Issues

Carmela believes patients’ medical decisions are between them and their healthcare practitioners, free from political interference. Full stop. That means no restrictions on whether, when, or how, a woman and her doctor approach reproductive healthcare including abortion, contraception, or pregnancy.

Carmela is running for Congress to prevent a national abortion ban, revoke the Hyde Amendment which prohibits federal funding for reproductive healthcare, and expand protections for doctors facing prosecution for doing their jobs.

Carmela believes we owe our thanks and proper support to those who put their lives on the line for our country. It is shameful that military families and veterans in our district are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table. She will be a strong NO on any attempt to cut the benefits earned by our military families and veterans whether in the form of food stamps. healthcare programs, or housing supports.

In Congress, Carmela will ensure her office prioritizes constituent service requests from military veterans seeking to navigate the complex systems in place that present barriers to accessing care. She will work to secure funding that enhances military family quality of life, resilience, and housing affordability at the Fairchild Air Force Base.

Carmela will put an end to the partisan bickering that has prevented the timely passage of a federal Farm Bill. She’ll support farmers by negotiating a bipartisan Farm Bill without cuts to food stamps and including permanent funding for climate resilience grants that help farmers respond to the increasing threats of wildfires, droughts, and smoke-filled summers.

Every season, during critical harvesting and planting times, farmers are put in a lurch when equipment breaks, and they can’t get it fixed. This reality is made worse by restrictive contracts that prevent them from fixing their own equipment themselves. Carmela will fight for a national right-to-repair bill that requires original equipment manufacturers to provide information publicly that makes repairs accessible, so farmers can fix what they need when they need it.

Carmela is fighting for the families, small businesses, and farmers that are being squeezed by skyrocketing costs from inflation. Whether it’s veterans on food stamps, seniors on fixed incomes, young people looking to return home after college, or people starting a family, costs are pushing people out of our communities and putting them on a razor’s edge of losing their homes and livelihoods. Carmela will stand up to big pharma and cap out of control drug prices like insulin. She will fight to ensure these and other life-saving prescriptions cost no more than $2,000 a year for seniors on Medicare.

Carmela will work to lower prices by investing in affordable housing across eastern Washington and helping more families access lower rate mortgages. She’ll rebuild broken supply chains by revitalizing American manufacturing, putting an end to reckless trade wars, and preventing big corporations from looting family-owned businesses in our communities.

Carmela understands that high-quality apprenticeship programs help young people and working families access transformational, wealth-building opportunities in the trades. She’ll fight to ensure everyone can set their sights on a good-paying job by expanding federal support for apprenticeships and integrating programs with our local schools so more people can access them.

Thousands of childcare and early learning centers have shuttered their doors in the last few years, leaving families with an impossible choice: either lose essential income by staying home, or pay the equivalent of college tuition to send their kid to an expensive childcare center, if they can even find one. Restoring access to high-quality and affordable early learning will help working families participate in our economy, reduce racial and gender inequalities, and address one of the driving factors of the lack of affordability in our communities.

Carmela served as a deputy prosecutor in Spokane County where she worked alongside law enforcement to hold violent offenders accountable and fight for justice for survivors of sexual assault. She supports increasing funding for police training and recruitment so that local departments can achieve sustainable staffing levels and quick responses to priority calls. Carmela will fight for federal funding to create additional basic academy training centers in Eastern Washington to ease the bottleneck of new recruits entering the profession.

But being serious about safety is more than accountability for those who commit crimes, and justice for victims. It’s about funding good pre-K and K-12 public schools so that every child gets a good education suited to their needs. It’s about funding physical, dental, vision, and behavioral health care so that children grow up as strong and well as they can be. It’s about having an open economy with accessible infrastructure so that people are equipped to contribute to and benefit from being in the labor force. It’s no coincidence that crime drops when people have access to quality care and meaningful work.

Carmela knows that our law enforcement and firefighters are overtasked with being the first responders to any incident driven by substance abuse, mental health crises, and homelessness. She believes in funding and expanding alternatives utilizing mental health, de-escalation, and social work specialists, so police can focus on doing their jobs. So many of the additional tasks our first responders are being asked to do are because of a lack of investment in the right resources for the right group of people at the right time. In Congress, Carmela will work with localities to take a holistic approach to tackling crime, substance misuse, and supporting mental and behavioral health.