Protecting the rights of all
During my 20 years as an officer in the U.S. Army, I was privileged to serve alongside a diverse collection of individuals whose backgrounds varied according to race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. In Congress, it will be my honor to represent ALL the people of Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District. While we can seek legislative solutions to confront prejudice and discrimination and advance social justice, my experience as a military leader and as a pastor convinces me that that is just the beginning. We cannot simply change laws: we must change hearts, and we must change minds.
My faith teaches me that all people are created equal. Our Declaration of Independence asserts the same thing. That being true, each of us is worthy of love and respect. I will work to heal the divisions that exist in our district and in our nation, by leveraging existing networks that are already at work building bridges across those divides. Finally, I will encourage all of us to step back from condemnation, to listen to one another, and to encourage greater dialogue, with a focus on what unites rather than divides us.
ALL citizens—regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation—deserve equal protection in our nation and in our communities.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
I am firmly committed to women’s rights—ensuring equal pay for equal work, eliminating sexual harassment and sexual assault, and protecting access to preventative health care and family planning services, including safe, legal abortion. We must provide women with the economic and social resources that will help them to avoid facing the incredibly difficult decisions that come with unplanned pregnancies. We must improve adoption procedures so that children can be placed into safe homes in a way that respects the privacy of all parties and reduces emotional burdens.
LGBTQ RIGHTS
The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law to everyone. I believe existing civil rights laws should protect members of the LGBTQ community. However, if it is necessary to pass legislation to ensure that result, I will be proud to sponsor or co-sponsor and vote in favor of such legislation. I stand with the LGBTQ community in their ongoing struggle to achieve full legal and social equality. Protections for the LGBTQ community should extend to the workplace, housing, the right to marry, the right to adopt a child, and the right to access government programs and services.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Communities of color continue to be disproportionately affected by our criminal justice system. We must take immediate action to reform our system. First, we need to end mandatory minimum sentences and empower judges to make reasonable sentencing decisions. Mandatory minimums have helped to place the United States in the unenviable position of being first in the world in incarcerated citizens per capita. Mandatory minimums have also created unjustifiable sentencing disparities for virtually identical offenses in a way that often disadvantages people of color.
Second, we must adopt federal legislation that increases the availability of body cameras for state and municipal police forces in order to protect both police officers and the people in the communities that they serve.
Third, we must bring an end to privately operated, for-profit prisons. Incarceration should be a sad fact of living in a society where some break our laws and must be separated from society, for the safety and well-being of others. It should not be a profit center. Finally, we must ban the box on employment applications that require people to identify prior convictions for misdemeanors and minor drug convictions.