Building care infrastructure and economic equity
What do you see as the biggest barriers and challenges facing the care work industry and care workers?
“The care work industry is the reason I'm running for Congress. I'm a social worker. Home health aides, child care providers, elder care workers, you know, we're already doing this with, like, poverty-level wages and barely any benefits. No real paid leave, or no real path upwards. And so being chronically underpaid, undervalued, overworked, burning out - it's not by accident. Systemically, this has been set up this way. The work's always been done by women, specifically women of color or immigrants. And it's always been systemically underpaid because of that.”
"Being chronically underpaid, undervalued, overworked, burning out - it's not by accident. Systemically, this has been set up this way..”
Ensuring reproductive and gender-specific healthcare
What are your top policy priorities to address the barriers and the challenges to consistent, high-quality perinatal care in Maine?
“We have to have federal investment to build and sustain rural labor and delivery units, community birth centers, and paying doulas, midwifery. People that want to be in rural areas, people that are already providing these services, often unpaid or un-reimbursable. We can require that hospitals receiving federal funding maintain essential perinatal services. Expanding telehealth. Raising those Medicaid reimbursement rates and ending the financial model that's squeezing all of it. Fully integrating community health workers. Student loan forgiveness is huge for perinatal care providers, and really all care providers. And just making sure that we're requiring transparency, and that we're putting the money in - because the money is there, federally - to make sure that these units stay open. Even if there's less than 100 births there a year, it doesn't mean that those women that are living in those areas shouldn't still have access to quality care.”
“Even if there's less than 100 births there a year, it doesn't mean that those women that are living in those areas shouldn't still have access to quality care.”
Ending gender-based and carceral violence
What do you see as the key policy interventions to support sexual assault and domestic violence survivors, and to protect access to these services?
First, we have to restore all Victims of Crime Act cuts, and federal investment has to flow directly into worker compensation going forward, not just program costs. On the other side of that is we also have to make sure victims have access to survivor-specific housing, emergency shelter and transitional housing programs. We have to be strengthening any economic supports for them that we can, and that includes cash assistance, job training, childcare, so leaving is actually an option.”
“We have to be strengthening any economic supports for them that we can… so leaving is actually an option.”
Developing equitable & accessible government systems
Laws that address discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression protect all women from discrimination based on appearance, but there are efforts in Maine and nationally to change these protections. How would you address these proposals?
“I've always stood in full unequivocal solidarity with trans and non-binary people, in Maine and across the country. And so, protections based on gender identity and expression, they're something that I will push for, but they're also something that I would benefit from, right? I'm gonna be so annoying and oppose every single legislative effort to roll back existing protections. It's just not something I'm going to let happen quietly. And so, my plan is to use my platform to call these proposals out for exactly what they are. And that's really what my whole campaign has been, is just making sure people understand that targeted political attacks on vulnerable people is not legitimate policy. It's scapegoating, and we have to have people that are willing to speak up for the most marginalized of us.”
“Targeted political attacks on vulnerable people is not legitimate policy. It's scapegoating,.”
Other notable quotes
“Immigrants are what's holding Maine's care system together. It's the whole reason our healthcare system has not completely collapsed. You know, in CD2, without immigrants in our hospitals, care facilities, nursing homes, day programs - they would already be gone. And so, when this administration and some of the candidates running for governor here in Maine attack immigrants so hard, they really are hurting our care infrastructure. A big part of my campaign is making sure women, but especially immigrants, know that they're welcomed here, and that they're valued, and, like, what they're providing to Maine is so special… Maine is a place where people will need care. We're thousands of beds short of the goal that we need in 2030 for assisted living homes, and we're thousands of workers short, as well. And so, bringing in immigrants, bringing in young people, it's a big tent, and Maine should be more welcoming, I think.”
“My job as a representative is to be a representative of the people in Maine. It's not my job to be a politician. Everyone laughs when I say that, but [people seem to think] ‘oh, I'm elected now, I don't have to talk to you, you know, call my staff.’ No - you're paying my bills, you should have access to me, and you're gonna say stuff that I don't like all the time, and you're gonna be mean to me sometimes, but you're probably gonna be a lot more mean to me if I don't answer the phone… I am so accessible. I want people to annoy me all the time. I don't have kids, it's just me and my husband, and two cats and a dog, and it's why I think I'm the most qualified for this position right now - I'm fully available to be a representative for Maine. I think we need more social workers and more women running for office, too. I think if we had, like, 435 social workers, we would not be where we are right now.”