A living document. The positions below are the most detailed version of what Janelle would carry into the Senate. They will be revised when the facts revise. They will not be revised when the polls revise.
Median rent in Los Angeles County is up 47 percent since 2019. The federal housing toolkit is rationed at a fraction of what is needed.
Codify the protections the 2023 Blueprint described but never enforced: source-of-income protection, transparent screening criteria, the right to organize without retaliation, a federal floor that California can build above.
A baseline of just-cause protections on all federally backed mortgages, GSE-financed properties, and LIHTC units, with private right of action when a landlord violates it.
A graduated federal excise tax on any institutional investor with more than 50 single-family homes, with the receipts directed to first-time-buyer down-payment assistance.
Double the annual 9 percent credit allocation, restore the unused 4 percent credit, and tie the increase to a basis-boost in markets where median rent exceeds 35 percent of median income.
Janelle spent fourteen years litigating against the worst of state-level voting restrictions. The legislative answer is the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, the Freedom to Vote Act, and a Senate that will let them pass.
Pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act with the updated coverage formula. Restore federal preclearance for jurisdictions with a recent record of voting violations.
Pass the Freedom to Vote Act. Automatic registration, two weeks of early voting, no-excuse mail voting, same-day registration, restored voting rights for citizens with prior felony convictions.
Reform the filibuster as it applies to voting-rights legislation. The most basic right cannot be the one bill held hostage to a procedural rule the Constitution does not require.
Make threats against election workers a federal crime with mandatory minimum sentencing. Federal funding for jurisdiction-level election-worker security. Privacy protections for home addresses.
California leads the nation in clean-energy jobs. The federal infrastructure to support them has not kept pace.
A federal requirement that any project receiving more than $5 million in IRA, IIJA, or CHIPS funding operate under a PLA. The clean economy will be union-built or it will not be built.
A $4 billion expansion of Department of Labor registered apprenticeship funding, with a set-aside for community-college-anchored programs in clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and broadband construction.
A federal Climate Corps that pays prevailing local wage, offers health benefits, and provides a pathway into registered apprenticeship or a federal climate-resilience job after two years of service.
A FEMA rebuild-versus-retreat framework with the math out in the open. Federal dollars follow the science, not the politics of the moment.
Twenty million people are eligible for ACA coverage and not enrolled because the premiums, after subsidy, still exceed what they can afford. The fix is not a slogan.
The enhanced premium tax credits are the single most effective coverage expansion of the past decade. Permanence ends the year-by-year cliff that keeps the lowest-income enrollees off the rolls.
A Medicare-administered public plan on every state exchange, paying providers Medicare-plus rates and competing on price with private insurers. Co-sponsor from week one.
Lift the negotiation cap from 20 drugs by 2029 to all single-source brand drugs above a defined Medicare-spend threshold. Apply the negotiated price to commercial markets, not only Medicare.
A private right of action for parity violations. A federal audit program with the budget to enforce it. The 2008 parity law has been on the books for almost two decades; it needs an enforcement arm.
The post-Dobbs landscape is a patchwork. Federal law can set a floor.
Pass the Women's Health Protection Act. Re-establish the federal statutory right to abortion care.
A federal statutory right to travel across state lines for legal medical care, including abortion, IVF, and gender-affirming care.
Reaffirm the FDA's authority on mifepristone scheduling. Cover mifepristone under Medicaid where state law does not preempt.
A federal floor on over-the-counter contraception access at zero out-of-pocket cost on all federally regulated insurance plans.
The Senate is the slowest body in the federal government by design. The design can be improved.
End the silent filibuster. If a senator wants to block a bill, that senator can stand and speak. The procedural cost should match the substantive cost.
A statutory code of conduct for the Supreme Court, enforced by the Judicial Conference, with a private right of action for parties affected by an unrecused conflict.
A regularized, predictable schedule of confirmations. Two nominations per presidential term, full stop.
A small-dollar matching system modeled on New York City's. Six-to-one match on contributions up to $200 from in-state donors, indexed to inflation.