Our Priorities

The Clean Slate Project

Medical debt is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in America — a uniquely American injustice that punishes people for getting sick. It is not just an economic issue; it is a public health crisis. Families burdened by medical debt are three times more likely to experience depression or anxiety, and more than half of Americans say they have delayed or skipped care because of what they owe.

From a young age, I watched my parents struggle with the chronic stress of medical debt — not because they spent recklessly, but because my youngest sister was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and small fiber peripheral neuropathy. She spent months in the hospital growing up, and as a result, my family nearly lost our home. That experience shaped my understanding of how devastating and unfair medical debt can be, especially for families doing everything right but still struggling to stay afloat.

That’s why we launched The Clean Slate Project — an initiative to eliminate all qualifying medical debt across Franklin, Warren, St. Charles, and St. Louis Counties. Our goal is ambitious but achievable: to wipe out nearly $20 million in medical debt with just over $100,000 raised.

Because medical debt can be purchased on the secondary debt market for just pennies on the dollar, every contribution has an outsized impact. In our four counties, the multiplier is 1 to 185. That means for every $1,000 raised, roughly $185,000 in qualifying medical debt can be erased — wiped from credit reports and lifted from people’s lives for good.

Our campaign believes this issue is bigger than politics. It’s about dignity, decency, and basic fairness. That’s why we’re asking friends, family, neighbors, supporters — and even Republicans who may never vote for me — to contribute to this effort. Because no one should be forced to file for bankruptcy simply because their child got sick.

In fact, we’re asking our own supporters — those who might have planned to give $20 to our campaign — to give $10 instead to help elect us and $10 to support The Clean Slate Project. The point isn’t just to talk about compassion in action; it’s to live it.

Every dollar raised helps families start fresh, unburdened by a system that too often punishes people for circumstances beyond their control. Together, we can replace despair with dignity and debt with hope — one family, one act of compassion, one clean slate at a time.

Health Care with Dignity

In the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one should go bankrupt because they got sick. Yet millions of Americans still live one medical emergency away from financial ruin. We can do better, and we must.

As someone who lives with epilepsy, I fully understand the fear of losing your job and your health insurance at the same time. During the Great Recession, I lost mine and was subsequently sent a COBRA bill for $1,500 a month. I laughed, not because it was funny, but because I was in my late twenties, with student loans and little savings. Despite my epilepsy and the need to see a neurologist a couple of times a year, I went without health insurance for over a year.

Fortunately, a close friend in Rome, Italy, was able to send me my medication for $11 a month instead of $300. That is not how a country as wealthy and capable as ours should treat people who get sick. Healthcare should not depend on luck, geography, or who you know abroad. It should be a guarantee for every American.

Our plan starts with giving people the option to buy into Medicare through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. It also ensures that when you lose your job, you do not lose your healthcare, because your health should not depend on your employment status. For small businesses—the lifeblood of our local economy—this would mean lower costs, simpler choices, and healthier employees.

Healthcare is not a partisan issue. It is a moral one. I will work with anyone, Republican or Democrat, who believes that access to care should be a right, not a reward for good luck or good timing.

High-Quality Education for All

Every child deserves a fair shot at success, and that starts with education. From early childhood to higher education, we have to invest in our kids like our future depends on it, because it does.

Right now, Missouri ranks 49th in the nation for average teacher pay and 50th for average starting teacher pay. As a result, many rural school districts have been forced to shorten their week to just four days because they cannot attract or retain qualified teachers. That is unconscionable. In communities like Ladue and Kirkwood, local tax bases can supplement teacher pay, but in dozens of rural and working-class towns across our state, that simply is not an option. The quality of a child’s education should not depend on their ZIP code or their parents’ property taxes.

We can fix this, but it requires leadership that prioritizes families and fairness over special interests. Republican state leadership’s decision to eliminate Missouri’s capital gains tax — making Missouri the only state in the nation to do so — will cost taxpayers an estimated $625 million a year and overwhelmingly benefit individuals earning more than $1 million annually. Ann Wagner’s support for this same trickle-down approach in Washington makes her complicit in policies that reward the wealthy while punishing working families.

Our campaign is not against success or wealth, but we are against policies that give millionaires a tax break. At the same time, middle-class families struggle to afford childcare, daycare, and preschool, and rural counties cannot afford to keep schools open five days a week. Every family, regardless of income or ZIP code, deserves access to affordable, high-quality early childhood education.

Right now, only the more affluent municipalities in our district, places like Ladue, Kirkwood, and Chesterfield, can offer enough high-quality daycare and early learning centers to give children a strong start. That is unacceptable. We need to ensure that every community, from Ladue to Union, has the same opportunities for early childhood development that prepare kids for lifelong learning and success.

That is why I will fight to reverse this giveaway, invest those dollars where they belong—in teachers, schools, early childhood education, and working families—and make sure that every Missouri child, whether they grow up in Franklin County or St. Louis County, has access to a world-class education. Investing in our kids is not just good policy. It is the smartest, most moral thing we can do.

Common Sense and Compassion on Immigration

Our immigration system is broken, not because of the people coming here, but because of the politics surrounding it. For generations, immigrants have built America, fueled our economy, and strengthened our communities. We need policies that reflect both our values and our needs.

That starts with creating a pathway to citizenship for law-abiding, long-term residents who already contribute to our economy and pay taxes. We must protect Dreamers, reform our asylum process, and ensure that families are never separated at our borders again. At the same time, we can secure our borders in a smart, efficient, and humane way, using technology and modern management rather than cruelty or chaos.

This issue is personal to me. Members of my own family immigrated here from Paganica, Italy, in search of opportunity and a better life. Like so many others, they worked hard, contributed to their community, and built something lasting for future generations. Their story is part of the American story, one of perseverance, faith, and hope.

Because I worked at the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, I have seen firsthand how our broken system fails both those seeking a better life and the officials tasked with managing it. There is currently no legal pathway for many of the families fleeing violence and poverty in Central America, forcing them into dangerous and desperate circumstances. We need a system that balances security with humanity, fairness with compassion, and creates clear, legal pathways for people who want to work hard, contribute, and build a better future.

This is what it means to live up to our promise as a nation of immigrants, a promise rooted in compassion, opportunity, and the belief that hard work and hope should always be rewarded.

Pro-Democracy

Our democracy only works when it works for everyone. Right now, too many people feel like their voices do not matter, that the system is rigged to serve the powerful and well-connected. That is not democracy.

We need to make it easier to vote, harder to buy elections, and impossible to silence the will of the people. That means passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, ending partisan gerrymandering, and banning dark money so that corporate interests cannot drown out the voices of ordinary citizens.

Unfortunately, not everyone shares that vision. Ann Wagner has consistently aligned herself with politicians and movements that undermine the democratic process, defending those who spread lies about our elections instead of standing up for the truth. And Donald Trump, the figurehead of that movement, now muses about using American cities as “training grounds” for active-duty military, an idea that has no place in a free society.

This campaign stands for something different. I believe democracy is not just a system of government. It is a sacred trust between neighbors. When that trust erodes, so does the country we love. Rebuilding starts with honesty, transparency, and leaders who remember who they work for —the people.

Fiscal Responsibility

Fiscal responsibility is not about cutting for the sake of cutting. It is about making sure every dollar we spend delivers value for the people who earned it. As a public-health scientist and data-driven policymaker, I believe that budgets are moral documents because they reveal what we value and who we serve.

That is why I will fight for efficient, transparent, and accountable government spending, ensuring taxpayer dollars go where they make the greatest difference: strengthening schools, expanding access to healthcare, fixing roads and bridges, and keeping communities safe. When we invest wisely in people, we reduce long-term costs in everything from incarceration to emergency care.

Unfortunately, some in Washington talk tough on fiscal responsibility while doing the opposite when it counts. Ann Wagner voted for Donald Trump’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” — a tax giveaway that added nearly $4 trillion to the national debt and overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the wealthy while doing little for working families. Meanwhile, here in Missouri, Republican leaders made our state the first in the nation to completely eliminate its capital gains tax — a policy officially estimated to cost $625 million per year in lost revenue. For what? To give millionaires another tax break while schools and childcare centers across our state struggle to stay open five days a week.

As the former chair of the Missouri Republican Party, Ann Wagner helped shape the very economic priorities now draining resources from our schools, roads, and childcare centers. We call on her to help reverse this giveaway, restore fiscal balance, and reinvest in the services working-class families rely on.

Because fiscal responsibility and compassion aren’t opposites — they’re partners in good governance. We can balance compassion with common sense by ending wasteful tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and politically connected, reviewing subsidies and loopholes that don’t create jobs or opportunity, and demanding measurable results for every dollar we spend.

I believe in a government that lives within its means, honors its commitments, and delivers real returns for the people of Missouri. Fiscal responsibility is not just about numbers. It is about trust. And restoring trust in government starts with spending the public’s money as carefully as we would spend our own.