HIGH RECOMMENDATION: Mckayla Wilkes - Maryland - U.S. Congress - District 5

Mckayla Wilkes - Maryland

U.S. Congress - District 5

I am running to represent the interests of the people, rather than those of corporate America.

I will fight for affordable housing, Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, criminal justice reform, expanded voting rights, and more. I share the perspective of ordinary people in southern Maryland.

I understand the burden of the rising costs of home ownership and the failures of our healthcare system. I grasp the immense need to tackle climate change and realize that we are the last generation who has a chance to do it. I have faced the abuses of the criminal justice system firsthand, and will work to end the exploitative rot which is the prison-industrial complex. I will work to expand voting rights and voter turnout in Maryland District 5 and nationwide. My campaign, unlike Congressman Hoyer's, will be powered entirely by people.

A VOTE FOR MCKAYLA IS A VOTE FOR US

Mckayla Wilkes

Medicare for All

It's time to stop playing political games with the health of the American people. As establishment politicians propose tepid health reform plans, insurance companies and Big Pharma continue to run thousands of desperate American families into bankruptcy. Compared to the rest of the industrialized world, America's health insurance regime is one of our greatest national embarrassments. Let's learn from Obamacare: Expanding public health insurance works, trying to accommodate the greed of the health industry doesn't. A Medicare For All program would insure every single American, no matter their economic status, restore justice to health care delivery, and even save us money over the long run. We need to elect politicians, like Mckayla, who share a simple moral conviction: When you go to the doctor, it should be free.

Climate Change

Climate change is an existential threat. It's no longer a problem for the future — it's a problem for the here and now. Wildfires consume much of the West Coast and hurricanes pummel some of America's largest coastal cities. Sea-level rise threatens population centers around the world, and states such as Maryland with long coastlines are particularly at risk. The defining issue of our times demands transformational action.

The Humanist Report - Mckayla Wilkes

Green New Deal

A Green New Deal can tackle two pressing — and deeply intertwined — crises: an environmental crisis of rising global temperatures, and an economic crisis of gross inequality and stagnant wages. We need a ten-year national economic mobilization that would decarbonize the economy, put millions of Americans to work building the energy infrastructure of the future, and ensure equity and fairness. Powerful officials, like Steny Hoyer, who attempt to put a brake on aggressive climate efforts need to get out of the way.

Criminal Justice

The inequities that define America's criminal justice system are not there by accident. The over-policing and disproportionate incarceration of black and brown Americans is an extension of a legacy of white supremacy. The United States' broken justice system ravages our most vulnerable communities while for-profit prison executives get rich off cheap prison labor. Families are driven to financial ruin by exorbitant cash bail requirements, and many low-income Americans are pressured into taking unjust plea deals because they don't have the resources to adequately defend themselves in court.

Our criminal justice system must be one of rehabilitation, not punishment. It must stop going after people of color for low-level drug offenses and make it easier for low-income individuals to defend themselves. Mass incarceration and the "War on Drugs" has been a failure; it's time for a new era in American criminal justice.

Healing Our Democracy

The Trump Administration has made it brutally obvious: Our democracy is in desperate need of repair. Members of Congress roll out of office and into lucrative lobbying and consulting groups. Right-wing ideologues systematically disenfranchise African-Americans, immigrants, and the poor, and the Supreme Court levels attack after attack on voting rights. Representatives like Steny Hoyer pocket massive checks from private interests like Big Pharma, defense contractors, and fossil fuel companies to do their bidding in Congress. It's no wonder why millions of Americans stay home on election day. Mckayla believes that an aggressive reform agenda is necessary if the United States is to realize its democratic potential.

Immigration

Immigrant communities should be able to live, work, and attend school free of fear. That reality is impossible so long as ICE roams our communities tearing families apart, border officials put young children in cages, and millions of undocumented Americans are forced to live in the shadows. The Trump administration's immigration enforcement policies have rightly been derided as cruel and inhumane. But callousness toward immigrants has been a matter of bipartisan consensus long before 2017. That consensus must end. We need to dismantle institutions like Immigration and Customs Enforcement that terrorize immigrant communities and work to bring our undocumented neighbors out from the shadows.

You can see the rest of Mckayla's platform HERE.

Mckayla is running as who she is, for who we are.

Mckayla is running as a progressive primary challenger to Steny Hoyer in MD-05. She is running to fight for a fairer, equitable society that does not leave anyone behind and is not beholden to powerful, moneyed interests. She is fighting for ambitious policies in affordable housing, Medicare for All, climate justice and criminal justice.

If you can, consider becoming a part of this movement today!

A Progressive Candidates Campaign