My legislative priorities.
My political philosophy meets Georgia’s political reality.
My 2024 campaign for state senate was built on three priorities:
Protecting personal freedom from government overreach,
Growing Georgia's economy through real state-level action, and
Treating constituents like people who deserve to be heard.
I believed then, and still do, that government's job is to protect our constitutional rights and serve the public good, not impose the values of a vocal minority on everyone else, and not blame Washington for problems we have the power to solve at home. That philosophy extended to how elected officials should treat the people who elected them: with responsiveness, not lip service. Here's how I translated that into a platform.
My political philosophy.
My political philosophy might best be illustrated by two quotes about the dichotomy of control we live with every day:
“It is not in our control to have everything turn out exactly as we want.”
— Epictetus
“Do to others what you would have them do to you.”
— Matthew 7:12
Defending our personal freedoms from government overreach.
I was raised socially liberal and fiscally conservative. And a big part of that experience was learning and taking to heart the idea that we should have as little government as possible and exactly as much government as we need.
The Republican Party today doesn’t resemble the party my parents supported or the values I was raised to believe in. Through their leadership, Georgia’s legislature has followed a national trend encouraging big-government overreach into nearly every aspect of our private lives.
The government doesn’t belong in our families, our bedrooms, our places of worship, our doctor’s offices, our classrooms and libraries, or—perhaps ironically—our polling places. Nor should one objecting citizen have the power to censor anyone else’s free speech or block their access to healthcare. Rather, the government’s job is to protect our Constitutional rights and ensure the public good—not to impose the righteous will of a minority into our private spheres.
-
Each of us deserves to be treated equally and respectfully by the state of Georgia, so that we and our families have the same access to due process, opportunity, education, and healthcare while at the same time enjoying equal protections from injustice, discrimination, and violence.
Currently in Georgia, LGBTQ residents enjoy few state-level protections. While same-sex couples can get married in Georgia thanks to Federal law, same-sex parents lack second-parent and confirmatory adoption rights and lack access to family-leave laws. Additionally, Georgia offers no non-discrimination protections related to credit and lending, criminal-justice processes, employment, family services, housing, insurance, public accommodations—even bullying!
And for the trans community, matters are even more challenging. In addition to recent legislation blocking trans youth from lifesaving healthcare (backed by decades of research and supported by every major medical association), trans residents are also blocked from changing the gender markers on their driver’s licenses and birth certificates—a recently upheld First-Amendment right!
As your state Senator, I will work to roll back anti-trans laws, create best-in-class workplace protections for all LGBTQ workers, and protect marriage and family equality.
-
Every Georgian should have access to high-quality reproductive healthcare services consistent with medical best practices and scientific evidence—including safe and legal abortion.
Currently in Georgia, abortion is banned at six-weeks on the basis of an uninformed and widely misunderstood “heartbeat law.” Patients are forced to endure mandated counseling and 24-hour delays during this critical treatment period, and no public-care options are available except in limited circumstances. Additionally, our state senate recently refused to take up IVF protections and many legislators—including our opponent—oppose abortion even to save the life of the mother.
These conditions threaten every pregnant person’s right to life, to health, to education, to privacy, to be free from torture, and to be free from discrimination.
Whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, it remains that abortions can be medically necessary, we all have a Constitutional right to privacy (4th and 14th amendments), and the government has no business prying into personal medical decisions.
As your state Senator, I will work to roll back current abortion restrictions while joining the chorus of legislators calling for a State Constitutional amendment codifying bodily autonomy and a woman's right to choose. I will further support an equal-rights amendment at the state level.
-
It’s our job as parents to give children a safe space to grow, to learn, to explore who they are, and to prepare them for adulthood. And some of our more important allies in this process are the educators who curate thoughtful curriculum and inspiring media collections for our children.
Currently in the 56, we’re very fortunate to enjoy great schools, safe communities, and countless kid-friendly opportunities. But we also endure bureaucratic meddling in curriculum, divisive-topic laws, book bans, and gun laws that undermine the work of professional educators and combine to make our schools and libraries less representative, less competitive, and less safe.
Protecting and providing for our kids protects and provides for us all. The children in our public schools today will grow up to work alongside us as doctors, mechanics, accountants, entrepreneurs, and community leaders.
As your state Senator, I will work to put our schools back in the hands of professional educators and parents by rolling back the mechanisms of curriculum censorship and book banning. I’ll fight for universal preK; free breakfasts, lunches, and feminine hygiene products for public school students; to disallow the possession of firearms in a school zone; and to protect student data privacy. Further, to respect the amazing work our educators do everyday, I’ll fight to raise salaries and increase public school funding.
Proactively grow our state economy—for everyone.
It's one thing to say that Georgia is a great state for business—and not just because one obscure magazine says so. Ours also needs to be a great state for the people who work in those businesses. Who relocate from another state to do business here. Or who aspire to start their own.
While a great many state legislators—our opponent included—point the finger at Washington for our economic woes, I’d rather focus on what action we can take at the state level to take control of our own economic destiny. Rather than be passive and reactive, let’s be proactive and consider what proven levers of government we can use in Georgia to address the myriad challenges of inflation, workforce expansion, and home affordability that affect residents in every tax bracket. Especially those actions for which we have proven examples and a from which we can expect a positive return on our tax-dollar investment.
-
Our state legislature has let down both businesses and workers in Georgia by failing to keep our state minimum wage in line with the always-inflating cost of the market.
The last time the Georgia legislature raised our state minimum wage was in 2002, when they raised it from $3.25 to $5.15— and to only $2.15 for tipped employees. These rates are so low that the federal minimum wage supersedes our state wage. Yet, even at the federal minimum wage of $7.25, a hypothetical 40-hour-a-week fulltime employee still wouldn’t make enough pre-tax income to afford rent and food anywhere in our district!
And wages are just the tip of the iceberg. Disability and internship exemptions, taxes on tips, the undervaluation of critical careers like teachers and public safety offices, and the lack of income transparency rules enshrine inequality in the private sector and limit all of our ability to make informed career decisions—at every level of the economy.
As your state Senator, I will work to reform our state minimum wage and tie it to a dynamic economic variable—preferably housing prices—so working Georgians don’t have to wait another 22 years for a wage adjustment that keeps up with inflation. And to spare business the sudden burden of previous legislative malfeasance, I'll work to make any wage change graduated and as pain free as possible. I’ll also advocate for student-loan re-payment plans for state employees with in-demand skills who meet certain employment criteria and complete specified tenures in the state’s employ.
-
Georgians of every income level and in every corner of the state want to work. But with the worst rate of healthcare access in the nation, it doesn’t matter if you’re in the middle class or are struggling with poverty—you can’t work if you’re not healthy. Furthermore, nearly one-in-three working-age adults cite caregiving responsibilities as the primary reason they don’t participate in the workforce.
It's no wonder so many of us can’t participate in our booming economy.
But many other states offer healthcare and child/eldercare solutions with proven results and proven returns on investment. Universal preK, for instance, can offer as much as a $4:1 economic ROI!
As your state Senator, I’ll fight to expand universal preK and to offer free public-school meals for students in kindergarten through high school. This simple change will free up millions of Georgia parents participate in the workforce, offset the rising cost of groceries, and ensuring our children are healthy enough to learn and thrive. Further, I’ll fight to expand Medicaid so more Georgians have access to healthcare outcomes so they can work, stay healthy, and keep up with the spiraling cost of healthcare.
-
We enjoy great schools and vibrant communities. But can our children and grandchildren afford to live anywhere near the communities we’ve worked so hard to build for them?
Obtainable housing and home ownership are the cornerstones of economic stability, social equity, and overall well-being. And while booming home values benefit many of us, if we want to healthy, stable, and prosperous communities, we need to make sure runaway housing prices don’t leave behind the people our communities depend on.
As your state senator—and in addition to working to raise the minimum wage—I’ll champion obtainable housing initiatives for law enforcement and teachers so they can live in their served communities. I’ll fight for a study committee to see how those initiatives can be expanded to benefit healthcare workers and others who keep our communities healthy but who often can’t afford to live in them. I’ll work to incentivize vehicle-alternatives, to expand walkable communities, and to challenge the private equity firms who reap millions of dollars from persistently dangerous or overpriced housing. And I’ll also encourage net metering and dual-land use programs so homeowners and landowners with renewable-energy systems can benefit from an additional revenue stream where they sell excess electricity back into the grid.
-
As a small-business person myself, I know how hard it can be to start a business, keep it running, raise a family, and buy a home all at the same time.
In many ways, ours is a feudal economy where those who work for enterprise companies have access to significant benefits while gig workers, the self-employed, and small businesspeople are left to pay exorbitant insurance rates, enjoy no guaranteed parental time off, and struggle to qualify for mortgages.
And ours in a greatly unequal economy. While small-business infrastructure exists in much of the metro area, it is greatly lacking in many corners of the state.
As your state senator, I’ll work to expand broadband infrastructure development and access via mechanisms such as grants, loans, and public-private partnerships so every Georgian can take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the digital economy. Following the lead of proven models in other states, I’ll propose partnerships between the state, broadband utilities, and the university system to establish training and small-business incubators in underserved areas—especially with technology and green-energy foci. And I’ll work to reform state insurance policies to make insurance available and affordable to small business owners while also fighting to simplify and streamline licensing and permitting processes, reducing startup costs and administrative burdens.
Improving your constituent experience.
To say that our government is a technical laggard is generous at best. Not only is our constituent experience far behind private-sector customer best practices, we’re way behind the curve compared to other wealthy and developed democracies. And the sad truth is, the vast majority of our elected representatives would fail any reasonable customer-experience assessment—just try to have a discussion with our opponent about a legislative issue and you’ll see how bad it can be.
Neither constituents nor our elected officials have the tools, training, or funding to use best-in-class software solutions to improve communication, engagement, and transparency. But we can only solve problems together when we engage in real dialogue—across ideological lines—and when we’re looking at the same data. It’s incumbent on our elected officials to listen to their constituents, provide all of them equal access to representation, and to communicate clearly and proactively with us about the job they’re doing on our collective behalf.
-
As your state Senator, I pledge to communicate proactively about the business of the legislature and my office’s activity therein, to respond to direct communications as often and as thoroughly as possible, and to never block constituents from communicating with me. I further pledge to maintain public communication forums including social media, open-access telepresence options, and free public forums such as town halls and meetups.
-
As your state Senator, I’ll fight to strengthen ethics rules in the legislature, including restrictions on stock ownership and requirements regarding business conflict disclosures. I will also pursue an independent redistricting committee to prioritize fair representation over cynical redistricting by either party.
-
As your state Senator, I’ll work to make a constituent-experience platform available to all elected representatives at no additional per-office cost. I’ll also explore legal and technical options for making a data-informed dashboard available to the public which captures critical metrics and which can serve as a shared reference across the district and across the aisle.
