Where I Stand

The median household income on the Peninsula is $156,000 and people still can't afford to live here. That sounds like a high number until you look at what a one-bedroom actually costs. Teachers, nurses, firefighters, the people who keep this place running, are getting pushed out because we let housing turn into an investment vehicle instead of something people actually live in.

My family knows what this feels like. After I got fired from a major defense contractor for calling out fraud, we were (and still are) staring down the real possibility of losing everything. This is not some unique sob story; it is a reality for thousands of families on the Peninsula who are one bad month away from being gone.

We need federal incentives that actually build affordable housing, not luxury developments with a few affordable units slapped on so they can call it "mixed-income." We need real renter protections, including federal support for just-cause eviction standards and rent stabilization. And we need to go after the corporate landlords and institutional investors who are buying up housing stock to squeeze every dollar out of communities they will never set foot in.

This is not a market problem. It is a policy failure. And policy failures have policy solutions, if the people writing the policy actually know what it feels like to worry about keeping a roof over their kids' heads.

Right now, we are watching the most brazen looting of the American government in modern history.

The President launched a memecoin days before taking office. His family has collected hundreds of millions in trading fees while over 800,000 investors lost billions. He hosted a private dinner for the top buyers of that coin, many of them anonymous foreign nationals, while simultaneously directing the regulatory policy that governs the crypto market.

The so-called DOGE cost taxpayers at least $21.7 billion through botched mass layoffs and reckless contract terminations, according to a Senate investigation. At the same time, inspectors general investigating Musk's own companies were fired. That is not rooting out corruption. That IS corruption. They fired the watchdogs, pardoned donors, and dropped enforcement actions against companies that invested in the President's businesses. This is dogshit governance and everyone knows it.

We need stronger whistleblower protections. We need mandatory financial disclosure for officials with business interests that intersect with the policies they control. We need real transparency in federal contracting and restored independence for inspectors general. We need REAL punishments for people and corporations who bribe and cheat their way into power.

When you fire the people whose job it is to find fraud, you are not saving money. You are hiding something.

My dad is a Vietnamese war refugee who fled authoritarian violence to build a life here. My family exists in this country because America kept its promise to people who had nowhere else to go. That promise is being broken right now.

In a district where roughly 25% of the population is Hispanic and over 30% is Asian, ICE operations and the weaponization of federal agencies against our communities are not abstract policy debates. They are threats to our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, and in plenty of cases, our own families.

We need to stop using federal agencies as instruments of intimidation against our communities. We need a real pathway to citizenship for undocumented residents who have built lives and contributed to this country. We need protections for DACA recipients and TPS holders who have been stuck in legal limbo for years. We need to reject any policy that uses cruelty as a deterrent, because that is not border security. That is state violence.

I will not be quiet on this. The time for decorum, hands clasped, and mouths agape when atrocities happen is over. The people on the Peninsula who are afraid right now deserve a representative who will fight for them, not one who puts out carefully worded statements and moves on.

This district consistently votes to fund its schools. Bond measures and parcel taxes pass here because people understand that investing in education is not optional. But local funding can't make up for decades of federal underinvestment, and it shouldn't have to.

Teachers on the Peninsula can't afford to live in the communities where they teach. Childcare costs rival mortgage payments. Special education services are stretched thin. And the kids who need the most support, kids with disabilities, kids from low-income families, kids whose first language isn't English, are the ones most likely to fall through the cracks.

I have a son who is autistic. I have seen firsthand how hard families have to fight just to get the services their kids are legally entitled to. That should not require a battle.

We need increased federal investment in public education, especially in special education and Title I funding for high-need schools. We need universal pre-K and affordable childcare, because forcing families to choose between a parent's career and a child's early development is a policy failure with generational consequences. We need teacher pay and housing assistance programs that allow educators to actually live where they work.

Our kids deserve better than a system where the quality of their education depends entirely on whether their parents can afford to supplement it. That is not equal opportunity. It is the opposite.

Healthcare in this country is designed to extract maximum profit from people at their most vulnerable. The insurance industry spends billions lobbying Congress to keep it that way. And it works, because the people writing health policy are funded by the people profiting from it.

Nobody should go bankrupt because they got sick. Nobody should ration insulin. Nobody should skip a doctor visit because the copay is a week's groceries. And nobody should have to stay in a job they hate because losing employer-sponsored insurance means losing access to care.

I know what it's like to fight the VA for basic care. I know what it's like to navigate a system that's designed to wear you down until you give up. And I know that the families on the Peninsula, even in one of the wealthiest counties in the country, are one serious diagnosis away from financial ruin because of deductibles, out-of-network charges, and the endless maze of prior authorizations.

We need to expand and protect the Affordable Care Act while working toward universal coverage. We need to let Medicare negotiate drug prices across the board, not just for a handful of medications. We need mental health parity that actually means something, with real enforcement and real access to providers. And we need to go after the pharmaceutical companies that jack up prices on drugs that cost pennies to manufacture.

Healthcare is a right, not a revenue stream. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either making money off the current system or taking money from the people who are.

I came home from Iraq disabled, mentally broken, and cast aside. That is not a metaphor. The VA rated me 100% permanent and total disability. I have a traumatic brain injury. I have PTSD. I lost my brother, I lost friends, and I lost years of my life to a war that the people who started it will never have to answer for.

The VA system is overwhelmed. Benefits processing takes months or years. Mental health wait times are a national disgrace. The PACT Act was a step in the right direction, but implementation has been uneven and the backlog is still enormous. Meanwhile, veteran homelessness persists, veteran suicide rates remain catastrophic, and military families are quietly struggling with food insecurity, inadequate housing, and a benefits system that treats them as an afterthought.

We owe veterans more than a bumper sticker and a thank-you-for-your-service. We owe them a system that actually works. That means fully funding the VA, cutting processing times, expanding access to mental health care, and holding the defense industry accountable for the money it extracts from taxpayers while the people who actually served get left behind.

I am not going to be one of those members of Congress who puts on a flag pin, votes for the defense budget, and calls it supporting the troops. Supporting the troops means funding the VA. Supporting the troops means protecting whistleblowers who expose fraud in defense contracting. Supporting the troops means making sure that when someone comes home broken, the country that sent them actually takes care of them.

I have been through this system as a veteran, as a caregiver, as a family member who lost someone, and as an analyst who saw where the money goes. I know exactly where it's broken and I know exactly who is profiting from it staying that way.