ON THE ISSUES | Jonah Garson for NC Senate

Even before the rise of MAGA authoritarianism, North Carolina was ground zero for voter suppression, map-rigging, and for attacks on American democracy. If we’re going to restore functional democracy and rule of law here and across the U.S., we need to:

Free our NC boards of election from hyper-partisan MAGA control.
End gerrymandering to ensure meaningful political representation for every community.
Make Election Day a federal holiday.
Allow for same-day voter registration through Election Day.
Guarantee two weeks of early voting, including Sunday voting.
Provide universal mail-in voting (everyone gets a ballot by mail they can use or not).
End lifetime tenure for federal judges.
Place new limits on Article II Presidential power, including the power to authorize military force without congressional approval or oversight.
Create a blue ribbon commission to propose Constitutional reforms to strengthen American democracy.
End 287-g co-option of local law enforcement by ICE.
Abolish ICE and form a new federal immigration agency we can trust.
Abolish the filibuster.
End Citizens United and take big $$$ out of our politics.

Taxes

Almost all of us are paying too much, while the super-rich and corporations are paying less and less. We can fully fund free healthcare, pre-k, and other programs if the super-rich and corporations had to pony up like the rest of us. We need to:

Restore a progressive income tax system in North Carolina where the very wealthy and profitable corporations pay their fair share and where almost all of us pay less.
Restore the Earned Income Tax Credit in North Carolina.
Repeal Trump’s tax cuts for the superrich and profitable corporations.
Reduce community dependence on local property taxes through proper state funding, and give local jurisdictions greater authority to diversify their tax bases.

Healthcare

All of us should have free, high-quality healthcare as a right. Congress should pass Medicare for All (or something better). Until it does, here in North Carolina, we need to:

Maintain Medicaid Expansion for the hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians who cannot afford private health insurance, yet have been denied access to quality healthcare services by North Carolina’s GOP leadership for the past decade.
Make healthcare more affordable for all our citizens by holding insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and providers accountable.
Address existing inequities in our healthcare system by supporting community-based healthcare programs designed to address social determinants of health.
Increase funding for vaccine programs across the state.
Stabilize and save rural hospitals across the state.
Increase funding for behavioral health care and addiction support programs.

Reproductive Healthcare

Reproductive healthcare is healthcare. Healthcare is a right (see above). Politicians have no business undermining that right. As our state senator, I will:

Work to defeat any legislation undermining the right to choose.
Fight to guarantee the right to an abortion in our state constitution, and to repeal existing barriers to abortion enacted by the MAGA-controlled General Assembly.
Support increased public funding for family planning and teen pregnancy services.
Advocate for expanded access to menstrual health products for teens, people experiencing homelessness, and other vulnerable populations.

K-12 & Early Childhood Education

Every North Carolinian has a constitutional right to high-quality education. We deserve great public schools that serve all students equitably and where teachers and staff are properly valued and empowered. Here in North Carolina, we need to:

Enforce Leandro, and dramatically increase per-pupil spending and early childhood education and literacy opportunities for children ages 0-5.
Dramatically increase pay for public school teachers, teaching assistants and support staff, with pay scales rewarding teachers with advanced degrees and experience.
Develop new state-funded programs to recruit and retain teachers of color.
Stop allowing wealthy private school parents to use vouchers to steal public tax dollars from public school students.
Oppose measures to censor teachers on issues pertaining to our country’s history.
Provide free, universal school lunch in every corner of our state.
Provide free, universal pre-k in every corner of our state.

Our Community Colleges

They do great work meeting people where they are, offering the education and training to help them realize their dreams. We can do better by them. We need to:

Make community college free for students who meet attainable academic benchmarks, so that community college is affordable for all working families.
Further develop innovative, community-rooted private-public partnerships to prepare North Carolinians for the jobs of today and tomorrow.
Expand the ability of students to move between our community college and university system, so that they can receive the education that’s the best fit for achieving their goals.

Our Public Universities

They’re crown jewels of American higher education, central to the intellectual, economic, and cultural life of our state. We need them to prepare generations of students to engage in critical inquiry and scientific pursuit, free from political censorship and interference. That means:

UNC system governance reform to end destructive political interference and ensure the independence that will allow them to serve the people for generations to come.
A comprehensive vision for inclusive, equitable higher education in the state, promoting programs to recruit and retain faculty at all of our UNC system schools.
Free tuition, cost of living support, and student loan forgiveness for students who need that economic support.
Increased state funding to help keep student tuition costs and fees low.

Our Farm Families & The Farm Loss Epidemic

We’ve lost farmland faster than any other state, and our farmers make half as much per acre as other leading farm states. If we’re going to farming as a way of life, we need to:

Increase support to help farms transition to more profitable crops, and to help diversify their crops to manage risk.
Address the affordable housing crisis in towns and suburbs that is eating up farmland.
Invest in better regional infrastructure to help farmers bring their crops to market.
Close loopholes on labor protections for farm workers.
Expand smart investments in agritourism for farm families to supplement their incomes.
Create programs to help farmers respond to our changing climate.
End destructive tariff programs sowing chaos in the market.

Food Security

North Carolina is 10th in the nation in food insecurity; nearly 600,000 households don’t have enough to eat every day. That’s unacceptable. To address this crisis, we need to:

Repeal the state’s harsh laws kicking people off of SNAP benefits after three months.
Protect categorical eligibility so lower-income families with high expenses can retain their food assistance benefits.
Invest in better infrastructure to integrate our agricultural sector with community food assistance programs.

Labor & Employment

We all have a right to a living wage and to feel safe at our jobs. We must build an inclusive, 21st-century economy that allows all people to thrive. That means:

Raising the minimum wage to over $15 per hour and expanding unemployment benefits.
Paid family and medical leave to support families and caregivers.
Equitable investment in community workforce training, apprenticeship programs, and supports for small businesses.
Better workplace protections for all workers, including pay equity, and protections against workplace discrimination and sexual harassment.
Strengthened collective bargaining and the repeal of “right to work” in North Carolina.

Intellectual & Developmental Differences ("I/DD")

North Carolinians with I/DD have a right to the resources they need to live independent lives and thrive in their home communities whenever possible, and to receive top-quality support wherever they reside. Here in North Carolina, we need to:

Dramatically reduce the Registry of Unmet Needs waitlist so that more individuals with I/DD can receive support through the N.C. Innovations Waiver.
Increase funding for I/DD support personnel in schools.
Invest in inclusive, affordable, intentional housing communities where individuals with I/DD are integrated with non-I/DD individuals.
Increase funding for and oversight of institutional settings for I/DD individuals who need such high-quality institutional settings to live their best lives.
Increase pay and training for support professionals working with I/DD communities.

The Housing Crisis

Housing should be a human right, not a commodity available only to those with means to afford it. To make affordable housing available to every North Carolinian, we need to:

Expand income-based property tax relief and increase funding for and oversight of more equitable property tax reevaluation processes.
Advocate for land use policy that allows our towns and cities to pursue equitable infill development to increase the amount and diversity of sustainable, affordable housing.
Support rapid rehousing programs where people experiencing temporary homelessness are quickly housed and provided temporary services and financial assistance to bring them out of homelessness quickly.
Enact comprehensive Housing First policies, and expand current supportive housing so that people who have experienced chronic homelessness can have a place to live with support they need, rather than relying on emergency rooms and jails for services.
Increase state funding for emergency rent assistance statewide.
Reinvest in our North Carolina Housing Trust Fund.

Public Safety & Policing

We need holistic approaches to keep our communities safe that recognize and address the root causes of crime and violence, and that do not just treat symptoms. That means:

A criminal justice system that seeks treatment, not punishment, for people with mental and behavioral health needs and that ends the cycle of recidivism.
Increased law enforcement training designed to address implicit racial bias.
An end to “qualified immunity.”
Summer jobs, apprenticeship programs, and leadership development opportunities for young people living in vulnerable communities.
Civilian first-responder corps to answer calls from people in mental health crisis, where law enforcement is ill-suited to respond.

Climate Action, Conservation, & Environmental Justice

Ignoring a crisis doesn’t make it go away. North Carolina needs to take bold climate action, now. That means:

Measures to move North Carolina to zero-emissions energy generation.
Robust electric vehicle incentives and develop charging infrastructure to reduce emissions in our transportation sector.
Increased access to weatherization and other in-home programs to reduce energy consumption and lower power bills.
More resilient infrastructure development across the state that takes into account the reality of increased severe weather events due to climate change.
Stronger laws and regulatory authority to hold polluters—including our utility monopolies—accountable.

LGBTQ+ Rights

The hateful bullying of transgender children by politicians over the past two decades has been despicable. We need policies that respect all LGBTQ people in our state. That means:

Protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
The repeal discriminatory laws like the criminalization of HIV and the ban on transgender inclusive coverage in state employee health insurance.

Gun Violence Protection

Too many families have suffered the tragedy of losing a loved one to gun violence. It’s time we pass common-sense laws to address this needless loss. We need:

Background checks on every gun sale.
Courts with the power to issue Extreme Risk Protection Orders to take weapons out of the hands of people who pose imminent danger to themselves or others.
Stronger laws requiring safe storage of firearms and reporting of lost or stolen weapons.
Greater investment in community-based violence prevention and violence interruption systems to help break cycles of retaliatory violence.
Prohibition on concealed carry of firearms in churches and all school property.

Our State Budget

The GOP gerrymandered itself into control of both chambers of our state legislature, yet have still failed to pass a budget. Our state budgets are moral documents reflecting our state priorities (or not). They need to be delivered on time, or legislative leadership has failed.