Housing is the most expensive thing in our lives, and it’s getting worse fast.  The American dream of home ownership is escaping Millennials and Gen Z

In Chicago, housing costs are rising 4 times faster than the national average.  I will fight to ensure that America's second city is no longer the personal playground of the rich and powerful by:

• Taking on corporate lenders and landlords who treat housing like their personal bank account.

• Eliminating federal zoning laws that make mixed-use zoning impossible.

• Banning landlords from using collusive algorithms that jack up rents as much as $450 per year.

• Stopping investors from buying up empty homes away from families and using them as investments.

• Fighting against Big Tech stealing of our water and power systems to support their AI data centers.

The United States pays over twice as much for healthcare as other developed countries that have universal care. Our healthcare system must prioritize people over profit.

The American people deserve a system where physical, mental, dental, maternal, vision, and prescription benefits are accessible and affordable. We must:

• Fight for Medicare for All, or a similar universal single payer healthcare system.

• Cap copays, deductibles, and out of pocket costs. 

• Ban the shadowy middlemen that eat up profits in our pharmaceutical system or make them obsolete by doing that work ourselves making care more affordable.

• Abolish the corporate practice of medicine, expanding the existing bans in 33 states.

• Make critical drugs like insulin, inhalers, and chemo ourselves here in America, so we don’t have to depend on big pharma and insurance executives that hold healthcare hostage.

• Protect access to reproductive care and codify abortion rights in federal law.

Groceries are too expensive. No one should struggle to afford to eat.

Major chains and food brands make it cheap to buy junk food but expensive to buy fruits and veggies.

The never-ending push for profits creates unsustainable environmental practices where farmers work in unsanitary conditions and animals are subject to senseless cruelty. There are better ways to reduce the cost of food. We must:

• Create public- and community-owned groceries stores.

• Break up big food middlemen and end shady backroom deals that raise grocery costs.

• Stop Big Ag companies like Monsanto from bullying farmers into using only the most expensive GMOs and pesticides.

• Revitalize government production of fertilizer to sell at cost to farmers, making food cheaper for all of us.

• Promote public research into the development of new and cheaper seeds.

Our government bends over backwards every day to serve big business, special interests, and entrenched politicians.

Our system is a pay-to-play corruption machine, and the Trump administration has made it worse. Full scale democracy reform is required to take our country back from corporate power.

• We must investigate, impeach, and prosecute Donald Trump and the officials in his government that have violated the constitution and their duty to the public.

• We need to end Citizens United and the money cannon in politics, we should cap campaign expenditures so special interests don't buy elections, and we should publicly fund elections so public office isn't primarily reserved for the wealth.

• We need term limits for Congress. 6 terms in the House and 2 terms in the Senate is more than enough time to do work for people. There is urgency to this work, it should not be a lifetime job. 

• We must improve voting access and voting mechanisms, such as automatic voter registration, protection of voting rights from discriminatory state actions (like voter ID), ranked choice voting, online voting, and making Election Day a national holiday.

• And we need to overhaul the Supreme Court so 9 unelected politicians don’t sit as emperors over our constitutional rights. There should be a rotating bench of nonpartisan judges that cycle in for each case and are elevated entirely independent of their fealty to a president or national party.

The fact that billionaires exist while people that work for them can’t afford to feed their families is a moral failure.

There is no job in the world that is worth $1 billion dollars, that wealth was built on the backs of American workers.

The American system made that money possible. We all funded it with our infrastructure, workers, markets, and laws. The rest of us pay our fair share for the society we live in. It’s time for the fabulously wealthy to pay their share back into the system that made them rich.

• I will push for a wealth tax that millionaires and billionaires can’t dodge with accounting gimmicks and overseas tax havens. 

• I will advocate to cap maximum pay at 20 times what the lowest paid worker in a company makes.

• I will fight to make the first $50,000 of income tax-free, paid for by increased taxes on the top income earners in the country.

I am against persecution wherever it arises, and when it does arise, I stand on the side of the powerless.

I stand against the genocides and war crimes in Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Myanmar and everywhere else that people are facing the senseless specter of violence and death.

• I will oppose spending American resources to kill civilians and to continue wars against innocent people. I will co-sponsor Rep. Delia Ramirez's Block the Bombs Act to prohibit the U.S. sale of weapons to Israel until they cease human rights violations in Gaza.

• I will co-sponsor Rep. Rashida Tlaib's H.R. 876, recognizing the genocide of the Palestinian people.

• I would urge the U.S. to join the rest of the world in recognizing Palestine as a state, restoring Palestinian civil and human rights in that state, and demanding an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

• I will ensure the U.S. honors international law including the arrest of war criminals like Benjamin Netanyahu.

• I will demand continued ceasefire and open humanitarian aid that is no longer managed by the Israeli military.

• I support recognition, as the UN long has, of the Palestinian right of return or compensation for displacement.

Immigrants are America’s superpower. They are people that believe in this country so much that they are willing to leave their friends and communities behind for a chance at living here.

They work hard, build big things, and energize our country. The gleeful hatred of this administration’s immigration raids doesn’t just hurt immigrants, they impoverish our country morally and economically.

• We must abolish ICE, and hold ICE agents and government officials accountable for their violations of our laws and Constitution.

• We must offer a comprehensive, accessible pathway to citizenship for people who live in this country.

Your Congressional Representative should make your life better in the district.

Illinois 7th Congressional District is large, vibrant, and diverse. It deserves constituent services that match that meet those needs. As a congressman I would open multiple district offices with trained professional staff to help the people of the 7th access the services they need.

• I’ll ensure that offices have foreign language services including Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish, and Ukrainian so people are able to access services in the language of their choice.

• I’ll hire trained legal staff to help people navigate immigration, federal benefits, and our funding systems for community organizations.

• I’ll make sure offices are equipped with trained staff and supplies to help people in crisis from mental health, addiction, and violence to find safety and support.

Technology markets used to be centers of innovation. But too many have become dangerous concentrations of power that control the information we see online, stir polarization, and extract wealth from our attention and mental health.

And this has real world consequences. These monopolies slow innovation, abuse workers, suck up data, and personalize price gouging. Increasingly, in the era of AI, big tech sucks up clean water and electricity, driving up our costs, to fuel the specter of machine intelligence instead of community wealth. I spent years of my career fighting to stop the worst of these abuses.

There is a reason the big tech companies were lined up in the front row of the Trump inauguration. These companies are willing to do anything it takes to gain and keep power, including bending the knee to authoritarianism.

• I’ll fight to up break Big Tech monopolies that own critical infrastructure and return these markets to innovation and competition.

• I’ll support public technology infrastructure

• I’ll refuse to subsidize bad actors with government money.

We are staring down the barrel of a climate crisis. Will we prioritize the lives of young people over the profit of a few large corporations? The consequences are clear at this point.

People danced at Lollapalooza this year under the orange haze of wildfire smoke. Storms are worse and more frequent, and summers are dangerously hot. I will fight to restore sanity to our response to climate change. We cannot bury our heads in the sand.

Solving climate change is one of the greatest opportunities we’ve ever had. High tech manufacturing of wind, solar, and nuclear technology can be a source of good jobs and huge innovation. Building new green infrastructure gives us a chance to invest in our communities and make them walkable, beautiful, and centers of durable wealth. We can’t afford to pass up this chance.

Workers are the center of our economic system. They deserve a minimum wage that is raised to a living wage. They deserve control and predictability over their hours of work.

They deserve not to be abused and surveilled on the job. They deserve not to have their wages stolen by cheating companies. They deserve not to have their rights trampled by gig economy platforms that order them around as employees without giving them the benefits and protections of employees. And they deserve the right to bargain in a strong union for their rights.

Workers are the foundation of the wealth of the country. No CEO should be making millions while their workers make minimum wage. Executive pay should be capped at no more than 20 times what the lowest paid worker in the company makes.

I will fight for a $20 minimum wage and track that to inflation so workers never again have to beg for the minimum wage to keep pace with their costs. 

Education is the strongest pathway for opportunity in America. And beyond that, it is a pathway to a fulfilled and interesting life, regardless of its economic impact. But education is too often split by zip code and income.

The wealthy are able to receive the best of the best and everyone else is left starved for resources.

• I’ll invest in our teachers and schools by vastly increasing federal funding to public schools across zipcodes so every child has access to free, high quality education. 

• I’ll fight to ensure that teachers get paid fair wages for their critical work. This includes protecting teacher benefits and supporting every teacher’s right to unionize

• I’ll champion affordable higher education from college to trade schools and fight to end the scourge of student debt by forgiving existing debt and providing funding alongside tuition caps for colleges, universities, and trade schools.

Communities are safe when the families in them have access to good jobs, good education, and the resources to live a good life. We know that just throwing law enforcement at the issue doesn’t solve the root cause. 

Instead of spending millions of taxpayer dollars flying troops across the country to perform parades for Fox News and an audience of one, we should be investing in communities with housing, healthcare, education, and the crisis response resources that reduce crime and make law enforcement easier.

I’ll fight to direct resources to community organizations that give people pathways to opportunity and disrupt the chain of violence. 

The core issue of gun violence in America is the prevalence of guns. No other country on earth has the rate of gun deaths and injuries that America does.

Weapons of war have no place in our streets. There is no reason for assault weapons to be manufactured and available for anyone outside of military service. These weapons wreak extraordinary damage on our communities and we lose thousands of people to senseless violence and self harm from guns. This has to stop. I will fight to eliminate the endless stream of assault weapons and unregulated guns that destroy our communities.

As the economy has become more unequal it has evolved into a playground for scammers and exploitation where big companies get rich when the rest of us get ripped off.

• I will work to take on scammers that trick people into giving up their life savings.

• I’ll fight the predatory companies that hit you with buy now-pay later schemes that eat up your savings.

• And I’ll fight loan sharks that prey on people’s need for quick cash. 

I refuse to engage in the demonization of transgender Americans and will never compromise on their rights and humanity. I will fight to protect and expand the rights of all LGBTQ+ people.

We must:

• Abolish the trans and gay panic defenses used against queer individuals.

• Ensure ease of access for self-identification on legal documentation.

• Include HRT in a comprehensive universal healthcare reform.

• End the inhumane practice of conversion therapy.

• Enshrine the right to privacy, superseding any state bathroom ban.

• Protect marriage equality against encroachment by the Supreme Court or states.