Put Families First
Cristina knows that no matter where we come from, the color of our skin, who we pray to, or who we love, we all want the same things for our kids – we want them to be safe and healthy, and to go to great schools to become all that they dream of.
Cristina believes we should put our families first and create great futures for our kids by working for:
Paid Parental Leave
There are just five countries in the world that don’t offer moms paid time off to be with their newborn babies – and the United States is one of them. Paid parental leave keeps parents and babies healthy and happy. It gives mom's much needed time to recover after childbirth and allows babies to spend time bonding with their parents, supporting their brain development and overall health.
Reproductive Rights
We should leave it to women and not politicians to decide when they are ready to make a family. A woman’s right to choose what is best for her body, her family, and her health is a guaranteed right under the U.S. Constitution and Roe v. Wade. Cristina believes we need to ensure that access to contraception and safe abortion are guaranteed in any health plan that she supports.
Healthy Families
Cristina believes that in the richest country in the world we should all be able to go to the doctor when we are sick and have the highest quality healthcare when we need it.
Cristina supports Medicare for All because it is the most efficient and cost effective way to make sure every American has quality healthcare, and it will allow small businesses and entrepreneurs to accelerate their growth instead of trying to worry about how to cover the cost of healthcare for themselves and their employees.
Medicare for All is one of the most popular policies in the country. Americans know that the current system we have is broken. By letting private insurance companies profit off our pain, illness, and injuries, we have created the most expensive healthcare system with some of the worst healthcare outcomes in the world. By any measure, our current system has failed us. Cristina believes our healthcare system should work for people, not for profit.
Universal Childcare and Pre-K
Currently, the average Texas family pays $9,324 a year just for childcare for an infant child. On average, that’s $777 per month. With universal childcare and Pre-K as a guaranteed right, Texans won’t have to choose between work and family, and every child will have better education and care.
Great Schools and 21st Century Education
Fully funding our education system, from kindergarten through college, and tackling the crisis of student debt is just basic common sense and sound economic policy. It means we invest in our greatest asset: our people.
Cristina believes we should make sure our kids go to great schools with great teachers by fully funding the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which currently does not adequately meet the needs of our students, and ensuring that teachers are compensated and trained like the professionals they are.
Regarding student debt, studies show that college graduates contribute on average $278,000 more into local economies over their lifetime than their non-college graduate counterparts. But the high cost of higher education poses a huge barrier for many students to get a college degree. In Texas, the average student graduating with their bachelor’s has $27,000 in debt. Right now, one in five borrowers are already in default on their loans, and by 2023 it is projected that 40% will be in default. Student debt will be our next big economic crisis – unless we take action.
That’s why Cristina supports canceling student debt for millions of Americans that are struggling to pay back their loans. Cristina also supports making public universities and community college tuition-free. We can build the strongest economy in the world by investing in the education and talent of the American people.
Build an Economy for Everyone
Cristina believes we must start measuring our economy not only by how big corporations are doing but by how well ordinary Americans are doing.
In Texas, we work hard. Texans work more hours on average than most Americans. But you wouldn’t know it if you looked inside most Texans pocketbooks. Almost 40 percent of Texans are making under $47,000 a year and struggle to pay their bills, let alone have financial security. Today around 60% of Americans have $1,000 or less in savings. That means sudden emergencies can easily leave families bankrupt.
Cristina believes we can build an economy for everyone by working to:
Give the American People A Raise
The American people need a raise. In Texas, our minimum wage is just $7.25 an hour. We need to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and ensure that it is tied to inflation. Wages should be based on the needs of American families, not on the inconsistency of political will in Washington.
Get Equal Pay for Women
Enact Equal Pay for Equal Work through the Paycheck Fairness Act so that we can close the gender pay gap that has left millions of women- especially Latina and African American women– behind.
Invest in Small Businesses
Small businesses are the engine of the U.S. economy. In Texas, small businesses represent over 99 percent of businesses and 45 percent of our workforce. Cristina believes we can ensure that Texas entrepreneurs succeed by increasing funding for the Small Business Administration to provide access to low-interest loans and other programs to support aspiring business owners.
Ensure Americans can Retire in Dignity and with Security
Half of American households over the age of 55 have no retirement savings. We must ensure older Americans and families can live in dignity and with security by supporting measures like the Social Security 2100 Act, which protects and strengthens social security for decades to come.
Create Good Jobs
America has and will create great jobs for the majority of Americans again. It starts with working to make every job a good job – one that pays a living wage, provides benefits/time off, and gives workers retirement security. The American people work hard and they should be compensated for it. Cristina supports expanding the rights of American workers to unionize to ensure they can negotiate fair wages and conditions with their employers.
We must fully fund the Department of Labor Wage and Hour, OSHA and the EEOC to ensure American workers’ rights are protected.
Guarantee Equal Rights
Despite what people like Ted Cruz or Governor Greg Abbott say, we all know that what’s best about Texas is our diversity. We are a state of 29 million, where people of color make up the majority of the population and around one in three Texans are like Cristina – immigrants or children of immigrants. Some of the most diverse cities in the country are right here in Texas.
As a country we have made tremendous strides to better protect the rights of marginalized communities – and when we take power we have the opportunity to build on this work and tackle real inequities that exist.
Cristina believes we must ensure our nation live up to our promise and guarantee all people the same rights and opportunities by working to:
Build a Just Criminal Justice System
Cristina recognizes that our current criminal legal system unfairly targets the low-income, and Black and brown communities, not only because of misguided policies like the Drug War, but also because of corporations that profit off of imprisonment.
Cristina supports the legalization of marijuana, as well as efforts to address the long-term harm done in communities of color such as expunging records of those with low-level marijuana offenses. She believes in abolishing private prisons and mandatory minimums, ensuring that our government invests in schools rather than prisons. Lastly, she supports federal abolition of the death penalty.
Reform our Immigration System
At the Workers Defense Project, Cristina spent a decade working alongside immigrant communities that lost their fingers, limbs, and lives while working to build our homes, our schools, and our roadways. She saw up close the cost of our immigration system, which is willing to accept undocumented workers’ labor – but not their humanity.
As Democrats, we have the opportunity to not just say what we're against – none of us are for putting children in cages – but also to say what we're for. Cristina supports extending citizenship to DREAMers, who are Americans in every way except on paper. But she also believes that in addition to the DREAMers, we need to legalize the status of the millions of hardworking and honest immigrants that have been part of our communities for years. We need an immigration system that allows future generations to come here safely and legally, that fills our labor needs, and that empowers all immigrants to live their full humanity as families and human beings.
Defend LGBTQ+ Rights
While the LGBTQ+ community has made tremendous strides in social acceptance, full acceptance and equality has not yet been realized. The LGBTQ+ community still experiences regular and legalized discrimination at work, in housing, and schools based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
Cristina believes that full equality for everyone in the LGBTQ+ community must be enshrined into federal law by supporting the Equality Act, which would prevent discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, which will make it illegal for anyone receiving Federal assistance to discriminate against LGBTQ children and families when placing children for adoption and foster care, the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act, which bans conversion therapy and the Do No Harm Act, which prohibits the use of personal religious beliefs as an excuse to discriminate.
Save Our Planet
As Texans, we don’t run away from big problems – we take them head-on. That’s exactly what we have to do on climate change.
In Texas, we’ve seen Houston underwater and agricultural communities suffer under unprecedented heat and drought. As the second-largest economy in the country with massive wind and solar potential, Cristina wants Texas to be a leader in our nation’s transition into a green energy future, because no state has more to lose or gain than Texas. Like 81% of Democrats, Cristina supports the Green New Deal, and when she ran for US Senate she crafted a 10-year plan for Green New Deal for Texas.
The Green New Deal lays the framework to make sure that our nation rises to the ambition necessary to tackle climate change, that oil and gas workers won’t be left behind, that we will create millions of good new green jobs, and that we will support oil and gas companies as we transition off of fossil fuels and grow in renewable green energy.
Protect Our Democracy
Our democracy was founded on a radical proposition: that ordinary people could come together and decide who had the best ideas to solve their problems and represent them. At the time, only white land-owning men had this political power. When we extended the vote to women, African Americans and other communities of color, we made our democracy more whole.
Today, real democracy is still a radical idea. That’s because real democracy means that there are no kings and that no one is above the law. That our government should belong to and serve us, the people. That it shall be ordinary Americans that get to decide whose ideas are best to solve their real-life problems, and that they will get to determine by their single and equal vote – regardless of their color, their income, their gender, or their sexual orientation – the best course for our nation.
That is why some people in power are so afraid of democracy. Because they do not believe in the power of us. They want a government that serves their interests, not ours, which is why we need to shield our democracy against ongoing voter suppression and international efforts to interfere in our elections.
When Cristina believes we must make it easy, safe and efficient for Americans to vote. Including making on-line voter registration and vote by mail universal in the U.S. and making election day a national federal holiday so everyone can participate easily and equally in our democracy.