My healthcare priorities are centered on rural Minnesota. That means protecting access to care close to home, supporting local hospitals and clinics, addressing workforce shortages, and making sure mental health, emergency care, long-term care, and basic preventive services remain available in communities like ours.

My approach is aligned with interfaith and community groups that believe healthcare should be built around human dignity, fairness, access, and the voices of the people most affected. Healthcare policy should not be shaped only by insurance companies, hospital systems, lobbyists, or politicians in St. Paul. Rural patients, caregivers, providers, seniors, working families, and local leaders all deserve a seat at the table.

That is why I support creating a citizens commission on healthcare — modeled after Minnesota public policy efforts from earlier decades — to bring real people into the process of identifying problems and recommending practical solutions for the future of healthcare in our state.

Affordability in rural Minnesota is about more than prices at the store or the pump. It is about whether families can meet more of their needs close to home — housing, childcare, work, education, healthcare, local services, and a community they can afford to stay in.

Too often, rural communities are asked to solve state-sized problems with small-town tax bases. When schools, roads, housing, childcare, EMS, and basic infrastructure are underfunded, the costs do not disappear. They get pushed onto families, property taxpayers, local businesses, cities, counties, and school districts.

I believe we can do better by building local capacity. When more of what we need is produced, provided, repaired, built, and owned close to home, more dollars stay in the community and families have more choices. That means supporting local businesses, builders, tradespeople, farmers, childcare providers, service providers, schools, clinics, and Main Street employers.

This is not about the state running every community. It is about the state being a fair partner: funding the basics fairly, reducing unnecessary barriers, and giving communities flexible tools to solve local problems. That includes things like housing rehab, infill development, childcare support, workforce training, Main Street investment, and voter-approved local growth projects.

Communities across District 23A share many of the same needs, but each also has its own strengths. Good policy should help meet those shared needs while giving communities room to build on what already works.

That is what growing opportunity close to home means: making rural life more affordable, keeping more dollars rooted in our communities, and helping people build a good life in the place they already call home.

I believe Minnesota should put workers first. That means fair wages, safe workplaces, the right to organize, and basic protections that make it possible for people to build a stable life from the work they do.

Workers should not have to fight alone for affordable healthcare, predictable schedules, fair treatment, or a voice on the job. We should look for practical ways to strengthen workers across both the public and private sectors, including expanded insurance risk pools for groups like educators, school staff, municipal employees, and others who serve our communities. When we reduce costs and improve stability for workers, we strengthen families, local governments, schools, and the communities that depend on them.

Putting workers first also means preparing for the future of work. Artificial intelligence has real potential to help improve medicine, energy, agriculture, manufacturing, public services, and everyday business operations. Used well, it can help make government and businesses more responsive to people’s needs and more efficient in how they serve the public.

But efficiency cannot be the only goal. If AI is used there need to be clear guardrails. Workers and citizens deserve transparency, human review, and protection from systems that treat people like numbers on a screen.

Technology should help people live better lives. It should not replace human judgment, weaken worker power, or strip dignity from work.

That is what growing opportunity close to home means: making sure the future of work strengthens workers, families, local services, and rural communities — not just the bottom line.

I believe Minnesota needs to fully fund our public schools. Every child deserves a quality education, whether they live in a large district with a strong tax base or a small rural community already stretched thin.

When the state does not fund the basics, local communities are left trying to make up the difference through property taxes, cuts, or both. That puts smaller and struggling communities in a tough spot. They are asked to do more with less, while families and local taxpayers carry more of the burden.

State funding should cover the core needs of our schools: good teachers and staff, safe classrooms, transportation, special education, mental health support, and the tools students need to learn. Public dollars should first support public schools, because public schools are where most Minnesota children are educated and where communities come together.

I am open to partnerships and new ideas when they help students. But innovation should build on strong public schools, not replace them or drain resources away from them.

I also support creating a statewide health insurance pool for educators and school staff. If we can lower administrative and health care costs, more money can stay where it belongs: in classrooms, supporting students and the people who serve them.

When the state funds the basics, local communities have more room to be creative, solve problems, and grow opportunity close to home.

I believe housing policy needs to help communities build complete neighborhoods. That means more than adding housing wherever developers can make the numbers work. It means looking at what a community already has — its streets, utilities, schools, parks, local businesses, and existing homes — and asking how we fill the gaps.

In many small towns and rural communities, those gaps are easy to see. Take a drive and you will find vacant lots, aging homes in need of repair, or blocks where a neighborhood has slowly thinned out over time. But those empty spaces are not cost-free. In many cases, the community has already paid for the road, water, sewer, and utility infrastructure serving that property, and taxpayers are still helping maintain it even when the lot is not providing housing or contributing much value back to the community.

That is why rural housing policy cannot only focus on large, dense developments. Density can make sense in the metro and in larger outstate communities like Albert Lea, where there is real demand for it. But smaller communities also need tools for infill housing, starter homes, rehabilitation of existing homes, and returning underused properties to productive use.

A complete neighborhood is one where vacant lots are put back to use, existing homes are cared for, and people at different stages of life can find a place to live. For rural Minnesota, housing policy should support both growth and repair — helping communities make better use of the infrastructure they already have while growing housing opportunity close to home.

I do not believe rural economies are built by St. Paul writing a plan for every town. They are built by local people, local businesses, workers, schools, farmers, builders, caregivers, and community leaders who understand the place they call home.

But the state does have a responsibility to be a fair partner. Too often, rural communities are asked to solve state-sized problems with small-town tax bases. When schools, roads, housing, childcare, EMS, and basic infrastructure are underfunded, the costs do not disappear. They get pushed onto families, property taxpayers, local businesses, cities, counties, and school districts.

A better approach is to help communities build more local capacity. When more of what we need is produced, provided, repaired, built, and owned close to home, more dollars stay in the community and families have more choices.

That means fair funding for the basics, fewer unnecessary barriers, and flexible tools communities can use to solve local problems — including housing rehab, infill development, childcare support, workforce training, Main Street investment, and voter-approved local growth projects when appropriate.

Communities across District 23A share many of the same needs, but each also has its own strengths. Good policy should help meet those shared needs while giving communities room to build on what already works.

That is what growing opportunity close to home means: not waiting for someone else to rescue rural Minnesota, and not leaving every community to shoulder the burden alone, but building the conditions for people to make a good life where they already live.