Key Issues

Planting the Seeds for a Better Future

Agriculture

Every year, Minnesota loses 500 family farms. We haven’t lost acreage, but we have lost those farmers – five hundred farmers every year who move out of farming. We all know that small towns revolve around farming. When they move away, we lose our schools, our hardware stores, our grocery stores, and our community… Click Here to Keep Reading

Minnesota prides itself on producing quality food for the nation and the world. We need to take on the consolidation in agriculture, where unfair practices by multinational corporations squeeze Minnesota’s family farmers out of business while making record profits at their expense.

Last year, my family raised non-confinement Berkshire hogs, dairy goats, and 9,000 broiler chickens. We also raise crops and own a feed mill, so we are intimately involved in nearly all aspects of farming.

I understand that capitalism only works with competition. We need more transparency and competition in the industry. We need to open Minnesota producers up to new markets and protect their bottom lines by saving them time and money through the right to repair their own farm equipment.

We need to make it possible and affordable to insure livestock against diseases like avian flu and PRRS.

Above all, we need to ensure Minnesota producers have access to the resources they need to grow their bottom lines, strengthen their communities, and pass down operations to the next generation.

Education

Revive our vocational programs and community colleges.

Fully fund education to reduce local tax burdens. It’s time for us to finally fully fund public education. By taking a statewide approach to innovative education funding formulas, we must reduce the unsustainable burden of local tax levies that fall on the shoulders of property owners, making truly equal educational opportunities in PreK-12.

Childcare

We must fuel our workforce by investing in more childcare opportunities across Minnesota so that young parents don’t have to choose between caring for their children and pursuing a career.

Our state’s economic recovery is built on the backs of working families, but too many of these Minnesotans are being left behind as the wealthy and well-connected get richer.

Seniors

All Minnesotans, but especially seniors, deserve a safe and reliable transportation system, no matter where they live, what they look like, or which mode of transportation serves them best. We must improve all modes of transportation across the state, including transit development and services, road safety improvements, bridge replacements, freight and passenger rail projects, and active transportation modes.

Seniors are struggling to pay outrageous prices for their prescriptions and have to go further for their care. We deserve a better quality of care in our golden years and our state government can provide these solutions like protecting and expanding Medicare.

Healthcare

Fully fund our rural EMTs.

We need to support legislation to define and enforce the rights of insured patients, including greater access to specialists and emergency rooms, a wider choice of health care providers, and appeal mechanisms when claims are denied.

Allow small business owners, the self-employed, and workers whose employers do not provide health insurance to have the same deductibility for health costs as corporations and large employers.

The answer cannot be to rely on GoFundMe pages or Community Benefits for healthcare costs.

Small Businesses

Level the playing field and create a fair tax structure.

Return our investment dollars to our community.

Collaborate with business, government, and schools to develop tomorrow’s workforce and markets.

Unions

We need to protect unions – unions mean higher wages, better benefits, and improved work conditions.

It also leads to a better-trained workforce, lower turnover, and higher productivity.

Additional

Make sure all law enforcement have the resources and support to do their jobs well.

Every Minnesota family and business should have internet access.

Every Minnesota family needs access to clean water.

“When you love your country, you fight for the people who make it work.”

– Sherrod Brown