Fixing Broken Systems
I will work to deliver short-term wins that improve daily life while laying the foundation for lasting change. I know how to ask the right questions, build coalitions, and hold decision-makers accountable. I will assemble a council of local leaders, activists, and community members to ensure our district’s needs are heard and met. I will challenge and redefine the balance of power versus the public interest, ensuring decisions reflect the people they serve—not special interests. I will rally our community around meaningful civic engagement, because progress only endures when it’s built together. And I will demystify democracy, making sure every resident understands not just what government does, but how to shape it.
That’s my promise to you.
Healthy Families: Food, Care + Security
No family should go hungry, delay the care they need, or fear an uncertain retirement. In Prince George’s County, about 17% of households were food insecure in 2022. In the Capital Area Food Bank’s 2024 Hunger Report, 55% of Prince George’s residents surveyed reported experiencing food insecurity—a clear sign that the crisis touches vulnerable families and we aren’t trending towards a favorable outcome. In Montgomery County, 34% of households reported struggling to afford enough to eat, including many middle-income families.
These challenges are especially severe for vulnerable groups. Nearly 1-in-3 households with a member living with a disability face food insecurity nationally, and here in Maryland, disabled residents report disproportionate barriers to both care and employment. For seniors, the strain is just as stark: 1-in-5 older adults skip or delay medications due to cost, forcing impossible choices between medicine and groceries.
I will fight to expand SNAP benefits and streamline access through federal waivers that reduce administrative burdens on families. I will support programs under the Farm Bill that strengthen small and mid-sized agricultural producers, and I will advocate for USDA funding to expand Prince George’s Fresh and local farm-to-school initiatives so that more locally grown produce reaches schools, senior centers, and food banks. I will also push for federal conservation and climate-smart agriculture grants to help Prince George’s County farms adapt to flooding and extreme heat while sustaining long-term production. And I will not stop at funding alone—I will follow legislation like Maryland’s Senate Bill 353, which establishes a Food Deserts Workgroup, through every step of the process to make sure recommendations turn into real solutions. Working with community partners, state leaders, and local farmers, I will ensure federal and state policies align so that no family is left hungry and every community has the tools to thrive.
Working alongside county leaders and community partners, I will make sure federal resources flow into the programs our region is already building—programs that connect farms to families, expand food access, and create local jobs. Because fairness starts with full tables, dependable healthcare, and secure retirements—and with policy that ensures the land and people who feed us are supported in turn.
An Economy That Lifts Every Block, Every Family
Every person deserves the dignity of good work, fair pay, and safe conditions—and every community deserves infrastructure that supports opportunity and resilience. Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties already have a clear vision in place through the Prince George’s County Consolidated Plan Federal FY 2025-2029 (County FY 2026-2030), building affordable housing near transit, expanding the Purple Line and Blue Line Corridor, strengthening flood protection, and creating apprenticeship pipelines in trades, technology, and healthcare.
My role in Congress will be to support and expand this vision by advocating for more federal dollars to bring these local priorities to life. That means securing resources for housing trust funds, resilient stormwater systems, and urban greening like tree canopy expansion, alongside investments in clean energy and flood protection. By aligning federal funding streams with county goals, we can accelerate the projects already underway and make sure they reach every neighborhood.
Transit already provides the backbone with 15 Metro stations in Prince George’s County and 11 in Montgomery, and collaborative smarter planning, bolstered by an increase in federal dollars, can transform these corridors into hubs of housing, small business growth, and opportunity. By bringing the weight of federal support behind county-led initiatives, we can ensure that smart urban planning delivers growth that strengthens every block, every family, and every future.
Maryland has one of the highest concentrations of Black-owned businesses in the country; with 10% of all classifiable firms being Black-owned, second only to Washington D.C. Our entrepreneurs right here in Prince George's County are launching tech firms, cybersecurity companies, bio-health startups, and community-rooted small businesses at a rate that should be making Washington pay attention.
It is not.
Only 4.5% of new business applications in Maryland are projected to become employer businesses, ranking our state 45th in the country. Entrepreneurs here are starting up but not scaling; not because the drive is missing, but because the support is. Our local community lenders are counseling thousands of businesses and funding tens of millions in loans, yet operating on a fraction of what the need demands. That gap is exactly what I am going to Congress to close. I will also fight to protect federal research and innovation funding that powers the labs, universities, and startups driving our local economy. Maryland's Fourth District sits at the heart of one of the most research-dense corridors in the country, home to NASA Goddard, the University of Maryland, and proximity to NIH and NIST. These institutions depend on federal investment, and their work depends on smart policy.
As a published researcher myself, I understand the systems behind the science. My 2023 peer-reviewed paper on FAIR data sharing principles in federally funded research documented firsthand how evolving federal mandates affect working scientists and research institutions. I know what it looks like when policy fails researchers, and I know what it looks like when it works. In Congress, I will champion open science policy, protect federal research budgets from partisan cuts, and ensure that data sharing requirements serve scientists rather than burden them.
In my first term, I will fight to deliver three concrete wins for small businesses in the Fourth District. First, I will push to increase federal funding flowing directly to local community lenders, so that more entrepreneurs here can access capital without the barriers that wall off traditional bank lending. Second, I will work to simplify federal contracting requirements so that small and minority-owned businesses in our district can compete for the federal dollars that already flow through our backyard. Third, I will fight to protect and expand the SBA programs that support our local university incubators, because the pipeline of new businesses our institutions are building deserves a federal partner that shows up. I will build coalitions around what is already working here and make sure Congress sees this district not as a place that needs saving, but as a model worth investing in.
And Washington is not just ignoring what we are building; it is actively dismantling the research infrastructure that makes it possible. NASA Goddard is in this district. NIH, NIST, and my alma mater, UMD, too. The bio-health startups and tech firms our community is launching depend on a federal research pipeline that is being systematically cut. The Trump administration proposed slashing NIH by nearly 40%, NSF by 57%, and NASA by 24% in a single budget cycle. Over 3,800 research grants were terminated or frozen. More than 25,000 scientists and research professionals lost their jobs or walked away. Congress has pushed back, but even where the most extreme cuts were rejected, the damage isn’t done.
My 2023 peer-reviewed paper on FAIR data sharing principles in federally funded research documented firsthand how broken federal policy burdens the scientists doing this work. I know what it looks like when policy fails researchers.
In Congress, I will fight to restore and protect federal research funding at NIH, NSF, NASA, and NIST. I will champion open science and data sharing policy that makes every research dollar work harder and go further. And I will fight the uncertainty itself, because stable, predictable federal investment is what keeps our district's research corridor the envy of the world, and what turns our local startups into the businesses that scale.
Healthcare For Every Family
For decades, the privatization of American healthcare has put profits over patients. Insurance companies deny claims. Hospital systems consolidate and close community locations. Pharmaceutical companies price treatments out of reach. And the people who pay the price are everyday families, especially in communities like Prince George's County.
Prince George's County is already in a primary care crisis. There is one primary care doctor for every 2,000 residents, nearly three times worse than neighboring Montgomery County. Over 40% of our residents have to leave the county just to see a doctor. Our emergency rooms run 10-to 16-hour wait times, the longest in Maryland, because people have nowhere else to go.
And it's about to get harder. Our senior population has grown by 50% since 2010 and now numbers more than 143,000 residents. As Maryland's 60+ population continues surging toward 2040, Prince George's County will be at the center of that wave, with a healthcare system that is already stretched past its breaking point. Seniors need more care, more often. We are not prepared.
When primary care isn't profitable enough, doctors don't come. When hospital systems consolidate, community locations close. When the system fails at the primary care level, everything downstream, chronic disease management, rare disease care, mental health support, and elder care, collapses with it.
1,200 people in Prince George's County live with sickle cell disease. A groundbreaking gene therapy was approved by the FDA in 2023. Only about 100 people in the entire country have received it, not because the science failed, but because the system did. That is what privatized healthcare produces: breakthroughs that exist on paper and nowhere else.
That means fighting the consolidation of hospital systems that strip care from underserved communities. It means taking on pharmaceutical pricing that makes life-saving treatments inaccessible to working and middle-class families. It means ending the insurance bureaucracy that delays, denies, and exhausts patients into giving up.
And it means fighting for Medicare for All, because the only way to guarantee healthcare as a right is to remove profit as the gatekeeper. A single-payer system means every Prince Georgian, from a child with sickle cell to a senior managing heart disease, gets the care they need without fighting an insurance company to get it.
Strong Schools + Fair Futures
Every family deserves safe schools, reliable transit, affordable housing, and clean air. Yet our communities are often the first to feel the impact when Washington turns its back, especially on our children's education.
In recent years, Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) has seen federal aid shrink year-over-year, including a $95 million reduction in pandemic-era recovery funds, despite much of it already spent in good faith on tutoring, mental health supports, and learning recovery programs. Additionally, the district faces an estimated 2.5% drop in overall federal aid (more than $141 million) for the upcoming school year. Meanwhile, federal dollars account for just about 12% of PGCPS’s funding, meaning any cut we see makes a real, immediate difference in classrooms.
I will fight and work with other leaders to bring those dollars back, to modernize classrooms, ensure equitable funding, restore support programs, and deliver results block-by-block, not just in headlines. Because every child deserves access to safe classrooms, excellent teachers, and equal opportunity, no matter their zip code. Strong schools build strong communities.
But a strong future does not stop at high school graduation. For too many families in the Fourth District, the path to higher education runs straight into a wall of debt, and Washington has let that wall get higher for decades.
I will fight for free community college so that every resident of our district has access to workforce training, associate degrees, and transfer pathways without taking on a dollar of debt to get started. I will champion free four-year public college because a zip code should not determine whether a young person can afford to pursue a bachelor's degree. Education is not a luxury; it is infrastructure and a public good, and it deserves to be funded like one.
For the millions already carrying student loan debt, including many families right here in Prince George's and Montgomery Counties, the burden is not abstract. It delays homeownership, suppresses small business formation, and forces impossible choices between financial stability and building a life. I will advocate for broad student loan cancellation and push for income-driven repayment reform that ties what borrowers owe each month to what they can actually afford, with a clear, enforceable path to full forgiveness.
Immigrant Dignity + Community Safety
Our immigrant neighbors deserve dignity, safety, and a fair chance to thrive. The American Immigration Council states that Maryland is home to a large immigrant community that plays a vital role in the state’s economy and workforce. Roughly 17% of Maryland residents are foreign-born, while 9.5% of U.S.-born residents live with at least one immigrant parent. Immigrants make up 21.7% of the labor force and contribute across a wide range of industries. They represent 30% of entrepreneurs, 24.1% of workers in STEM fields, and 36.2% of the state’s construction workforce. To note, Maryland has a larger immigrant labor force than the U.S. average.
Yet despite their contributions, many face constant fear of family separation and limited protection. The naturalization process itself can feel uncertain and difficult to navigate, leaving too many families without trust in the system.
The agency responsible for interior immigration enforcement, ICE, was not built on sound policy. It was built on fear. Created in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, ICE fused two very different agencies: the civil immigration enforcement functions of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service and the criminal investigative arm of the U.S. Customs Service. That merger permanently reframed immigration, a civil matter, as a national security threat. A process that should be administrative became paramilitary. Today, 73.6% of people held in ICE detention have no criminal conviction, and arrests of people with no criminal record surged 2,450% in 2025 alone. That is not law enforcement. That is mass civil detention of people whose only offense is existing without paperwork in a system that was never designed to process them fairly.
I will fight to abolish ICE as it currently exists. The legitimate criminal investigative work ICE does, combating human trafficking, transnational crime, and financial fraud, belongs in existing federal law enforcement structures that operate with proper oversight and accountability. What does not belong in any agency is a deportation machine that operates without due process, terrorizes communities, and treats human beings as national security threats for filing the wrong paperwork.
But abolishing ICE without fixing the system that made it necessary is not enough. The real problem is deeper: a broken administrative process that leaves millions of people in legal limbo for years, sometimes decades, with no clear path forward.
We already know what a real solution looks like. In February 2024, a bipartisan group of senators, a Republican from Oklahoma, an Independent from Arizona, and a Democrat from Connecticut, negotiated the most significant immigration reform bill in thirty years. It would have added thousands of asylum officers, cut case backlogs, established a six-month asylum adjudication timeline, and brought fairness and speed to a system that currently makes people wait five to seven years for a hearing. It had support from the Border Patrol union, the Chamber of Commerce, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Republicans built it, and then Donald Trump told them to kill it so he could keep the border as a campaign issue. They followed his orders. And families in the Fourth District are still paying the price.
In Congress, I will fight to revive and pass that framework. I will push to fund immigration courts adequately so that cases are heard in months, not years. I will fight to protect Dreamers and keep families together. I will advocate for a transparent, accessible naturalization process that does not punish people for the government's own administrative failures. I will work with local organizations, legal aid providers, and community partners to invest in welcoming communities across our district. And I will build coalitions around the truth that a functioning, humane immigration system is not a radical idea; it is a bipartisan one that Washington chose to abandon for political gain.
As your Representative, I will fight to protect Dreamers, keep families together, and invest in welcoming communities. I will also work with local organizations, legal aid providers, and community partners to make the naturalization process more transparent, accessible, and trustworthy for all parties involved. Because true safety means stability and opportunity, not fear and exclusion.
Justice, Public Safety + Prison Reform
True safety is built on fairness and transformation—not incarceration. Maryland locks up 475 people per 100,000 residents, a rate higher than almost any democratic country on earth. Black Marylanders are about 30% of the population, but nearly 72% of those incarcerated. In Prince George’s County, disparities show up at nearly every stage of the system. If we want real reductions in gun violence, we cannot rely on locking people up after harm happens while ignoring prevention, enforcement gaps, and rehabilitation. Suicide is the largest driver of gun deaths. I will introduce a national waiting period bill and launch a hospital-based firearm suicide prevention pilot in District Four, with annual public reporting and funding tied to measurable reductions.
When courts order firearms surrendered in domestic violence cases, removal must actually happen. I will push for compliance audits and dedicated enforcement funding in Prince George’s County, with public reporting on surrender rates. Violence prevention funding must follow evidence. Programs will be tied to proven models and clear benchmarks. If outcomes do not improve, the strategy changes. At the same time, we must reduce over-reliance on incarceration by investing in mental health, addiction services, reentry support, and second-chance policies like the Second Look Act. Public safety is stronger when people return home stable and supported, not when cycles of incarceration continue.
Fair + Transparent Budgets
Budgets are moral documents; they reveal what we value and who we prioritize. Yet too often, residents can’t see where their tax dollars are going or how those choices reflect their needs. In Congress, I will fight for budgets that are clear, traceable, and accountable.
To make this real,I will build a public dashboard so residents can see exactly where money goes, how spending aligns with community priorities, and where gaps remain. I will also publish a Funding Report Card on my pillars: food equity, healthcare, education, jobs, infrastructure, and justice, so that you can measure my advocacy against real outcomes.
But a transparent budget means nothing if the revenue side of the ledger is rigged. The wealthiest individuals and corporations in this country are paying a lower effective tax rate than teachers, nurses, and small business owners in the Fourth District. It is the result of decades of deliberate policy choices that protect billionaire wealth at the expense of everyone else, and it is exactly what I am going to Congress to help change.
The framework for fixing it already exists. What it needs is more members of Congress willing to fight for it.
First, taxing wealth as it grows. Billionaires can watch their fortunes increase by hundreds of millions of dollars a year without paying a single dollar in taxes, because our tax code only taxes gains when assets are sold. Workers pay taxes on every paycheck. Billionaires should pay taxes on wealth as it accrues, not decades later, if ever.
Second, closing the carried interest loophole. Hedge fund managers and private equity executives currently pay roughly half the tax rate of most working Americans by misclassifying their compensation as investment income rather than wages. Even Donald Trump has called this loophole unfair. There is no sound policy reason it still exists; only the political will to close it has been missing.
Third, raising the stock buyback tax. Instead of investing in workers, raising wages, or building productive capacity, corporations are spending record amounts repurchasing their own stock to inflate executive compensation and reward insiders. A meaningful tax on stock buybacks would generate hundreds of billions in revenue over ten years while pushing corporations to reinvest in the people who actually do the work.
Fourth, ending the "Buy, Borrow, Die" loophole. The wealthiest Americans have perfected a strategy of buying assets, borrowing against them tax-free, and then passing them to heirs, where the accumulated gains are completely wiped from the tax code under what is known as the stepped-up basis rule. Generations of billionaire wealth are transferred completely untaxed, while working families pay inheritance taxes on far more modest estates. Repealing stepped-up basis alone would generate $130 billion over ten years. Closing the loophole on tax-free borrowing against assets would generate another $100 billion, with zero impact on anyone outside the wealthiest Americans. Together, just this one area generates $230 billion over ten years without touching a single working or middle-class family.
Together, these four reforms would generate well over $900 billion over ten years; enough to meaningfully fund healthcare, education, small business investment, and immigration court backlogs without adding to the deficit. What has been missing is the political will to act. I will go to Congress and fight to provide it.
Because effective communication is governance. True transparency isn’t just about numbers on a page; it’s about ensuring every resident understands how decisions are made, how money is spent, and how those choices connect to their daily lives. Transparency should not be optional; it should be the standard.