the most pressing issue facing your constituents and how do you plan on addressing it?
We have to restore the guardrails of democracy that Trump has broken. Our founders created a government where only 6% of Americans could vote (white, Christian, property-holding men), and even they could not vote for Presidents or Senators. Every step we have made to expand democracy has made our country better - the 15th, 17th, and 19th amendments most obviously. The Trump Administration has attempted to take us back. To that end, I have introduced legislation to make our government more responsive and will continue to fight for reforms that close the gap between the fundamental decency of the American people and the bias against truly representational democracy that still exists in the structure of our government.
As long as I’m fortunate enough to have this job, I will use my public voice to remind us that we are all Americans first. It is too common and too easy to default to tribalism. Any of us who have ever thought differently of a neighbor because of the yard sign they put up in the last election knows that temptation. Everything the Trump Administration has done in the last year – from the invasion of ICE into our community to pardoning those who attacked our Capitol on January 6th – is in an attempt to further that polarization, completely disregarding the harm to Americans caused along the way. We must not let him win.
What is one unique challenge your district faces and how do you plan to address it?
I have dedicated my entire adult life to fighting climate change. It is the existential threat we face as a species. It’s what I did before I first ran for office, and it’s been my focus while serving.
Since coming to Congress, I’ve been able to bring my prior experience to the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, where I served for two terms and where we wrote the report that became the Inflation Reduction Act - a consumer-focused bill that was the biggest climate bill ever passed by any government anywhere. It makes me sad to say “was” since this bill was substantially repealed by Trump with the acquiescence of the Republican Congress this term. My colleague Mike Levin and I took the lead on crafting Democratic energy permitting reform to remove the barriers to clean energy in the 118th Congress, which secured over 80 cosponsors and has become the cornerstone of Democratic clean energy policy. We have now amended that to include a restoration of those IRA incentives and hope to be in a position to implement it in the next term.
I believe there is no conflict between our wallets and our morals; there is only a conflict between the interests of energy producers (who want to sell as much of their product as possible at as high a price as possible) and the interests of energy consumers (who want access to clean, reliable energy at the lowest possible price).
What do you think federal immigration reform should look like?
Immigration policy, at the highest level, has two objectives: keep bad people out, and welcome good people in. As Ronald Reagan said, the day America stops welcoming new immigrants to our shores is the day that America gives up its position of leadership in the world.
An effective immigration policy, of course, must have robust border security. But it also must deal with the truth. Specifically, that most people who come to the United States are law-abiding, constructive people who make our lives richer and our economy stronger. And that the overwhelming majority of undocumented people in America are people who came legally and overstayed their visas, farm workers following the harvest, Dreamers who came as children and know of no other home, and refugees seeking asylum. A policy focused on border fences and deportation not only ignores those facts but hurts the very people that a country like ours should be proud to attract.
I have consistently supported the Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Worker Modernization Act to provide amnesty and a path to citizenship for immigrants who have contributed to our country, committed no crimes, but are currently stuck in uncertainty and constantly vulnerable to abuse by xenophobes, criminals, and unscrupulous employers.
How should Congress address the rising costs of health care?
The Affordable Care Act took a big step toward universal health care in the U.S., providing more than 20 million additional Americans with access to affordable insurance for themselves and their families.
That is not to say that the ACA is perfect. I am of the view that while there has to be a federal backstop, maintaining a private sector with healthy competition is the best way to ensure the best, lowest cost system - but only so long as the federal government retains an active oversight role to ensure that:
1. No one can opt out of health insurance. Universal has to be universal.
2. Robust anti-trust enforcement and consumer protections ensure that no one can take advantage of the obvious pricing power that exists when you have an urgent need for medical care.
3. Everyone should have a choice in their care.
4. Wherever possible, healthcare compensation should be tied to health outcomes delivered, not services provided.
5. Finally, since an effective healthcare system will always have to include socialized benefits to ensure that the poor, the elderly and the incapacitated are never denied care just because of their ability to pay, we need to be especially vigilant about those places in the healthcare system where well intentioned cross subsidies can create unethical - if legal - opportunities for excessive profits.
What approach would you take on tax policy and what is your top priority?
We are faced with massive levels of wealth inequality, and we know the tools that the ultrawealthy use to avoid paying taxes (including, but not limited to, reducing their W-2 income and using debt to shield capital gains). We should clamp down if only to ensure that everyone pays their fair share. As Warren Buffett has noted, it is obscene that he has a lower tax rate than his secretary.
No matter how clever such policies may be, any tax creates a market demand for people who can help you avoid that tax, who create value as long as their compensation is less than the tax avoided - and the ever-growing complexity of our tax code creates ever-greater opportunities and compensation for tax specialists. During Trump’s first term, we were advised by his Treasury Department that (a) the gap between the taxes payable by Americans and the taxes collected by the IRS in any given calendar year is over $900 billion, and (b) chronic underfunding and understaffing of the IRS made it impossible for them to audit the bulk of those tax cheats. Taken together, they told us that the IRS’s audit team is forced to prioritize audits of lower-income Americans because their taxes are simpler, and the fraud is more cost-effective to prosecute. That’s not right, and can be fixed by fully funding the IRS.
Is the House currently using its oversight powers in the way it should be? What areas of government need more or less oversight?
Congress, unfortunately, has a long history of ceding power to the executive branch that should be corrected. However, I would argue that Congress has not given up its Article I powers during the Trump administration as much as the Republican majority has simply chosen not to use the powers that they have.
Congress does have subpoena power, the ability to call oversight hearings, the ability to terminate Presidentially-declared national emergencies, the ability to hold uncooperative executive branch officials in contempt, and, of course, the power of impeachment. The Congress has the power of the purse and therefore the ability to compel the Executive branch to faithfully execute the laws we pass, including but not limited to fully funding Congressional-directed programs, from USAID to the Department of Education. The Senate has the ability to prevent incompetent people from serving in senior positions - and yet they confirmed vaccine deniers to run health care policy and alcoholic retired Majors to oversee our defense. Those tools all still exist; they simply haven’t been used in the last 2 years. With the notable exception of the vote to compel the release of the Epstein files, I cannot think of an instance this term when the Republican leadership was willing to act as a check on the Executive. It’s past time we use that power.
What is the most pressing foreign policy issue facing the country and what role should the House play in dealing with it?
At the most general level, I support intervention when it unambiguously advances U.S. interests and defends the post-WWII international order, provided that such intervention has secured the necessary approvals from Congress pursuant to the War Powers Act and from the U.N. Security Council. The United States is the only country that can effectively advocate for the rule of law and democracy, and - as we have seen in the Trump era - when we step back from those responsibilities, other countries step in. As it was put to me when I was in Madrid for COP-25 by a European parliamentarian: “bad things happen when the United States doesn’t lead.”
With respect to Ukraine, I have supported our engagement there since the start of the war. We must continue that support.
With respect to the conflict in the Middle East, I remain a consistent and vocal supporter of a two-state solution that ensures security for Israelis and freedom and self-determination for the Palestinian people.
How do you view AI and the role the government should play in its regulation?
In the near term, Congress must ensure that anyone who creates or uses AI systems is subject to the same legal obligations and protections as every other American. That means opposing efforts to indemnify AI companies from future liability, and providing additional resources to our regulators so they can effectively monitor and prosecute any crimes committed with AI systems.
AI is a powerful tool that, at its best, is democratizing huge swathes of expertise. Whether you use AI to write computer code more quickly, to draft legal documents, to hunt for unexpected correlations in large data sets, or any of a thousand other uses, you’ve undoubtedly found it possible to do something for free that used to require access to professional expertise. To be clear, AI is decidedly not capable of creating new expertise.
All of that should be welcomed, with one exception noted below. The risk that demands immediate legislation is that none of the AI developers have yet figured out how to write an AI module that will never break the law, much less one that will hew to a coherent code of ethics. The inability of the models to erect those guardrails is why we have AI models that are suddenly encouraging people to commit suicide, boosting ads for banks in ways that violate fair lending laws, or encouraging people to join hate groups. Not because those models were designed to do evil, but because their programmers haven’t figured out how to force them to be good.
How would you describe the current state of your party and what changes or new approaches would you like to see your party adopt?
The new House Democratic leadership has done a good job of articulating a vision of America that includes a strong floor and a ceiling limited only by hard work and ambition. But they have only served as an opposition party thus far. Our challenge in the House will be to execute on that vision and those values when we win back the chamber. To not just oppose, but to legislate. To pursue an agenda that not only makes life better and more affordable for the American people, but also preserves our democratic institutions while still acknowledging their flaws. Because that is what our country needs in this moment.