On Racial and Social Justice
Equality for the LGBT Community
Marriage Equality and the right for members of the LGBT community is an important victory, but their fight for full equality is far from over. I call upon the State Legislature to take an important step and move to include sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to the list of protected classes as defined under state and federal law, and for the courts to subject policy which might discriminate on the basis of these classes to heightened scrutiny, the highest form of protection, and the protection given to individuals who face discrimination on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or national origin. A system of democracy can only flourish when the rights of minorities are protected - it must not be the metaphor of two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for dinner. Such rights must be upheld even and especially when it is not politically or socially advantageous to do so. I reject the notion that we should continue to allow discrimination against the LGBTQ community because politicians fear political pushback for doing so. It has taken far too long for the arc of justice to bend toward these individuals, and it is time for us to take another important step toward living up to our ideals, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that all people are created equal, and that we are all endowed with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - rights that are not granted by the magnamity of the government, but by our very existence as human beings.
Investing in Minority Communities
On top of the various systemic factors that minorities already face in trying to acheive a middle-class lifestyle, America has largely failed minority communities. After generations of being ravished by slavery, by Jim Crow, and by other legal and institutional policies such as redlining designed to suppress and impoverish minority communities, particularly African-American communities, it is time for the state and the nation to undertake large investments to rebuild and support these communities in desperate need of government assistance. In order to help give African Americans and other minorities the support they need, I propose that the state, along with the federal government, invest heavily in housing assistance, schools, and infrastructure to help rebuild the communities devastated by centuries of systemic racism and discrimination.
I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where, in 1921, one of the most devastating and horrific race riots in the nation's history took place. The Greenwood District, once known as Black Wall St. due to the concentration of Black-owned businesses and other institutions and wealth in the district. Beyond the unimaginable loss of life and utter brutality, large aounts of wealth in the Black community were gone in a weekend, insurance companies refusing to pay out because the damages were attributable to 'rioting' and 'terrorism'. These acts of senseless and needless destruction devastated lives and communities, and the acts of this and other racially-motivated crimes damaged the ability of African-American communities to invest in their community and in future generations. The lingering after-effects of these actions and others demand that we work to rebuild and restore these communities. We cannot undo the past, but we can and must take steps to reverse the cycle of poverty that minority communities find themselves trapped in.
I support Affirmative Action as a temporary measure to allow disadvantaged groups to have the opportunity to succeed, but I would move to support more Affirmative Action on the basis of socioeconomic status and economic opportunity than limiting it to purely race- and gender-based criteria. It is imperative to recognize that opportunity and privilege is multifaceted and that it cannot be so easily reduced to simple demographic characteristics. The schools one attends, ones family situation, disability status, and other issues are very important concerns that we should be considering as well as traditional categories such as race, gender, ethnicity, and national origin. Ideally, we would work to create a system of equality of economic opportunity, and eventually phase out Affirmative Action over the coming generations, contingent on the state and nation meeting its obligations to distressed communities.
And we must treat immigrants and their families with respect and dignity. While immigration policy is determined at the federal level, we in Arizona must work to set appropriate policy to ensure that immigrants and their families are treated fairly in matters of law and the economy. We must overturn SB 1070, a racist piece of legislation that encourages law enforcement officers to discriminate against individuals on the basis of ethnicity and suspected immigration status. I stand against racial profiling, for doing so helps to engender racial tensions, fosters distrust of law enforcement by minority communities, and is at best ineffective at actually reducing violence and crime. Attaching punitive fines and jail stints for procedural violations funds the bloated private prison industry and damages some of our most vulnerable populations.
Maintaining Legal & Safe Abortion
I am committed to maintaining legal access to safe, medically supervised abortion access. I recognize that abortion is a weighty moral issue for many, and a divisive political issue for many more, but I believe fundamentally that a decision on whether a woman gets an abortion is best made by the woman herself, in consultation with her family, her doctors, and any religious or spiritual counselors she looks up to, not by government bureaucrats or by elected lawmakers. At the same time, I do agree with the sentiment that we should treat abortion as the weighty issue that it is. Rather than seeking to throw women or their doctors in jail, we can instead reduce abortion rates through a combination of contraception access (including condoms, the Pill, and IUD's), comprehensive sex education in our high schools, access to affordable healthcare and childcare, and economic opportunities that help women care for themselves and their families. Access to family planning resources and economic opportunities provide proven ways to reduce abortion rates, something that is not accomplished through laws and restrictions which infringe upon a woman's right to dictate her own body.
Rights of People with Disabilities
It is imperative that we respect the rights of people with mental and physical disabilities. I am committed to the principle that people with physical and mental disabilities or other impediments have a right to as fulfilling of a life as possible, in the least restrictive environment possible.
While I respect the rationale behind decisions made to help deinstitutionalize mentally ill patients over the past 40 years, we as a nation failed to provide the essential safety nets and treatment opportunities necessary for people with mental illness to take care of themselves outside of hospitals and other mental illness. Instead, increasingly and sadly, our prison system has become a de facto mental institution. Upwards of 300,000 people with serious mental illness - over 10 times the number currently in mental institutions - are behind bars in jails and prisons throughout the country, over 15% of the incarcerated population nationwide. Instead of treating patients and providing them with support and medication, we instead have failed them, leaving them without medical attention, in many cases leaving them on the street with inadequate hygiene and nutrition, or locking them up for various associated crimes.
We must also work to protect people with severe disability from being exploited in the workplace. The policy of a subminimum wage for the disabled has largely failed, and opens up disabled workers to being exploited, receiving wages far below the value of the work they do, while many of these individuals lack the cognitive ability to even understand how they are being exploited. I would like to commission a task force to create a workable job training and supervised work program at the state level for individuals who are able to work, and to ensure that these individuals are able to do so without being taken advantage of by employers or the state.