PRIORITIES
TRIBAL NATIONS
Tribal sovereignty is not a gift the federal government grants. It is a fact, and in American law it carries a specific obligation: the relationship between the United States and tribal nations is government-to-government, and the federal government is bound to honor it. For four hundred years it has treated that obligation as something to negotiate down whenever it became inconvenient. Treaties broken. Recognition withheld while bureaucrats decided whether nations that have been here for thousands of years were real enough to count. Virginia’s 1st District is unfortunately where that pattern began, but here’s how I think we can achieve a better version that finally holds.
I WILL:
- Reauthorize the tribal housing law — now.
- Fully fund the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
- Complete the work on jurisdiction and on missing and murdered Indigenous people.
- Treat treaty enforcement as a binding federal duty — not a courtesy extended when convenient
- Refuse corporate PAC money from any interest that profits when tribal land, resources, or sovereignty are treated as negotiable.
MORE PRIORITIES
The people who make the decisions should have to live with the consequences.
Housing is foundational. When it fails, every other part of a family's economic life starts to fail with it.
Food security is national security. Family farms and working waterfronts are the backbone of every rural community.
Tribal sovereignty is not a gift the federal government grants. It is a fact.
It's your and your communities right to want or not want data centers, as long as its built with eyes open, paying their own way.
America spends more on healthcare than any country on earth and gets worse results — and the gap is not waste, it is profit.
Decisions about pregnancy belong to a woman and her doctor. Not a politician.
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP — these are lifelines, not bargaining chips.
This district is home to tens of thousands of veterans, active-duty servicemembers, and military families.
Education is supposed to be the engine of American mobility. Right now the engine is being dismantled.