Our PrioritiesEDUCATION
Great schools, stronger communities, brighter futures
Strong schools create strong communities. When Oregon invests in education, we’re not just funding classrooms; we’re building safer neighborhoods, stronger families, and brighter futures. Supporting students ensures every child has the opportunity to succeed, while lifting up the entire community with equity, opportunity, and shared prosperity.
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Fully funded schools strengthen communities, boost property values, reduce crime, and support a strong local economy. Investing in education means investing in Oregon’s future workforce, the nurses, teachers, and innovators of tomorrow. Public education is a public good, and it’s time we treated it like one.
When education experts outline what our schools need to thrive, we must listen and act. The Quality Education Model's recommendations are not mere suggestions; they are a moral imperative. Oregon's budget should prioritize bold, sustained investments in every student, teacher, and school.
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Oregon’s K-12 funding formula is stuck in the past, and it’s hurting our schools. Oregon’s school funding formula hasn’t been updated in over 20 years, even as student needs and local costs have changed dramatically. As a result, too many districts are left under-resourced and overburdened, forced to stretch inadequate budgets just to meet basic obligations.
An enrollment-based funding model doesn’t reflect the complexity of modern education. It’s time we adopt a needs-based approach that accounts for real costs. We need a formula that aligns dollars with the demands of today’s classrooms, not the population counts of yesterday.
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Research is clear: students learn best when teachers have the time and space to engage with them individually. In classrooms with more than 30 students, instructional quality drops, student support disappears, and educators are forced to prioritize discipline over teaching. To provide equitable, high-quality education for all, Oregon must reduce class sizes. Smaller class sizes aren’t a luxury; they're a necessity for student success.
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Oregon’s education system faces deep inequities that hold too many students back. Persistent graduation gaps, systemic barriers for marginalized groups, resource shortages, and the digital divide all reveal structural failures that demand action. To build a stronger future, we must reform our schools so every student has a fair shot at success. All students across our state deserve the same high-quality individualized instruction that students in District 38 have access to. Educational outcomes should not vary based on race or zipcode. Our schools should correct injustice, not reproduce it.
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Oregon’s schools should be the pride of our state, not an unfortunate statistic. Our schools are the single most effective lever for shaping a fairer, more prosperous future. When we underfund schools, we limit Oregon’s future, because today’s students are tomorrow’s nurses, teachers, and neighbors. The path forward begins with sustained investment, structural reform, and the political courage to prioritize education as the engine of Oregon’s progress.
COST OF LIVING
Affordability, dignity, and security
Oregon should be a place where everyone can put down roots and build a future. Rising housing costs, groceries, and basic necessities stretch budgets to the breaking point. Oregon deserves leaders who will fight for fair wages, affordable housing, and policies that put people before profits, building a state where everyone can thrive.
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Oregonians cannot reach their full potential, and our communities cannot thrive when families are one rent increase away from eviction. Affordable, stable housing is the foundation for opportunity, dignity, and economic mobility. Yet amid an escalating housing shortage and affordability crisis, renters are bearing the brunt. It’s time for bold, immediate action to ensure every Oregonian has access to a safe, secure, and affordable place to call home, regardless of income or zip code. Keeping people in their homes is the most effective homelessness prevention.
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Affordable housing is the foundation of thriving families, strong communities, and lasting economic opportunity. Affordable housing is essential for thriving families, economic mobility, and social cohesion. As our state faces an acute housing shortage and affordability crisis, we must take bold and immediate action to ensure all Oregonians have a safe, secure, and affordable place to call home.
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When water, gas, and electric bills feel like another mortgage payment, something’s gone wrong. Oregonians are working hard but utilities keep draining their paychecks. It's time to get serious about lowering costs, creating accountability, and putting people before profits. Oregonians deserve affordable utility bills and a climate-resilient future. These are reasonable guardrails that protect ratepayers and ensure essential services remain within reach, not anti-growth, just pro-accountability.
COMMUNITY SAFETY
Investing in people, building safer communities
True safety comes from compassion and solutions. Homelessness, overdoses, and untreated addiction harm our communities. We must expand treatment options and strengthen existing programs that prioritize care over punishment. Together, we can create safer neighborhoods by helping people heal, recover, and find stability and hope.
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The housing crisis isn’t just persisting, it's escalating. Every year, more individuals and families are pushed into homelessness by a combination of factors: skyrocketing housing costs, untreated mental illness, substance use disorders, poverty, job loss, systemic racism, domestic violence, family rejection, and the lasting barriers of a criminal record. But no matter the reason, we believe every person deserves a safe place to live, a chance to heal, and the opportunity to rebuild their life with dignity. The majority of those facing homelessness are temporarily displaced, and their situation should be seen as a setback, not a permanent sentence.
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Our response to the overdose crisis must begin with shared values: protecting our kids, keeping our neighborhoods safe, and bringing hope to families in pain. This epidemic isn’t abstract; it’s unfolding in our schools, parks, workplaces, and homes. Families are grieving. Communities are struggling. Parents are scared. And behind each statistic is a real person, often someone who never imagined their life would be touched by addiction.
Addiction is not a moral failure; it’s a complex, chronic disease that affects people from every walk of life. Addiction rewires the brain’s survival instincts and traps people in cycles they can’t break alone. Whether it's a lifelong athlete managing chronic pain, a veteran coping with trauma, or a neighbor facing housing instability and despair, no one is immune. We believe it’s time to meet this crisis with compassion and common sense.
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Medication-Assisted Treatment, or MAT, is the medical gold standard for treating opioid addiction. It combines FDA-approved medications, such as buprenorphine, methadone, or naltrexone, to block opioid receptors and reduce cravings, like a nicotine patch. These medicines are used with counseling and behavioral therapy to treat the whole person. These medications reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms, helping people regain stability and function in daily life. MAT is not replacing one drug with another; it's a clinically proven, evidence-based strategy that reduces the risk of overdose and supports long-term recovery.
Addiction is a disease, not a moral failure, and its solutions should reflect as much. Chemical dependence is the root cause of Oregon's ongoing drug crisis. We believe that the majority of people suffering from chemical dependence are struggling to overcome it and that they should be provided every opportunity to use medical best practices in that pursuit.
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We believe that deflection programs are essential to addressing substance use disorders by prioritizing treatment over incarceration. By fostering collaboration between law enforcement and behavioral health services, these programs create community-based pathways to recovery, reduce recidivism, and promote public safety. Our commitment is to support and expand such initiatives, ensuring they are accessible, effective, and equitable across all communities.
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Mental health is not an individual struggle; it’s a shared responsibility. By building community-based care, investing in prevention, and ensuring access to recovery support, we can meet this crisis together and create a system that finally works for everyone. We stand for rebuilding Oregon’s mental health system from the ground up: expanding treatment beds, funding crisis response, strengthening prevention in schools, and ensuring no family is left without care. These problems are big, but they’re not unsolvable. Other states have turned things around, and so can Oregon. What’s missing isn’t compassion, it’s leadership and urgency.
DEMOCRACY
Modern systems, expanded rights, and robust civic engagement
Democracy’s strength lies in the people, not the politicians. When citizens participate, collaborate, and hold leaders accountable, society becomes more resilient, representative, and inclusive. Building and fostering democratic systems that give direct power to the people has been a hallmark of Oregonian society since the beginning. In today’s polarized world, building a stronger democracy means more people making decisions for themselves, rather than waiting for politicians to do it for them.
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A Citizens’ Assembly is a group of everyday residents, randomly selected to reflect the diversity of a community, who come together to study an issue and recommend real solutions. Members receive background materials, hear from experts, and engage in small-group discussions before offering shared, values-based recommendations. Assemblies don’t make laws; they inform them, giving leaders direct insight into what communities need. Oregon has long led in participatory democracy, from being the first in the nation to directly elect its senators to a robust ballot measure system to Bend’s 2023 Citizens’ Assembly on housing that showed how communities can find common ground on urgent challenges.
We believe that democracy doesn’t stop at the ballot box. Oregonians want to be part of the solutions, and Citizens’ Assemblies offer a proven model for inclusive, informed, and collaborative public input. When residents have a seat at the table, we get smarter policy and stronger community trust. This isn’t about replacing elected leaders, it’s about making the government more responsive, more grounded, and more real.
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We believe that Oregonians deserve a democracy that listens, not just when it’s convenient, but when it’s hard. Ballot measures are the people’s veto, the people’s voice, and the people’s plan. Instead of chipping away at the initiative process, we should be modernizing and expanding it, while protecting it from manipulation by outside interests.
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We believe in strong, safe, and welcoming communities where every child can grow up with purpose, every family can participate in democracy, and no one is targeted because of who they are or what they believe. The rise in political extremism, both at the state and personal level, isn’t just a national issue, it’s a local one. And addressing it means investing in prevention, education, and resilience. This isn’t about left or right. It’s about right and wrong, and it’s about making sure Oregon remains a place where democracy thrives and everyone feels they belong.
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SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
Building Oregon’s future with balanced, resilient, and sustainable economic growth
Sustainable growth means strengthening Oregon’s economy without leaving communities behind. By investing in clean energy, local businesses, modern community safety approaches, and modern infrastructure, we can create good-paying jobs while protecting natural resources and our communities. This balanced approach builds resilience, supports families, and ensures long-term prosperity for every corner of our state.
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Recovery is a process that takes time and support. When neighbors have jobs and help, they don’t reoffend, making us all safer. To build safer communities and stronger families, we must connect the systems that leave people behind. This is not just a values issue; it’s about workforce development, public safety, and economic growth.
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Career & Technical Education (CTE) isn’t just an alternative to college; it’s a rigorous, hands-on pathway that opens doors to technical degrees, entrepreneurship, and in-demand careers. While many students thrive in college, nearly half of Oregon graduates take a different path, and they deserve the same level of preparation and support. At the same time, our state faces urgent workforce shortages in key industries. CTE connects motivated students with the skills and credentials to meet these needs, fueling our economy and giving every student a chance to build a strong, purpose-driven future.
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We support smart, targeted investments that help local employers modernize, reduce energy bills, and compete in a changing economy, while creating good-paying jobs and building long-term wealth across Oregon. By backing local entrepreneurs ready to lead, we strengthen middle-class security and keep Oregon on the frontlines of innovation.
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