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Q: Why did you decide to run for the U.S. House of Representatives?

A: “I was not going to roll over for the John Joyce’s of Congress. Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, and when I found out that the 13th Congressional District had no Democratic challenger, I was horrified. It was three weeks out before the election when I found that out. I put together a write in campaign, I alerted all the papers and the Democratic committees and I created signs and a brochure to put out a message: there was a challenger to Representative John Joyce. He doesn’t stand for women’s rights. He voted against the Women’s Health Protection Act and he co-sponsored the egregiously unscientific life at conception act. So, it was extremely important to stand up for our rights. 50% of the population is women, and we should have agency over our own bodies. That means reproductive freedom, and access to safe and legal abortion, birth control, in vitro fertilization and gender affirming care. And I say that only when we can create the things we choose are we truly free. I talk about agency because while a lot of people lean into the healthcare aspect of it, and that certainly has merit, only the pregnant person knows her circumstances best as to whether or not she could sustain a pregnancy, go through a delivery and raise a child. It could be a health issue that a woman needs an abortion. Her body might not be compatible with a pregnancy. It might be life threatening, or the fetus might be suffering a condition, but it also might be a situation of abuse, where it’s a danger to herself and her unborn child to actually come into the world. It could also be a question of another mouth to feed. The fact is: 60% of people who seek abortion are mothers. That is, they identify with having raised a child, and so they’re saying, I can’t do this. And then, there’s the fact that mental health is the number one killer of pregnant people. If a woman says, ‘I can’t take on this burden’, we need to listen to her. The vast majority of abortions are done early in the first trimester. It’s a fetus. It doesn’t have any functions. I couldn’t let it go. There is our sacred right to vote, and I always put that first, because if we don’t have the money, nothing else follows, not the reproductive freedom, not gun safety, public education, universal healthcare, or immigration reform. 

Rep. Joyce believed Trump’s lies about election fraud, and so he actually tried to throw out our ballot electoral votes through the Texas Amicus brief. He and 125 other Republicans tried to trash not only Pennsylvania’s valid electoral votes but those odds in Michigan, and a few other swing states that had originally gone for Trump in 2016, and then went for Biden in 2020. When that didn’t work, Trump decided on his violent insurrection. But after that didn’t work, in the three hours of Jan. 7, when Congress was able to reconvene representatives, Joyce refused to certify our ballot, electoral votes in Pennsylvania. He cannot represent us because he doesn’t represent our voices or our democracy. He also voted against really important legislation, like the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act, and even the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act. If more members of Congress voted like he did, we wouldn’t have the maintenance and upgrades to our infrastructure that we do today. He is not voting in a way that represents the people of the 13th Congressional District. He only votes to represent convicted felon Trump.”

Q: What job did you have before running for the U.S. House of Representatives? How will this experience help you if you get elected?

A: “I went to college as a pharmacy technician in a fertility pharmacy. I majored in French, Biology and secondary education there. I have had experience also facilitating a certificate to medical necessity for Medicare B reimbursement, as well as a credit analyst and a school board member. These experiences have helped shape who I am and the positions I hold. They are in keeping with my deep faith and my love of the country.”

Q: What do you, your party and your platform stand for?

A: “I stand for democracy, reproductive freedom, gun safety, public education, universal health care and immigration reform, and I have a particular report that you can find in my literature. In a strong democracy, our right to vote is sacred. We have agency over our own bodies. We use and sell guns responsibly. We have equal access to quality education. Our health care is covered, and immigrants have clear paths to citizenship. These are in keeping with my deep Christian faith. We’re supposed to take care of the poor and the sick. We’re supposed to treat each other with respect, and love our neighbors as ourselves. My Lord and Savior saved women. So these life at conception acts and abortion bans are absolutely opposed to the Christian belief of saving women. These mothers are dying from these really bad abortion deaths. They’re dying in other states. The definition of abortion is so murky there that physicians are afraid to even remove dead fetal tissue from a woman who’s just had a miscarriage for fear of losing their license over someone else interpreting that as an abortion.”

Q: Why should 18-year-old high school students vote for you? 

A: “Because they want to keep being able to vote. I’m not making this up. Promise. ‘A dictatorship on the first day.’ Should he be re-elected and a bloodbath is not also promised, to use the U.S. military to go after what he terms as the enemy within, by which he means people who don’t support him. That is contrary to democracy and a spirit by which this country was founded. The revolutionary founders of this country had already experienced what authoritarian rule was. That was a monarchy in particular, but the idea that the government can be used to go after people who disagree with leaders of government is exactly what they were against. First they tried the Articles of Confederation, where there was hardly an established centralized government, but that didn’t work. After 10 years, they reconvened, created and then ratified the U.S. Constitution, and they set up the structure of checks and balances to make sure that even though there was a strong centralized government in place, it would not be so strong that it would punish its people for disagreeing with it. And the Constitution itself became a living document, understanding that we might amend it from time to time. The very First Amendment celebrated freedom of speech.”

Q: I want to pivot into specific issues that are important, nationally, statewide, but also important to us here at Altoona Area High School. You already touched on abortion, but what about taxes? 

A: “I believe that it’s important to pay taxes, but the problem we have right now is that the ultra wealthy have not been paying their fair share of taxes. In fact, with Trump’s tax cuts and George W. Bush’s tax cuts, we’ve added to our national debt by at least 10 trillion. This is because Americans still need goods and services, and they need the government to deliver these things in a stable fashion. But when the conservative groups cut taxes from the ultra wealthy, that means that the burden of these goods and services that Americans need, like Social Security and Medicare, are added to beyond what the contributions of everyday Americans can support. Those burdens get borne by the government, so we just go deeper and deeper into national debt. So again, it is the ultra wealthy who should pay their fair share and by the ultra wealthy, I mean those who make $400,000 or greater. They should be taxed greater.”

Q: You already mentioned that this is one of the issues that is important to you. What about immigration? 

A: “Immigration is important because we rely on immigrant labor. That’s the truth of our country. We rely on immigrant labor in hospitality, in construction, as well as agriculture. I’m coming to you today from Adams County, Pennsylvania where we rely heavily on immigrant labor. The National Apple Harvest Festival just wrapped in Biglerville, Pa. for example. We need immigrants, and the state of Pennsylvania needs immigrant labor for the dairy and mushroom industries. Pennsylvania ranks seventh or eighth in terms of the dairy industry and number one in the mushroom industry. Those are both year round industries, and they need immigrants to stay longer than the six month worker visas. Passing the Farm Bill is very important because with it might come an expansion of the worker visas, at least for a year, and that would lead to more stability, not only for the workers, but also for the farmers who employ them. Additionally, immigrants pay taxes. They pay state, federal and local taxes. They pay sales taxes. And if there is a better mechanism to give them clear paths to citizenship, wherein they will be fully able to work and live in the United States, then they would contribute even more in taxes. There’s also just the everyday contributions that immigrants make when they are here in our country, so I fight for clear paths to citizenship. Let me give you an example. I’m the great granddaughter of a boy who stowed away on a ship from Greece to America. He came to America and lied about his age, but then he picked up arms for the United States and fought in World War II against the Germans. He was gassed in France, recuperated in North Carolina, and when he was well enough, he was allowed through the GI Bill, which they had back then, to attend the Southern College of Pharmacy, from which he graduated as a pharmacist. And he then had a stable and storied career. He wound up working for the State of Maryland as an alcohol inspector. More importantly, he settled down, married my great grandmother, and had my grandmother, and of course, I’m here today because of him. So I want clear paths to citizenship that are shorter. Right now I’m hearing it’s at least 10 years, and I do think that should be a little tighter, and the worker visas should be expanded to allow these immigrants to fully commit in terms of working in the United States. And then, born of that are citizens who contribute, who are born to the United States.”

Q: And then with immigration and the border. Do you think there should be a cap?

A: “It depends on the services we have available. The conservatives have chipped away at the immigration infrastructure. We have to take on these immigrants, and it is right that immigrants who are being persecuted by their governments should seek asylum here. We are a nation of immigrants, but there can be too much stress on the system when too many pour over the border. I would have to explore it more to know who could instill a cap and how we definitely should not be putting people into concentration camps or separating children from their parents. It can’t be these inhumane measures. There’s got to be a way, but I don’t have all the background to be able to pursue that.”

Q: If you do get elected, what are you going to do about the economy and inflation? 

A: “The federal minimum wage is $7.45 per hour, and it has not moved since 2009. The state of Pennsylvania’s minimum wage has also been lockstep with that. Now a lot of people say if you increase the federal living standard which is what I would like to do, you will see the price of goods and services go up. And that’s true to an extent. But it doesn’t have to be huge. It doesn’t have to be a big jump. And I point to, of all things, the Big Mac Index. As in 2009 when the federal minimum wage was newly created at $7.25 the Big Mac cost a little under $3; that made sense. You didn’t even have to work a half hour to be able to afford this sandwich at the new federal minimum wage. However, over time, the federal minimum wage has not moved, and the Big Mac has additionally. More importantly, McDonald’s Corporation raised their minimum wage to $15 per hour, and so the Big Mac price went up. Now it’s under $6, so we’re back to the place where you can work. You don’t have to work even a half hour if you’re working for McDonald’s Corporation to earn a Big Mac sandwich. So they have demonstrated that raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour does increase prices of goods and services, but not so substantially that a person making that is in a hopeless cycle of increased wages and then increased goods and services. McDonald’s Corporation found ways to still create a profit for their company and yet provide a livable wage because we know that $7.25 an hour is not a livable wage. Additionally, I would back legislation by others such as Elizabeth Senator Elizabeth Warren who has proposed the Price Gouging Act for corporations that make over $100 million a year in profit. They have engaged in the egregious practice of price gouging. They have increased prices beyond what inflation might have dictated, and they’re taking advantage of everyday Americans, hard working families and retirees on fixed incomes. It is important to hold those corporations that make over $100 million a year accountable for their incredible greed and correct that pricing.”

Q: What about the environment and climate change? 

A: “I absolutely believe that science is real. I defer to the scientists in environmental science that climate change is adversely affecting us, but I don’t have to just defer to them. I recognize it happening in Pennsylvania’s 13th Congressional District. For example, Bedford and Somerset County suffered severe drought, and so their farmers needed relief for those crop insurance premiums. The state of Pennsylvania provided them some relief, as well as neighboring counties, Cambria and Blair counties included. But we need our farms to be able to grow food for Americans. It is a threat to our national security if American farmers cannot grow food for America. So it’s really important to take measures to reduce climate change. That means moving away from fossil fuels, our dependency on fossil fuels, and relying more and more on those alternative forms of energy, like wind and solar forms. I myself drive a Prius, for example, and I understand that the move away from fossil fuels is a process. It is not [going to happen] overnight. For example, hybrid cars bridge that gap. So more dependence on hybrid cars, and hopefully, ultimately, electric cars. I recognize that we have to be mindful to provide the electricity that helps energize those vehicles, but it’s important to try and to keep advancing the science [behind them].”

Q: What about healthcare? 

A: “Many other nations have national healthcare provided for its citizens, but here in America, hard working Americans are struggling to pay their healthcare for their healthcare needs. We also recognize that Medicare and Medicaid just aren’t enough. We need to expand those programs. Eventually, I want to see universal health care for Americans. I believe that there should be a nationalized health care system, whether that means expanding the Affordable Care Act or expanding Medicare so that we keep lowering the age and Medicaid. We keep raising the age for which people are qualified for both programs until they meet in the middle. I don’t know which way it will go, but some way, somehow, we have to take health care away from being tied to employment. It’s deeply unfair to Americans to expect that they can only have quality health care coverage if they’re employed by certain employers who offer that health care, and it’s deeply unfair to the employers. It narrows their pools of employees. If they only get the people who want the health care that they offer to be applying for the jobs, then maybe the best people for those jobs aren’t applying because they’re tied up with healthcare already with other jobs. We need to remove that, and we need to get the employers to pay more into the healthcare system.”

Q: And then what about the First and Second Amendments? 

A: “I absolutely believe in the First and Second Amendment. I believe in church and state. I believe in free speech. I believe in the ability to belong to any religion we choose or the freedom to not belong to any religion. I also believe in the right to bear arms. But gun ownership should be responsible gun ownership, so the gun safety I propose is safe storage of guns, reporting of lost or stolen guns, universal background checks for all gun sales and extreme risk protection orders, no flag laws for those who present a risk of harm to themselves or others. The difference this would make would be tremendous, especially in terms of the mass shootings. Safe Storage, for example. If Miss Nancy Lanza had locked up her guns, then Adam Lanza would not have been able to get a hold of them and kill her and kill over 20 students and teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. That’s just an example of one mass shooting that could have been avoided through responsible gun ownership and this is not unprecedented.”

Q: I want to turn to education and costs. For those students who decide to pursue post-secondary education, what are you going to do about measures of college debt and things like that? 

A: “I thoroughly support President Biden’s orders to reduce and eliminate the extortive college debt. I think that college is as expensive as it is because the colleges are experiencing profit when they’re lending to the students. The students take out massive loans that the colleges wind up benefiting from. I think there needs to be more of a check on our universities in terms of cost. But the education that I think about the most is public education because that is funded through our tax dollars. In 2023 Judge Jubilee, of Pennsylvania, recognized the unconstitutionality of how we were funding public student education. It’s not something we think about a lot. But what’s happened is, since the 1970’s the cost for people has been less funded by the state and federal government and more funded by the increase in taxes from property owners and for retirees on fixed incomes. This gets to a point where they can’t really afford living in their homes anymore. That shouldn’t be. Moreover, it leads to an imbalance of resources for public schools. We know that Panther Valley kindergartners were sharing one toilet in the Panther Valley School District because of the unequal distribution of funding for public school students. We also have to make sure that our tax dollars do not go to the private and parochial charter schools. They don’t have that same responsibility. And right now, we also have a problem in the state of Pennsylvania, because the Auditor General is not auditing our schools. We need the Auditor General Pennsylvania to be able to audit all schools, and we need at least all public schools, and we need accountability and transparency of private and parochial schools if they ever want to partake of our hard earned tax dollars.”

Q: I want to turn to gender identity and the LGBTQ+ community. What are your thoughts on that?

A: “Where I really come in as an ally to this is as an activist. I and some other grassroots groups members worked on kicking out the heteronormative, egregiously unscientific sex-ed that came from crisis pregnancy centers in our local public schools. So crisis pregnancy centers are generally not licensed healthcare facilities. They generally don’t hire licensed healthcare professionals, and I qualify that because everyone can find one, but mostly these crisis pregnancy centers exist to dissuade people from having an abortion. They’re also generally not licensed educators, and so as sex-ed has become kind of a lightning rod in Pennsylvania, and the standards for it are minimal, the crisis pregnancy center has pushed into the public schools and said, ‘Let us teach the sex-ed for you,’ and the public schools have been agreeable. What that meant is that their religiously backed agendas have been teaching these unvetted programs, and they are usually religiously founded programs as well. So I would promote sex-ed in the public schools that are comprehensive, LGBTQ+ inclusive and full of evidence-based science because sex-ed isn’t just for [certain] students. It’s for everyone. Everyone needs to learn how to be safe from sexually transmitted infections. Everyone needs to learn how to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Everyone needs to learn basic respect in a relationship. For example, you know there is no room for victim blaming in quality sexuality instruction. But I found such things. I found that in the sex-ed from the crisis pregnancy center, for example.”

Q: Would you like to add anything else about your background or issues that you stand for, or your plans if you get elected?

A: “If I get elected, I have to staff a congressional office sometimes. My hope is to just represent all the people of the 13th Congressional District. The Infrastructure Bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan. They helped so many people across the 13th Congressional District, but if more people had voted like Representative Joyce, we wouldn’t have those things in place to maintain our water and sewer lines. We keep being represented by people like him. What more are you for our country?