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Summarize why you are running for office. What are your priorities?
I'm running for Congress because I believe that we can do better. I'm running to defend the Constitution and to restore checks and balances. I'm running to get corporate money out of politics to end corruption in Washington DC. I'm running to stand up for the values I was raised on: integrity, empathy, and hard work. I’m running to show my kids what courage looks like and what it means to put the needs of others above your own. I'm running to restore representation to the people. For nearly 20 months, I have been traveling this district, meeting people where they are at. I've put on over 51,000 miles, holding 348 public events and what I continue to hear is that people are hungry for change. People don't feel they're being heard and they don't believe they're being represented.
What can be done about rising costs to live for Minnesotans and U.S. citizens?
I believe many of the affordability issues we face are Constitutional issues. We're currently in a war of choice that Congress did not authorize and facing tariffs that nobody asked for. These are the two things most contributing to rising costs. The war in Iran has now cost American taxpayers over $40 billion and has caused fuel prices to skyrocket. When the cost for diesel goes up, the cost of transporting goods goes up, and we see that in the prices we pay for just about everything. The increased costs due to tariffs is also passed down to consumers. This is especially hard on our farmers who face rising input costs on top of already thin profit margins. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power of the purse and the power to declare war, not the executive branch. Our current congressperson has abdicated that responsibility and allowed the executive branch to go unchecked. As a representative, I would fight to restore checks and balances to Congress. We also need to do better when writing economic policy as a whole and ensure we act in the best interests of the people instead of prioritizing the interests of mega-corporations and those that make the largest donations to politicians.
What are your thoughts on the current U.S. immigration policy?
I view immigration issues as workforce issues as well as humanitarian issues. We need a clear and concise pathway to citizenship. HR1, the 2025 Budget Reconciliation Act, caps federal immigration judges at 800. That isn't how we solve this problem. We have a tremendous backlog of hard working, law-abiding people, waiting to become citizens. We should reduce this backlog by investing in more immigration judges and asylum officers. We should also honor the promises previously made to certain groups like "Dreamers" and people previously admitted while seeking asylum. I do not support open borders. We should increase border security and immigration enforcement, but we should do so with the premise that the GPS coordinates of your mother at the time of your birth shouldn't determine your value as a human being. America is a nation that was built by immigrants. We need to look at immigrants as part of the solution, not part of the problem.
What can be done to support agriculture?
Agriculture is woven into the very fabric of Minnesota's 7th Congressional District; in fact, we're the 2nd largest agricultural district in the country. Yet, since Representative Fischbach took office almost six years ago, we have not had representation on the Ag Committee in Congress, and we have not had a Farm Bill passed into law. This is unacceptable. Our campaign has developed an agricultural committee that we work with to better understand the issues facing our farmers and here's what we're hearing: Farmers want stability, farmers want predictable, dare I say, boring policy. They're operating at such thin profit margins already, they can't afford to deal with skyrocketing input costs. The prices of diesel and fertilizer are crushing them, and for what? An illegal war that nobody wanted that was supposed to end in days and is now over 8 months old. And we've already talked about tariffs. I spent a decade in financial services and farmers were a large part of my client base. I know how to treat a farmer's business like a business, not a political football that gets kicked back & forth to score points.