Good Jobs and Fair Wages

For too long, the Nebraska Legislature has prioritized tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest Nebraskans over everyday people. Nearly half of working-age Nebraskans are in low-wage jobs, and too many are working full-time while still living in poverty.

We build a strong economy by investing in Nebraskans — creating jobs with living wages, paid leave, making healthcare affordable, and enacting policies that allow families to care for one another. The government can’t solve everything, but it must support the systems that help Nebraskans thrive.

I’ve worked to raise the minimum wage, expand paid leave, and protect the programs that help families through hard times like SNAP and Medicaid — and I’ll keep fighting for an economy that works for everyone.

Affordable Childcare and Food Security

We need real investment in childcare — helping parents afford it, supporting providers, and ensuring quality care for every child. Childcare providers are small businesses, and strengthening them strengthens our economy.

Since 2021, we have seen a 60% increase in food insecurity among children. Every child deserves to start the day with a meal and the chance to succeed. Expanding access to school meals and family food programs reduces stress and strengthens communities.

As a mom, I know firsthand how expensive raising a child is — and in the Legislature I will be a fierce fighter for affordable childcare and access to healthy meals for Nebraska families.

Strong public education is critical to our future because every Nebraska kid deserves the chance to grow and thrive as an adult. Our public schools are the places where every one of our kids learns to be a dreamer, a friend, a citizen, and a thoughtful member of our community.

Protecting and supporting our public schools also means supporting our teachers with fair pay and the resources they need to teach generations of Nebraskans. We need to invest in programs that support teachers through scholarships, leave policies so teachers can take care of their own families as well as ours, and robust classroom resources so our kids have every opportunity to learn and grow.

In my work advancing good policy in the Nebraska Legislature, I have supported paid leave policies for teachers, tackling period poverty for students, and helping stop book bans and government overreach into our classrooms. I will always support our schools, our teachers, and our students because that’s how we build a better future for our kids and communities.

If we want strong communities full of neighbors who look out for and support each other, we have to invest in both maintaining and expanding our affordable housing options. We hear over and over from our elected representatives that Nebraska has an affordable housing crisis, and yet every legislative session the availability of funding to address that crisis is under threat. 

At the same time, our housing crisis is particularly devastating for low-income workers and those below the median household income because in Nebraska, more than a third of households earn less than $50,000 per year. Over my career, I have secured tens of millions of dollars in emergency rental assistance, passed legislation to balance the scales in our landlord-tenant laws, helped get free lawyers for tenants facing eviction, and increased housing funding for survivors of domestic violence.

Tackling our housing crisis means being brave enough to make meaningful investments in funding affordable housing development and taking substantive legislative steps to ensure Nebraskans can stay in their homes. That means providing meaningful property tax relief that provides homeowners with predictability while also making sure that relief is balanced enough to fund critical government programs on which Nebraskans rely. Our strength and resilience starts at home, and I will fight to make sure every Nebraskan has a safe, affordable place to start.

Simply put, the state government has no business in our exam rooms, in our bedrooms, or in our family’s decisions.

I believe in ensuring all Nebraskans have the ability to decide if, when and how to become a parent. No family or pregnancy is the same. I will never support policies that insert the government between a medical professional and a patient or take away an individual’s right to make decisions about their own bodies, lives, and futures.

Everyone, no matter how they identify, deserves the freedom to live, work and play in Nebraska. I’ve worked directly with LGBTQ+ Nebraskans and their families to fight against policies that discriminate against our neighbors for who they are or who they love, and will continue to do so in the Nebraska Legislature. 

When Nebraskans vote, their vote should not only be counted but respected. After issues fail time and again at the Legislature, Nebraskans have the right to put an issue on the ballot for a direct vote. It’s how our state has passed important policies like paid sick leave and raising the minimum wage. These kitchen table issues matter to working families in our state. I’ll work to ensure that when voters pass an issue, it becomes law without unnecessary legislative interference. Respecting the will of the voters also means protecting the unique split electoral vote system that ensures our votes count.