I'm an organizer, I'm a community activist, I try to help my neighbors, that's what I do, that’s what gives me joy in life. So I'm taking action and I’m running because I don't want my friends and neighbors to go through the same struggles and injustices I’ve experienced.
Across the Inland Empire families are hurting. The prices of gas and food are through the roof, wages are stagnant, the pandemic continues but utility and rent moratoriums are over – people are working hard and are barely getting by.
Whether it’s enacting an emergency healthcare program for all, adding robust protections against evictions and utility shutoffs, or forgiving student debt, there is so much more than we can and must be doing to give working people relief.
Coming out of the Great Depression, we enacted a New Deal to put regular people back to work rebuilding our nation, ushering in an unprecedented era of American prosperity, freedom, and even creativity. But slowly, over the course of decades, the provisions of that program were chipped away and privatized, the effects of which were particularly acute in small-city and rural America.
It’s time for another New Deal to transform our economy, combat climate change, and establish meaningful and lasting economic, social, educational, and healthcare justice. We can do all that in a way that lifts all boats and leaves no one behind.
As we go about combating the many overlapping crises that we face, we have to ensure that good jobs for regular, everyday people are at the core of everything we do. By enacting a community jobs guarantee and work programs like a Green New Deal, we can bring thousands of good-paying jobs with full benefits to our district.
This means that where there aren’t jobs, we’ll create them–there’s certainly plenty of work that needs doing. And every single job will be a good job, with living wages and full benefits. But it doesn’t stop there. We’re going to protect these gains by strengthening workers rights across the board, including the right to be part of a union, because strong organized labor is at the heart of economic prosperity for working folks.
Schools are at the heart of our communities, providing not only the educational opportunities that allow our children to thrive in a changing world, but community touchpoints that bring us all together. Our schools should receive robust funding, our teachers should be supported and nurtured, and our children should receive the very best education we can offer. This includes everything from free pre-K for all children, to give them a jump-start, all the way up to free public college, which should be even more accessible when we build CA-23’s first 4-year public university.
Seeking justice means seeking a fairer, freer, safer world in which everyone enjoys the same liberties; where we recognize that none of us are truly free until all of us are free. We are not there yet. But we can get there.
We need transformative solutions that enact and protect social, racial, gender, economic, climate, and healthcare justice for all, and we cannot rest until we get them
LGBTQ+ rights are human rights, and as a gay man, Derek is extremely concerned to see a new wave of anti-queer, anti-trans legislation sweeping the country in a coordinated fashion. Meanwhile, inequality is growing despite the fact that social acceptance is also growing.
We can—and must—put a stop to this spread of state-sanctioned discrimination with solid federal protections that mandate equality for LGBTQ+ folks of all ages, codifying protections and pulling an intersectional understanding of queer and trans issues into legislation across the board.
Whether it’s the acute effects of this pandemic, the lack of recovery from the Great Recession, or the longstanding and all-too-ordinary struggles working people have faced for generations, the bottom line is people are hurting—and we need real relief now.
From enacting an emergency healthcare program for all, to retroactive and recurring monthly direct payments, to rent, mortgage, and student debt forgiveness, to protections against evictions and utility shutoffs, there is so much more than we can, should, and need to be doing.
Coming out of the Great Depression, we enacted a New Deal to put regular people back to work rebuilding our nation and ushered in an unprecedented era of American prosperity. A lot has changed since then, however.
It’s time for another New Deal to transform our economy, combat climate change, and establish meaningful and lasting economic, social, educational, and healthcare justice. We can do all that in a way that lifts all boats and leaves no one behind.
As we go about combating the many overlapping crises that we face, we have to ensure that good jobs for regular, everyday people are at the core of everything we do. We’re not simply going to hope that we put people back to work by enacting programs like a Green New Deal and Medicare for all—we’re going to guarantee it.
And every single job will be a good job, with living wages and full benefits. But it doesn’t stop there. We’re going to protect these gains by strengthening workers rights across the board, including the right to be part of a union, because strong organized labor has always been a key component of economic prosperity in America.
None of us will truly be free until all of us are free, and there is no real justice unless it is felt by everyone equally. As we go about rebuilding, we must do so in a way that expands our freedoms and liberties—not just to ensure we are free to live life as we please, but to also liberate ourselves from the injustices so many still face on a daily basis.
The road to a truly free society will be paved by transformative solutions to enact and protect social, racial, economic, climate, and healthcare justice for all.