Iowa was once first in the nation in education. Not anymore. Iowa now falls somewhere in the middle of the pack and drops lower every year. My educational focus revolves around policies related to educational funding, the Educator Bill of Rights, and the misgotten Education Savings Accounts.

Over the past decade, Iowa's workers have seen their protections shredded, and for many working-class families like my own, you work just to pay the bills, and there isn't much left after that. My priorities include restoring and strengthening Iowa's unions and collective bargaining rights; updating minimum wage requirements and ensuring corporations' starvation wages aren't being subsidized by taxpayers; and ensuring that individuals with disabilities can fully participate in the workforce without being penalized.

Raising a young family is hard—and it's even harder if you live in Iowa because we lag behind other states in the resources and opportunities we provide. My priorities in combating this include Paid Parental Leave, expanding the HAWKi Program for All Iowa's Children, and providing Iowa's families with Childcare Assistance as well as Universal Pre-K.

We are only as strong as the communities we live in, so it's vitally important that policies coming out of Des Moines work to strengthen those communities. My focus here is on stopping the state's taking of money from counties, ensuring eminent domain cannot be used for private entities, and crafting policies that mitigate money flowing out of our communities and state from the goods and services we buy.