Priorities
Improved Healthcare for Texans
A healthy community benefits us all. Unfortunately, between 15 and 20% of all citizens do not have health insurance in towns across District 17. This number has increased in the past four years. Those of us who do have insurance often see increasing premiums charged by for-profit, publicly traded insurance companies. These are unacceptable realities in the unprecedented times we live in, exacerbated further by a global pandemic. Now is the time to embrace science-based preventative medicine, including an expansion of mental health benefits, substance abuse treatment, and trauma prevention care.
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Unlike her opponent, Madi supports ensuring that all Texans have access to quality affordable healthcare. She is in favor of expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which will bring healthcare coverage to 1.6 million Texans. Why does this matter?
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A Medicaid option protects people from dying of preventable diseases in the richest country on Earth.
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It provides a not-for-profit option on the market, and would force insurance companies to lower their premiums to compete.
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Our hospitals will no longer have to push emergency room costs onto other insured patients.
Educational Opportunity for Texas Children
Even though Texas is one of America’s richest states, it scores 36th in spending per student. We have high turnover rates for teachers, and one of the lowest graduation rates in the country.
Texans built this economy. We deserve to offer great schools and amazing opportunities for all of our kids. Madi will work to provide better education opportunities for all Texans, including:
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Voting against efforts to promote “school choice” vouchers, which cripple our public school system, and ensuring that the rich can subsidize their expensive private schools.
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Fighting to fund statewide high quality, full-day Pre-K childcare.
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Working to improve public school education standards, to help provide and exemplary educational experience for every student.
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Supporting affordable tuition programs at Texas’s major public universities, and free community college for those pursuing the trades
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Overturning our current testing policies, which kill the joy of learning and unnecessarily punish underserved communities.
Environmental Policies that Protect Our Communities
Energy companies are important, but they shouldn’t be able to use their lawyers and lobbyists to bully everyday Texans. Nobody wants a pipeline running through their backyard, or a toxic waste dump near their kids’ schools. We don’t want to lose our homes due to the devastating floods caused by climate change. No Texan should get a disease because of a company’s careless policies. We shouldn’t watch as our property values and communities are crushed because we didn’t have the big lawyers to fight them.
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Madi supports a new energy economy for Texas, including:
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Legislation that prevents energy lawyers and lobbyists from violating your rights to a clean environment.
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State intervention to prevent developers from building in the floodplains and wetlands that protect us from devastating storms.
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Protection for low income and communities of color, who often bear the brunt of environmental devastation.
Water Rights
Our water supply is critical to the growth and prosperity of our local communities. Texas has an inefficient and complicated regulatory process for groundwater management. Our systems lack essential protections for residents and property owners. Commercial organizations (water marketers) are allowed to exploit the “rule of capture” and drain our local aquifers. They pump the water out from under our communities for the purposes of export and profit. We desperately need to implement legal protections to ensure that our irreplaceable aquifers will still be usable by future generations. As your state representative, Madi will work to create and implement additional legislative protections for our essential resources.
Fair and Equitable Justice Reforms
Have you ever lost sleep at night because we weren’t locking up occasional pot smokers and unregistered voters? Neither has Madi. Texas courts and jails are packed with people who committed minor nonviolent offenses. This causes unnecessary hardships for families, and an expensive tax burden for the rest of us. Many of these people have yet to face trial, and sit in jail merely because they cannot afford the bond – making them more likely to lose their jobs, access to their children, and families.
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Madi supports criminal justice reforms that are founded on equity, fairness, and common sense. This means:
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An end to “tough on crime” policies that don’t keep us safe, and unfairly target people of color.
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An end to cash bail, and an end to the pre-trial release process that costs Texas taxpayers millions of dollars.
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Prohibiting the jailing of Class B misdemeanors, and instead adopt a cite-and-release policy statewide.
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Legalization and decriminalization of marijuana, and all marijuana-related charges.
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Prohibiting county sheriff’s offices from conducting ICE raids and similarly racist, targeted sweeps of our neighborhoods.
Accessible Broadband Internet for Everyone
Internet access is a necessity in today’s economy, which has never been more obvious than it is today. Unfortunately, District 17 has a limited number of internet providers, ensuring that its citizens pay too much for service that leaves a lot to be desired. Representatives at broadband and telecommunication companies now run the FCC. They regulate the internet we receive, and have ensured that only the rich can receive the bandwidth rates that other developed nations have by default.
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Enough is enough. Madi will fight to have high speed broadband designated as a critical utility across District 17, and to help find funding to bring the infrastructure needed to make it happen.
Districts that Represent You
Texas is one of the most diverse states in the country, and yet our representatives consistently pander to special interests. They give corporate kickbacks to big businesses and leave Texans behind to foot the bill. Gerrymandering is at the root of this behavior, and it’s an age old problem. Every 10 years in Texas, the politicians get to chose their future voters, instead of the other way around. Texas has been so carved up that it’s almost impossible for most of us to feel like we’re being adequately represented!
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This is why Madi will work to create legislation that prevents gerrymandering and a corrupt system that leaves too many Texans out of the political process. She supports a process that many other states have adopted to resolve the gerrymandering issue. Taking the responsibility of drawing new district lines away from the politicians and forming an independent, non-partisan commission to oversee the redistricting processes.
Firearms
Madi supports the second amendment and believes in every American's right to bear arms. She has her CHL and is out at the range several times a year. However, she also believes that we must come together to pass common-sense reforms like universal background checks for sales, and closing the "boyfriend loophole" to prohibit anyone convicted of assault, battery, or stalking from purchasing or possessing firearms.
