Priorities

I’ve spent my career inside healthcare systems that put profits ahead of people. I’ve watched families delay care, skip medications, and skip follow-up visits, simply because they were afraid of the bill.

• I believe healthcare is a human right, not a privilege reserved for those who can afford it. Ask anyone, from any political party, where they’d want to go if they were having a heart attack, stroke, or broken leg. Nobody hesitates to seek care in a crisis.  We all understand, deep down, that care shouldn’t depend on affordability.
•  I’ll advocate for transparency and accountability from insurance companies and hospital systems. I’ll fight to make sure our state is training enough nurses and healthcare workers to keep up with demand-  I’ve experienced, firsthand, how hard it is for patients to get timely care when the system is stretched too thin. Healthcare should heal people. It shouldn’t bankrupt families.

No family should be one bad month away from losing their home. I’ve seen what that kind of stress does to people. The despair shows up in our community long before it ever shows up on the news. A missed paycheck, a rent increase, an unexpected repair bill, any one of those can be the difference between stability and crisis for a family that’s already stretched thin. Too many people in the 11th District are working full-time, sometimes more than one job, and still can’t find a place they can afford to live. It’s not indicative of personal failures–it’s indicative of a system that isn’t working the way it should. No family should be surviving paycheck to paycheck, breath to breath, on life support.

I’ll work to:

• Cut through bureaucratic delays that slow down affordable housing projects, so good developments are built instead of permits that sit on desks for years.  Housing is a basic human need- I will address it as such in the legislature.
• Push for stronger partnerships between the state and the nonprofit organizations that have established effective methods for building affordable housing. They shouldn’t have to fight a system to do the work our community desperately needs.

Housing stability is the foundation of how a family’s life is built- I intend to treat it that way in Olympia.

The 11th District is full of nurses, construction workers, warehouse employees, caregivers, and neighbors who work hard every single day. Many feel like they can’t get ahead, no matter how many hours they put in at the workplace. I understand that struggle because I’ve lived alongside it my whole life. I grew up in a coal mining community in West Virginia, where I watched corporations swallow an entire town–they closed down factories, and left families with nothing after generations of hard work. That experience never left me. It’s why I became a nurse, and why I’m running now.

As a nurse, I’ve spent my career fighting for the people in the room who don’t always have a voice, whether that’s a patient who can’t advocate for themselves or a coworker facing unsafe working conditions. I’ll bring that same fight to Olympia. I’ll push for wages that actually keep up with the real cost of living, not just small adjustments that fall further behind every year. I’ll continue to stand behind workers who want fair treatment, safe conditions, and a voice in their working lives. Everyone deserves the basic dignity of a safe work/life balance, where a paycheck equals security, safety, and a place in the community.