What We’re Fighting For

An Economy That Works for The Working Class

  • For too long, corporate profits have skyrocketed while worker pay and benefits stagnate. Every transformational event in the last twenty years, from the housing crisis and recession of the late 2000s to the massive influx of power-hungry data centers, has led to more wealth being stolen from the working class by the ruling class. 

    In Georgia, those effects are particularly pronounced due to weak worker protections, brutal anti-union policies, seemingly unlimited tax breaks for big business, and a state legislative body that is more beholden to corporate PAC money than their own voters. 

    • Raise Georgia’s minimum wage to $20

    • Extend bargaining rights to more workers and make it easier to unionize

    • Repeal so-called “right-to-work” laws which make it almost impossible for workers to demand better wages, benefits and working conditions

    • Mandate that tech companies pay the full cost of increased energy generation needed to power data centers

    • End the billion dollar subsidies for data centers

    • Establish mandatory paid leave laws to include a minimum of 12 weeks of parental leave and 20 days of PTO per year

    • Establish a progressive tax system so that households making $50,000 no longer pay the same rate as households making $5 million

A Roof OVer Every Head

  • Housing is a human right. A home is one of the most fundamental needs for us all, whether it’s a house you own, an apartment you rent, or anything else in between. The American Dream has long been centered on owning a home but with every passing year, buying a home has become more expensive as corporations greedily buy up housing stock while offers from young families face rejection after rejection.

    At the same time, renters in Georgia are subjected to some of the harshest conditions in the country because our laws are so skewed to benefit landlords. Property owners, often out of state, continue to rake in record profits with no legal obligation to provide even a bare amount of support to their tenants. That problem is particularly pronounced in District 57, where nearly half of renters are spending more than 30% of their income on housing.

    • Expand the State Housing Trust Fund to eliminate homelessness

    • Ban corporations from buying single-family homes

    • Mandate that corporations pay their fair share of property taxes

    • Establish a Tenants’ Bill of Rights, which would guarantee fair applications, fair leases, freedom from discrimination, and a habitable home

A Healthy Georgia

  • Health care is a human right. Georgia is one of just 10 states that has refused to expand Medicaid for over a decade, which has left nearly half a million people uninsured who would otherwise have coverage. Even for those covered by health insurance, anyone who has attempted to file a claim knows that getting care and paying for it is often expensive, confusing, and time-intensive. 

    When you’re at your most vulnerable in the hospital, ibuprofen shouldn’t cost $60, eye drops shouldn’t cost $240, and an emergency room visit after your child broke their leg at soccer practice shouldn’t put your family at risk of bankruptcy. Our health care system is broken at its very core, with even preventative care out of reach for millions of people. It should come as no surprise that the ongoing failure of our leaders to act on any of these problems has resulted in Georgia being the worst state for health care in the nation.

    • Fully expand Medicaid immediately

    • Increase public health funding for local health departments

    • Modernize Georgia’s public benefits eligibility and enrollment infrastructure

    • Strengthen enforcement of Georgia’s Mental Health Parity Act

    • Require health facilities to provide written notice of facility fees to patients prior to receiving services

Transform Transit, maximizE Mobility

  • We each only get one life to live and all of us are wasting far too much of it sitting in traffic. Metro Atlanta is one of the worst cities in the country for commuters, with the average commuter spending a full 11 days of that precious time per year driving to and from work, which doesn’t even include the weekend traffic that is increasingly paralyzing the city.

    That has real impacts on people’s health, both for those doing the driving and the communities that have tens of thousands of cars pumping exhaust into their neighborhoods every day. Longer commutes have been linked to everything from higher blood pressure to higher rates of domestic violence, making life worse for everyone subjected to rush hour on 14 lane highways.

    • Dedicate state funding to MARTA to pursue capital projects, expand access, and improve reliability

    • Eliminate the constitutional prohibition on using gas taxes for public transit

    • Adopt a Statewide Active Transportation Plan to provide support for more transportation options that are safe, connected, and convenient for people of all abilities, ages, and backgrounds

    • Pursue commuter rail projects along critical Georgia corridors like Atlanta-Athens and Atlanta-Savannah

Educating Every Child

  • The quality of a child’s education shouldn’t be dependent on their parents’ income or the ZIP code into which they were born. In Georgia, however, that is almost always the case as we are one of only six states that does not specifically allocate state funds to provide students living in poverty with the same basic education that all children deserve. To guarantee a brighter future for everyone in our state, we have a responsibility to make sure every single one of our students has plenty of school supplies, modern textbooks, and a hot meal for breakfast and lunch. 

    As we give students the support they need to learn, we also need to empower our teachers to do what they do best - teach. Our educators, who have some of the most critical jobs in this state, have been blindsided by attacks from right-wing extremists in our own government who would sooner ban a book than open one. And now, Republicans at the Capitol are trying to cripple public education by eliminating their main source of revenue.

    • Provide additional state funding to all students living in poverty to fully meet their educational needs

    • Invest in universal Pre-K programs so that they are free to all families

    • Repeal current voucher programs that divert money from struggling public schools and invest those funds into the places that need it most

    • Increase teacher pay so that all teachers are paid a living wage from the first time they step foot into a classroom

    • Repeal any freeze on property valuations for school funding purposes

Improving Public safety Through Opportunity, Not Oppression

  • There are few states in the country with a crueler correctional system than Georgia. Almost 100,000 people in Georgia are behind bars, a number which has only been inflated by the recent authoritarian raids conducted by ICE agents. Our prisons and jails are overstuffed, understaffed, and crumbling due to neglect. This problem is particularly pronounced for people of color, who suffer from far higher incarceration rates than white Georgians. Despite making up only 31% of our population, Black Georgians represent nearly 60% of our prison population. 

    We will never meaningfully reduce or eliminate crime without addressing its root causes. To make every neighborhood in our state safer and more prosperous, we need to ensure every Georgian has access to food, shelter, mental health care, and the opportunity to build a better life, beginning from the moment they’re born.

    • Decriminalize drug offenses which are overwhelmingly used to target and harass people of color 

    • Reduce the number of people on probation by limiting the length of sentencing

    • Pass Clean Slate Reform which will automate the sealing of criminal records for those who have completed their sentence and remain crime-free

    • Repeal Georgia’s mandatory cash bond law which creates a separate tier of justice for people in poverty

Reproductive Freedom

  • Reproductive rights are human rights. Even before Georgia passed its draconian abortion ban, women in this state suffered from sky high maternal mortality rates, the vast majority of which were preventable. Now, as a woman’s right to choose has been taken away in our state by far-right men who continue to enjoy unmitigated control over their own bodies, access to care has only grown more difficult. 

    Pro-birth is not the same thing as pro-life. To be pro-life, women must have full control over their own future and make family planning decisions for themselves. To be pro-life, we have to be just as invested in the survival of a child outside the womb as inside of it. To be pro-life means to not just recognize the value of every life, but to support a healthy livelihood for all people at all ages.

    • Repeal Georgia’s six-week abortion ban

    • Pass the Reproductive Freedom Act

    • Expand eligibility and enhance benefits for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) programs

    • Require private insurers to cover fertility treatment care

    • Expand comprehensive perinatal healthcare coverage

    • Extend post-partum Medicaid to 12 months

Guarantee LGBTQIA+ Rights

  • Georgia’s LGBTQ+ population, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, has always been subjected to harassment and discrimination. Even the handful of gains that have been made in the last few decades are under attack as bigoted extremists work to pass legislation under the false guise of religious freedom or, more recently, fairness in children’s sports. There is no justification for denying same-sex couples the freedom to adopt a child nor is there any good reason to stop trans youth from receiving gender-affirming care.

    • Enshrine non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ Georgians to protect access to family planning, health care, housing, employment, and education

    • Ban exclusions for trans people in health insurance service coverage

    • Expand anti-bullying laws to explicitly cover LGBTQ+ students

    • Ban conversion therapy

Racial & Economic Justice

  • Our nation has never truly reckoned with its legacy of racism and inequality. Centuries of slavery and segregation deprived Black families of generations of wealth-building and prosperity and even the handful of programs that were created to close the gap are now under assault. As a result of both historic and modern injustices, Black families have barely one-tenth the average household wealth as white families. 

    Meanwhile, even before the Trump administration’s inhumane immigration crackdown began, Hispanic families also faced immense hurdles to success. Georgia is home to one of the most diverse populations in the country yet hundreds of thousands of Georgia residents of all stripes are being intentionally blocked from building a better life for no reason other than the color of their skin or the place they were born.

    • Pass the Georgia Civil Rights Act

    • Create a Georgia Baby Bond program 

    • Offer in-state tuition to ALL Georgia residents regardless of immigration status

    • Expand free child care access

    • Restrict transfers of people in jail to ICE

    • Ban discriminatory profiling which disproportionately targets Black and Hispanic Georgians

Protecting OUr Environment

  • Georgia is home to some of the most incredible natural features you can find anywhere in the world, from the soaring Appalachian Mountains to the murky waters of the Okefenokee Swamp. We have over 70,000 miles of rivers and streams, over 20 million acres of forests, and a stretch of coastline that is home to countless vulnerable species. 

    Every single one of those resources is threatened by polluting corporations that would gladly dump their waste in our backyards just to save a few bucks. Climate change is already straining our state with more frequent and devastating disasters. But, rather than recognize our shared need for healthy agricultural lands, clean water, and breathable air, our state leaders continue to prioritize the needs of a handful of corporate donors over our most vulnerable communities.

    • Increase deployment of renewable energy, including solar and offshore wind

    • Invest in public transportation instead of endlessly expanding highways

    • Hold corporations accountable for illegal dumping and pollution

    • Expand the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Act (GOSA)

    • Ban mining near local, state, and national parks