WORKING FAMILIES

Supporting Women and Working Families: Far too often, politicians rely on the votes of everyday working people, and then forget about their problems and concerns until the next election cycle.

Growing up on two public school teachers’ salaries, my family was always stretching to make ends meet.

Time after time, politicians would visit and promise that they were going to change things, that as a result of

policies they would implement if elected, things would get better. They rarely did. Sharon, a 43-year teacher,

union leader, and Prince George’s County native, and I don’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to

spend on pollsters and consultants to tell us what hard-working Marylanders want: we know it, because we

both lived it. That is why my administration will implement initiatives that don’t just bow to the rich, but that

focus on and help us all.

PRIORITIES

3 Months of Paid Family Leave for Every Maryland Resident

Guaranteeing High Quality, Affordable Healthcare

Improving Gender Equity

Women’s Health and Reproductive Rights

1. Improves employee loyalty and productivity, which increases businesses’ overall capacity and substantially cuts recruiting costs.

2. Reduces post-neonatal mortality for women.

3. Encourages a closer bond between fathers and their children.

4. Significantly decreases the gender wage gap.

5. Builds stronger family ties, and a more balanced work lifestyle.

1. Expand Maryland’s all-payer rate-setting system, which improves patient outcomes and lowers overall costs, beyond just hospitals.

2. Reinvest in preventative public health programs through innovation grants to city and county health departments.

3. Employ targeted enrollment incentives to encourage uninsured Marylanders to sign up for the public option on the ACA exchange.

4. Improve healthcare access and coordination in Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore by expanding grants to community health workers, school-based health centers, mobile integrated heath units, and other non-traditional providers and improving access to public transportation..

5. Enhance senior care and end of life care, so seniors are not forced to choose between receiving high quality health services and remaining in their homes.

6. Develop new efforts to improve maternity care in hospitals and ensure that maternal health considerations are part of statewide programs that focus on preventative healthcare, healthy lifestyle promotion, and management of pre- existing conditions, such as diabetes and obesity, which make childbirth more dangerous for women, and especially women of color.

1. We rank last in the nation in support for childcare and near last for senior-care.

2. School performance is declining.

3. We have kids freezing in schools.

4. We have high rates of domestic violence.

5. We were among the last states to restrict paternity rights for rapists.

6. Maryland women make 84 cents for every dollar paid to men, amounting to an annual wage gap of $10,000, with a much larger gap is much larger for women of color.

1. Providing Access To Reproductive Care

2. Spreading Accurate Information About Reproductive Health

3. Fighting Discrimination In The Workplace And Guaranteeing Family Leave

4. Improving Maternal Healthcare Across The State

Making Maryland the Most Immigrant-Friendly State in America

Confronting the Opioid Epidemic

Reducing Gun Violence

Building a 21st Century Transportation System:

My administration will be fully committed to protecting the values we hold dearest: values of tolerance, diversity, and strength in difference. We will fight to ensure that immigrants and their families remain protected and welcomed in Maryland. We will employ our state’s full constitutional rights to resist federal immigration enforcement efforts and prohibit any state resources from being used to support ICE and CBP attempts to deport non-violent Maryland residents.

In 2017, nearly 2,000 Marylanders died from opioids – over six times the number that died in 2014—and 2018 is not looking any better. Some of these drugs, particularly those laced with fentanyl and carfentanil, can be more than 50 times more addictive than heroin. These days, it seems like each and every Marylander can cite a friend or relative affected by this issue. Addiction tears at the fabric of our communities. The victims don’t live on the fringes of society; they are our brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, parents, neighbors, and friends.

Candidates in both parties like to demand the state must hold drug companies, doctors, and pharmacists accountable. And of course we should; but if we’re going to get any closer to really addressing the underlying causes of the addiction crisis, we need more than a popular political one-liner as a solution. If elected Governor, I want to fight all forms of addiction. To do this, we need to approach this issue from three angles:
long-term prevention, immediate lifesaving action, and treatment access.

Thoughts and prayers are not enough to end the bloodshed. In Baltimore, for the past four years, there has been a murder nearly every day. We need to address the problem holistically through increased job opportunities, improved educational opportunities, and access to healthcare and drug treatment. But we must also aggressively shift away from mass incarceration to a culture of treating non-violent offenders.

At the same time, we must prevent gun violence at its source by preventing guns from ending up in the wrong hands. We must institute more comprehensive background checks, improve reporting systems and database interoperability, require licensing and insurance, eliminate the gun show loophole, require potential purchasers to complete gun safety or hunter education courses before purchases, and strengthen Red Flag laws. We must ban weapons of war. We must prohibit perpetrators of domestic abuse and stalkers from being able to own or purchase guns. We must restart Baltimore’s gun buyback program, ban bump stocks, expand Operation Safe Streets, fully fund Operation Safe Kids, and de-politicize the handgun review board. Given that more than 50% of the guns used in crimes in Maryland were either purchased out of state or transported illegally into Maryland, I will also lead a regional effort to eliminate the illegal transport and sale of guns. No child should grow up in a neighborhood where gun violence is the norm. As a mom, you can trust that I will act.

1. Advancing key transit projects,

2. Reducing road congestion.

3. Aggressively encouraging mode shifts to public transit or trails

Priorities for Montgomery, Prince George’s, and Frederick Counties:

1. Build a 21st Century American Legion Bridge and Connect Purple Line to Virginia.

2. Create Reversible Lanes on 270.

3. Fix the Metro’s Red Line & Green Line.

4. Ensure the success of the Purple Line and the Corridor Cities Transitway.

5.Repair Local Roads.

6. Reduce congestion with reversible lanes & technological enhancements.

7. Invest in Regional Trail Network.

8. Promoting Ride-sharing & Smart Vehicles.

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR FULL PLAN FOR SUPPORTING MARYLAND'S WOMEN AND WORKING FAMILIES
CLICK HERE TO READ OUR FULL TRANSPORTATION PLAN FOR MARYLAND