+ Organized Labor

Organized labor and the rights of workers have been under attack since before many of us were born. Yet, Montana was built by unions. Miners in Butte organized for their rights and won. We must look back to their organizing principles and allow Americans to organize for their common benefit. But we need to go further than just rolling back forty years of assaults on the rights of working people to organize.

We need a Congress that works with labor to find innovative ways to strengthen our collective power. I've heard over and over again that labor is tired of supporting Democrats who say they back labor but then fail to carry legislation or support it once they are in office. The truth is that politicians of all stripes have failed the movement. I won’t. We must:

• Pass the PRO-Act
• Pass the Workplace Democracy Act
• Pass the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act
• Foster sector-level bargaining to increase wages
• Reform the NLRA to ensure it fights for working people
• Strengthen apprenticeship programs and vocational schools so that the next generation of tradeswomen and men can join the middle class
• End this administration's destructive IRAP policies
• Protect pensions and ensure their solvency
• Build a trade policy for the benefit of workers, not multinational corporations
• Oppose the misnamed “Employee Rights Act,” “Employee Privacy Protection Act,” and “Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act,” and similar measures that create barriers to or undermine the rights of workers to form a union and collectively bargain
• Defend NLRB rules that protect workers’ rights against anti-Labor forces
• Always, always stand with workers

+ Working Families

All Americans deserve a wage that allows them to live in dignity. Only comprehensive legislation strengthening the rights of wage-earners will allow all of us to provide for ourselves and our families. We must support working families again and we must support people who earn their money rather than invest it again, through implementing:

• Paid parental/family leave
• Explicit minimum paid sick days
• Protections from wage theft
• Pass the Lift Act
• Access to affordable daycare
• Stronger protections against sexual harassment
• Pass the Healthy Families Act
• Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act

As a legislator, I have championed workers’ rights by bringing bills to ensure the minimum wage applies to apprentices, worked to strengthen workers’ rights against multinational corporations, and proposed innovative legislation to allow for more retirement savings for non-union workers. All workers deserve protections and dignity. I will continue this fight in DC.

+ Equal Pay

Equal work deserves equal pay. Women are still paid 80 cents for every dollar a man makes. It is worse for our Native American sisters: they make 58 cents for every dollar a white man makes. Working women are often the breadwinners for their families. I support updating the Equal Pay Act by:

• Broadening the definition of comparable work to allow for true comparisons
• Banning pay history inquiries to stop perpetuating historic pay discrimination
• Mandate pay transparency

+ Childcare

Every day, families across Montana wake up to our ongoing childcare crisis. Politicians always claim to support families, but when it comes right down to it working families are left in the lurch. Yet, research shows that for every $1 invested in early childcare our society reaps $11 in savings. We need to truly invest in our working families through comprehensive childcare modeled on our military’s highly effective universal childcare program.

Every parent, every family, and every child deserves childcare. I will work tirelessly to change federal policy to bring childcare to every community in Montana; in the cities, on the reservations, and in ranching and farming communities. We cannot fail another generation of Montanans. That starts with guaranteeing childcare workers are paid fairly, moves through assessing nationwide childcare standards, and on through to ensuring childcare for every family that needs it. We have failed our parents, and our children, for too long.

+ Housing

Montana’s cities rank as some of the most unaffordable in the nation. The rest of the country thinks this is only a problem in cities like Seattle and San Francisco. But ask anyone working a 9-to-5 in Bozeman or Missoula if they have a realistic chance of owning a home.

I support legislation addressing the rising cost of homeownership. This includes:

• Easing restrictions on new construction in designated corridors
• Supporting new homeowners and renters through innovative financing
• Supporting policies that lead to higher wages.

+ A Fairer Tax Code

Income inequality is at an all-time high. We have more billionaires than ever before. Yet, millions of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck and haven’t had a raise in years. We must change our tax code to stop rewarding those who already have massive amounts of money with lower tax rates than those who work hard to provide for themselves and their families. The banks, Wall Street, and the elite have already gotten their bailouts and tax cuts. It’s about time that working families got theirs. I will:

• Support reimposing an alternative minimum tax rate for corporations that ensures that no large, profitable corporation can completely avoid paying taxes
• Close the “carried interest loophole”
• Crack down on the use of tax havens by wealthy individual Americans and corporations so that they can avoid paying taxes that the rest of the citizens has to pay more to compensate for

+ Put Main St. Over Wall St.

For decades, the federal government has been governed by one simple rule, regardless of which party controls the Presidency or Congress: Wall Street wins. Whether it’s no-strings attached bailouts, massive subsidies, sweeping deregulation and special tax breaks - it has become more and more clear to the average American that our government works for big corporate banks at the expense of working people.

The belief that helping Wall Street always helps the economy simply isn’t true. In recent decades Wall Street has grown bigger and financial sector profits have gone from 10% to 25% of total corporate profits, but everyone else in America has lived through a generation of stagnant wages and sluggish economic growth. Today, big banks are making record profits by handing out huge bonuses as average wages barely budge.

This power and influence is not due to Wall Street’s beneficial role in our economy but rather the result of billions in spending by corporate lobbyists and the revolving door between the federal government and Wall Street. That's why I will:

• Support the Stop Wall Street Looting Act
• Support reinstating the separation between commercial and investment banking by passing the 21st Century Glass Steagall Act
• Defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its rules curbing predatory loans and other abusive financial practices against attacks from Congress
• Impose a Wall Street Speculation Tax that will amount to a few cents per hundred dollars of Wall Street transactions, such as sales of stocks, bonds and derivatives to help stop wasteful and risky high-frequency trading. This kind of trading brings benefits to Wall Street institutions but creates market instability and adds nothing to the wider economy.
• Support the Inclusive Prosperity Act