Healthcare

Brendan’s Plan for a Healthier Michigan

When I had COVID-19 in March and April of 2020, I was denied testing twice because of an unprepared healthcare system and a lack of leadership in our federal government. I watched as our nation’s numbers climbed higher and higher, and the entire time I was sick, my experience was literally unaccounted for in the data. And it wasn’t just me: hundreds of Michiganders have had COVID-19, only to finally have access to testing after we had already recovered. Clearly our country’s healthcare system was woefully underprepared for this pandemic, but this isn’t new. In 2019, Michigan ranked 32nd in America’s Health Rankings. Every Michigander deserves access to quality, affordable, and specialized healthcare. It is simply a human right, and we must fix our broken system.

So here’s my plan:

Health is a Human Right 

• Protect and preserve the Healthy Michigan Plan. The Healthy Michigan Plan expanded healthcare access to 700,000 Michiganders who did not previously have it. Nearly one in three low-income people who enrolled in Michigan’s expanded Medicaid program discovered they had a chronic illness that had never been diagnosed before. This plan saves the lives of Michiganders and must be preserved. 

• Defend Michiganders’ right to healthcare from counterproductive work requirements. Before a federal judge blocked Michigan's Medicaid work requirement, more than 80,000 people were set to lose coverage in June 2020. Nearly two-thirds of non-disabled adult Medicaid beneficiaries hold full-time or part-time jobs, and those who don’t work are limited in their ability to work because of health problems, schooling, child care, or other needs. They also face major barriers to steady employment or cannot navigate the procedural barriers. Work requirements have been proven not to work countless times, and several rigorous studies have found that SNAP work requirements reduce enrollment and have little to no employment benefits. Healthcare is a human right and I will always fight for it.  

• Enact a Michigan Healthcare Bill of Rights. We need to protect people with pre-existing conditions, prevent massive rate hikes, protect essential health benefits, prevent annual or lifetime healthcare coverage gaps, and stop the “Age Tax.”

Prescription Drugs

• Lower the cost of prescription drugs by introducing greater competition into the domestic drug market. In Michigan, the AARP estimates 32 percent of adults forgo medications due to cost. Four states — Colorado, Florida, Maine and Vermont — have already enacted measures to establish programs to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. It only makes sense that the state with closest relations with Canada would do the same.

• Cap the cost-sharing price or copay of insulin and other notable vital drugs. This is a simple piece of legislation that will help Michiganders afford the prescription drugs they need to stay healthy. No one should go bankrupt to stay healthy or even alive. 

• Increase price transparency. We should be requiring manufacturers to notify the state 60 days in advance of any planned increase of 10% or more in the price of brand-name drugs, and any 25% or greater increase in the price of generic drugs. This will give doctors and patients enough advance notice to adjust and consider what to do.

Health Equity

• Promote, expand, and improve the use of integrated healthcare. When patients are sent to different health care providers depending on their specific ailment, oftentimes that provider is only seeing a snapshot of the patient, and their treatment is siloed from the rest of that patient’s medical providers. Integrated health modalities are a means of tackling poverty, inequality, and the social systems by improving health outcomes for those impacted by social determinants of health. 

• Incentivize all Michigan healthcare providers to use the same Electronic Health Records system. By having all Michigan healthcare providers using the same EHR system, countless hours (and dollars!) are saved from no longer needing to fill out introductory forms each time you visit a new doctor. Medical professionals will be better able to focus on individual patients holistically, seeing the whole picture of a patient to make better care judgments and be able to communicate more efficiently with a patient’s other providers. 

• Improve healthcare service to BIPOC communities by increasing the number of BIPOC doctors and healthcare professionals. While Michigan’s Black population is roughly 14 percent, just 5% of physicians in the U.S. are Black. There is ever-mounting evidence that better healthcare is provided when the patient and physician are of the same race. Typically not an issue for white Michiganders, this is a feature of systemic racism for many BIPOC Michiganders. We need not only to make Michigan an attractive place for doctors to live and work, but also use aggressive affirmative action tools to make medical school affordable and accessible to all communities – especially those currently underrepresented in our workforce. 

• Improve care for adults with autism. Adults with autism are less likely to have their routine health needs met, from dental check-ups to tetanus vaccinations, and women with autism are significantly less likely to visit a gynecologist as well. Michigan should take the lead from Utah, and work to make holistic care for adults on the spectrum a promising reality in our state.

• Reduce Black infant and maternal mortality rates. Throughout Michigan, three times as many Black babies die in their first year of life as white babies, a ratio that has risen at an alarming rate in recent years. This disparity extends to mothers as well. In Michigan, nearly three times more Black women die during pregnancy and childbirth. We must train providers to address bias and racism and build a healthcare workforce demographically reflective of our population. We must increase access to prenatal care, urge healthcare providers to “bundle” maternity care, and address the socio-economic issues that are leaving Black women and infants more vulnerable.

• Ensure access to affordable, safe family planning services. Every year, bills are proposed in state legislatures around the country to limit access to family planning services, despite the Supreme Court continually ruling these unconstitutional. These reckless anti-choice bills are misguided, not based in science, and are simply unjust. 

• Oppose abstinance-only sex education pedagogy and curriculum. Analysis confirms previous public health findings that abstinence-only education programs do not succeed in reducing rates of teen pregnancies nor STDs. Not only is abstinence-only sex education woefully neglectful of LGBT students and their needs, but according to a 2004 report, language used in abstinence-based curricula often reinforces "gender stereotypes about female passivity and male aggressiveness" — attitudes that often correlate with harmful outcomes including domestic violence.

• Combat the HIV epidemic by ending the public stigma of HIV, increasing preventative education in schools, and by ensuring ready access to PrEP and PEP for Michiganders who should be using those preventative drugs.

• End the “tampon tax,” and make feminine hygiene products tax-exempt. On average, Michiganders who menstruate will spend $159 more per year on necessary hygiene products than those who do not and will never need to. Adding a sales tax on top of that, especially when other necessary food and drug products are not taxed, is the definition of inequity.

• Install consumer protections against gender-based price descrimination in personal care products. Research shows that women pay an average of 13 percent more for personal care products in stores than men do, for substantially equal products that use gendered marketing as the main differentiator. 

Epidemic Readiness

• Avoid another readiness disaster in the next epidemic by maintaining a stockpile of medical supplies for health emergencies. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that the current federal government is not to be trusted with pandemic leadership, and when every state must fend for itself, we must prepare to go it alone.

• Ensure access to localized emergency medical equipment supply chains. Relying on international supply chains to perform normally during a pandemic which thrusts the world into very anormal environments has proven to be an unsustainable business model (not to mention the human cost of this practice). No matter how globalized our economy gets, we must keep manufacturing here to ensure that access to sufficient PPE and other emergency equipment will not be hampered by a globally sensitive supply chain.

• Support our most at-risk communities. Though Black Michiganders make up nearly 14 percent of our state’s population, they account for about 40 percent of the state’s coronavirus deaths. We must do systemically better and use the findings from the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities to better protect our communities.  

Rural Healthcare

• Reduce costs and focus on emergency and outpatient care in areas that need it most. Eighteen rural hospitals in Michigan are at high risk of closing. This is roughly one-in-four rural hospitals in our state, and it is the ninth highest percentage in the nation. Some rural hospitals can reduce their costs by converting to separate stand-alone emergency and outpatient centers. Not only is this much less expensive than running a full-scale hospital, but it also better serves the immediate needs of rural citizens.

• Invest in telemedicine, especially for specialty services. A report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that people in rural America are 50 percent more likely to die from accidental causes due in large part to their distance from a healthcare provider. Through telemedicine technology, specialist doctors can consult through audio and video channels on common electronic devices with a rural outpatient center, and can even respond to real-time data. Through investment in Michigan’s broadband infrastructure system and ensuring that the internet is available for all Michiganders, this option is much more affordable for both patients and hospitals, further reducing costs and making rural healthcare more viable.

• Empower and respect Nurse Practitioners and Physicians Assistants. Both of these roles require an extensive education, but often go underutilized due to the presence of a physician or a policy that requires a physician’s oversight. There are many services that NPs and PAs provide for a quality healthcare at a much lower cost, and they should be empowered to do so.

Infrastructure

Brendan’s Plan to Build a 21st Century Network

If there’s one thing every Michigander agrees with, it’s this: our infrastructure is in dire need of repair. Driving down John R Road feels like the childhood game hot lava, and portions of Silver Bell Road are downright terrifying for several months every year. For Metro Detroiters, this means an average spending of $865 on car maintenance related to poor road conditions—nearly $500 more than the national average. To actually “Fix The Damn Roads” we need to find long-term solutions, not just quick fixes, and this requires working across the aisle as well as across the urban-rural divide. 

So here’s my plan:

Transportation Infrastructure

• Invest in quality building materials that can weather every Michigan season. Michigan must continue to support grants to research and study better and longer-lasting construction materials for our roads and bridges. We have seen promise in many alternative road materials and more become available as technology improves. 

• Reevaluate the efficacy of road construction warranties. Michigan uses more road warranties than any other state in the nation, but the state has collected almost no data on whether these are a waste of taxpayer dollars. In theory, they could help guarantee the quality of road construction and provide the state with free maintenance in the event that roads crumble prematurely. However, Ohio and Wisconsin cancelled their warranty programs after discovering that they systematically resulted in outlandish costs and worse construction quality.

• Support innovative transportation reengineering by securing funding for good road reconfigurations, like the replacement of standard intersections with roundabouts. Rochester Hills has been a leader in transitioning to this new road configuration, which has been proven to both improve safety and decrease traffic congestion.

• Continue pushing Michigan ahead of the curve to keep our state competitive on autonomous vehicle research and development. While the University of Michigan’s MCity provides an exceptional facility for autonomous vehicle research, our state’s public infrastructure must continue to be readily prepared for this new technology. Autonomous vehicles have already been tested in Grand Rapids, Detroit, and Ann Arbor, but Michigan must continue to lead the way, nation-wide.

• Encourage the expansion of Michigan’s on-the-road electric vehicle (EV) charging network by supporting state grants to private businesses, restaurants, parking garages, and multi-unit housing facilities to install charging and fast charging stations for EVs. The state should also install or lease space for electric charging stations in state parks, and on other state properties to both augment the EV charging network and generate state revenue.

Critical Utilities Infrastructure

• Work with municipalities to identify and remove all lead water pipes. Since the Flint Water Crisis began, Michigan has been a leading state on strict lead level requirements. However, many cities have fought back, saying that the financial burden of removing the lead pipes is too extreme. The State of Michigan must be both fervent in its commitment to the health of our neighbors and also accessible to working with municipalities to ensure that this reality can come to fruition. We don’t have time to wait. Read more about my plan for Michigan’s water infrastructure in my Water plan.

• Remove the threat of a rupturing Enbridge Line 5. A rogue anchor strike in 2018 damaged the 67-year-old Enbridge Line 5 oil and natural gas pipeline and could have had potentially catastrophic repercussions on our Great Lakes. The line sustained yet additional major structural damage in June 2020, leading to its temporary shutdown. The pipeline is a critical component of Michigan’s energy infrastructure, currently supplying the fuel needed to power thousands of homes in both peninsulas, as well as most of Metro Detroit’s automotive gasoline and Detroit Metro Airport’s jet fuel. That being said, unless they pass independent, third-party safety inspections, pipelines that run under our Great Lakes should not operate.

• Encourage communities and property owners to use green infrastructure such as permeable pavement and rain gardens to soak up as much rainwater into the earth as possible before it can collect contaminants like spilled gasoline and lawn fertilizer. When rainwater falls and passes along impervious surfaces, it is stained by these pollutants and then enters our stormwater systems, pushing those pollutants directly into the Great Lakes.

• Prevent human waste from contaminating our fresh water system by implementing a statewide septic code. Michigan remains the only state in the United States that lacks a basic statewide septic code, and as a consequence, 25 to 30 percent of Michigan’s 1.4 million septic systems are failing and leaking raw and untreated sewage into our Great Lakes water system.

• Improve and expand broadband access for all Michiganders. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown just how important internet access is to our communities and citizens. The internet is no longer a luxury, but a necessary utility. Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission estimates that 5.74 percent of Michigan's population - 573,426 people - have no broadband providers in their area, and only 62.32 percent have more than one option for high-speed internet. Michigan could, for instance, support public private partnerships and state and local programs that increase funding, or borrow legislative models from Indiana and Iowa to incentivize companies to expand coverage. 

• Encourage intersystem cooperation by enacting “dig once” laws, which require states or localities to install conduit—the empty pipe that internet and electrical cables run through—when building or upgrading infrastructure, such as roads, sidewalks, and bridges. These statutes are meant to encourage fiber investment because the land will not need to be dug up for future projects— minimizing frustration for residents, limiting costs for providers and government, and maintaining road agencies’ statutory authority to protect the road right-of-way for general physical planning purposes.

• Support state laws to improve public transportation in Michigan, especially in Oakland County/Metro Detroit. It might seem like I misplaced this point, since it is inherently about transportation, but public transportation very much functions like a utility: available to all who need it to perform basic everyday functions, and best-functioning in monopolistic business ecosystems. The Rochester area has infamously excluded its residents from integration with our neighboring communities and the greater Metro Detroit economy by refusing to integrate a public transit system. But the economics of this issue are clear: every $1 invested in public transportation generates $4 in economic returns, according to the American Public Transportation Association. 

Environmental Infrastructure

• Increase accountability and transparency surrounding the safety of existential infrastructure. As we just saw near Midland, $175 million of damage was caused because of failed infrastructure, including the destruction of 150 homes, only 8 percent of which had necessary insurance. The Edenville Dam, built in 1924, had been rated unsatisfactory by Michigan in a 2018 inspection, and the company that operates it had been in hot water with federal regulators for noncompliance. Infrastructure that has a direct impact on the passive safety of Michiganders must be held to a higher standard. Inspections should be conducted annually, with records available to residents, and companies must be held accountable.

• Maintain pressure on the federal government to reconstruct the Soo Locks. Critical to Michigan’s shipping industry as well as our homeland and national security, the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie must be reconstructed. Our leaders in Congress, including Sen. Debbie Stabenow, have been working hard to secure funding for this project, and we must continue to pressure them and the White House from Lansing. Read more about my plan for Michigan’s water infrastructure in my Water plan.

Criminal and Social Justice Reform

Brendan’s plan for police accountability, justice reform, and expanded protections

The tragic and senseless death of George Floyd has heralded in a global conversation about both the relationship our law enforcement agencies have with the communities they serve and the taxpayers who fund them, as well as the genuine, centuries-old, deeply entrenched systemic racism that pervades our American society. These conversations are truly long overdue, and especially in the realms of police, criminal, and social justice reform, there is a lot that we need to improve. Especially here in Michigan. Marching together with my neighbors in Rochester and Rochester Hills these past few weeks has given me tremendous hope that our conversations are genuine and that policymakers already in office are prepared to get serious about the actionable steps needed to make our world a better place. 

When I go to Lansing and I reflect on the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, this is the plan I’m taking with me:

Police Reform

• Establish a Michigan Police Misconduct Database for the purpose of recording officers who have criminal convictions, have been fired or forced to resign, have had their law enforcement licenses revoked or suspended, or have been named in a judgment or settlement involving misconduct (with an indication on whether they have used excessive force among other related indicators). This will illuminate a data-starved policymaking void, allowing lawmakers to make better rules about policing. It will also help mitigate the practice of subpar officers moving from town to town after being fired and rehired, in a vicious cycle.

• Demilitarize the Police. As evidence continues to mount that a 1997 Pentagon program, which allows the federal government to supply military weaponry to state and local police departments, has dramatically increased the deadliness of police force, it is time we reconsider our law enforcement agencies’ spending. Michigan has received at least $52,914,999  in equipment since the beginning of the program, and the Oakland County Sheriff Department has received $4,677,884.70. Weapons of war do not belong on the streets of Rochester.

• Urge Michigan’s Congressional delegation to end qualified immunity for police officers who commit misconduct and crimes on the job. For far too long, too many “bad apple” cops have been allowed to hurt the people they serve because they know they face none of the legal repercussions that the rest of society faces.

• Mandate mental health alternative transfer availability for 911 calls. According to the Treatment Advocacy Center at least one in every four people killed by police has a serious mental illness. At a small fraction of the cost, in 2019, a model program in Eugene, Oregon transferred 17 percent of all 911 calls to a non-profit mental health group, saving countless lives.

• Ban law enforcement from using real-time facial recognition technology without a warrant, barring exigent circumstances. This technology, which is evolving far more quickly than policymakers can keep up with, is an invasion of privacy and has been shown to be imprecise, resulting in false positives – especially among Asian, African American, and Native American populations. 

Criminal Justice Reform

• End our discriminatory cash bail system. Pretrial detainees make up more than 70 percent of the U.S. jail population — approximately 536,000 people. Many of them are only there because they can’t afford bail. Further, bail practices are racially discriminatory, with Black and Latino men assessed significantly higher bail amounts than white men for similar crimes. Other states, like New Jersey and Kentucky, have transitioned to alternative pretrial programs to astounding success.

• End the use of flat-rate fines for civil infractions, and instead tie all fines to a multiple of the state’s set minimum hourly wage or the derived hourly wage of the infractor. In addition to making our streets safer, this proportional structure is an example of cutting-edge policy reform to make our criminal justice system more equitable.

• Outlaw the operation of for-profit, private probation services, and revert all cases to State case workers. The privatization of probation services to a few select companies has created a predatory environment that traps poor Michiganders in an endless cycle of debt, and feeds corporate profit lines off valuable, limited state revenue.

• Reduce Arrests for Failure to Appear and Failure to Pay. We need to end mass incarceration, and failure to appear in court and failure to pay are the most common reasons for arrest in Michigan. Poverty is not a crime, and we can better treat this issue as a state by reducing fine amounts, tying fines to income-based figures rather than flat rates, offering alternatives such as community service, and encouraging innovative debt forgiveness incentives for those who make consistent fine payments.

• Strengthen the Constitutional right to a speedy trial. While the United States and Michigan Constitutions both guarantee criminal defendants the right to a speedy trial, many Michiganders have been incarcerated for up to four years while awaiting trial. The State should require that defendants be tried within 18 months of arrest, absent waiver, acquiescence, or agreement by the defendant. Defendants should not have to actively assert their speedy trial rights in order to preserve them.

• Streamline and simplify the expungement process. The Legislature should streamline the expungement process for individuals with misdemeanor and low-level felony convictions. By eliminating steep legal fees, the need for a lawyer, and providing easy accessibility, we can more efficiently get Michiganders out of jail when their previously committed crimes  are no longer crimes. For example, there are still over 235,000 Michiganders in jail for low-level marijuana use and possession, in a state that has legalized it recreationally. Only about 6% of people with marijuana charges on their record have participated in the current expungement process because of the time and expenses involved.

Social Justice Reform

• Expand Michigan’s Civil Rights Act to include protections for the LGBT community. For over 30 years, efforts have been made to attempt to amend our Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to add sexual orientation and gender identity or expression to the existing protected classes within the Act. No Michigander should lose their job or home because of whom they love.

• Ban conversion therapy. Michigan is one of only 29 states where this traumatic practice is still legal. The physical and mental health ramifications of conversion therapy among queer youth are well-document, and the practice is known to be a prime exhaserbating factor for suicide rate among queer youth.

• Enable prosecutors to treat hate crimes like hate crimes. The Legislature should expand the Ethnic Intimidation Act of 1931 to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” The State of Michigan collects data on these groups, but they are not included in the definitions of hate crime. In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, Michigan saw 70 sexual orientation and 12 gender identity incidents but could prosecute none of them as hate crimes. Michigan ranks 5th highest for hate crimes, behind California, New Jersey, New York, and Washington.

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Good Governance

Brendan’s Plan for Government Transparency and Accountability

Year after year, Michigan ranks dead last in government openness, accountability, and ethics. How can we, as Michiganders, expect our government to work for us when it does not even allow light to shine on itself? Good, ethical, transparent, and accessible governance is what leads to higher civic participation, higher trust in our elected leadership, and decreased polarization within government. We know what the keys to good governance are: transparency, accessibility, rooting out corruption, and defending our democracy. But we’ve got a lot of work to do.

So here’s my plan:

Government Transparency

• Expand Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to include the Michigan Legislature as well as the Executive branch. Michigan is currently the only state in the nation where the governor and lieutenant governor are explicitly exempted from FOIA. This must change to ensure an honest government.

• Develop online databases to provide citizens with easy access to records on laws and government spending. In fact, in a 2019 study, Michigan scored an “F” on transparency for economic development subsidies. Citizens deserve to know where their tax dollars are going. 

• Empower local journalism. Local, especially independently-owned, media organizations hold government and corporations accountable. Strong local newspapers are also linked to better voter turnout and decreased political polarization. Local papers are often the best way to keep up with local politics and the best way to keep local politicians accountable. We cannot afford to let this industry die.

Accessibility to Constituents

• Be open to hearing from voters on the issues that matter. I have signed the Town Hall Pledge and will hold monthly town halls as well as online town halls for those not able to physically attend.

• Open a Government Constituent Services Center in the Rochester area. Only a small handful of State Reps have in-district offices, I will work with colleagues in Lansing and Washington to make myself as accessible as possible to constituents.

• Modernize Michigan’s government websites to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Website accessibility is the least we can do in the modern era, but current Michigan House of Representatives websites score no better than a B- for accessibility, based on several web accessibility ratings.

Money and Corruption in Politics

• Shed light on the Lansing lobbying industry by passing legislation that would bar lobbyists from giving officials free meals or anything of value, create a two-year cooling-off period before former elected officials could become lobbyists and would require lobbyists to publicly log what topics they discuss with lawmakers.

• End legislative term limits and the revolving door in Lansing that result in lobbyists having more control than elected officials. While term limits may sound like a nice idea in theory, studies have shown that term limits have failed to deliver many of the “good government” results promised, as they ensure that lobbyists – not legislators – have institutional memory in Lansing.

Defending Democracy

• Secure our election day procedures by ensuring Michiganders are only voting by paper ballot and that municipalities are using the most secure counting machines to process them. Clerks and election officials must be given the resources and time needed to process ballots in an accurate and efficient manner, and risk-management systems like post-election Risk-Limiting Audits should be rolled out across the state.

• Work with colleagues in both Lansing and Washington to support the United States intelligence and defense communities in their efforts to combat misinformation and foreign-origionated election propaganda, which especially threatens voters in “swing states,” like Michigan.

• Protect expanded enfranchisement by maintaining the same-day registration, vote from home, and automatic voter registration. Michigan was a tremendous national success story by approving Proposition 3 in the 2018 election, but we must be vigilant defending this success against forces working to undermine it.

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Want to influence this or future policies? Brendan is establishing several Advisory Boards to help guide his policies during the campaign and also when he is elected in Lansing. Sign up to join!

Gun Safety

Brendan’s Plan for Gun Violence Prevention

Here in the Rochester area, we are very proud to be from the safest community in Michigan – and rightfully so. Yet as peaceful as our community may be, none of us are immune to news headlines of mass shootings and other instances of senseless gun violence that plague our nation. Theaters. Schools. Churches. Bars. Concerts. It seems every other month a new venue is struck from the list of “safe spaces” – spaces where Americans can go and not worry about whether they will be safe.

As someone who grew up in the era of mass shooting drills at school, I can tell you personally how traumatizing it is to watch fellow students fleeing their school buildings on television. Children should be spending their time learning their ABCs, and not how to “hide, quiet, freeze.” Our state and country are woefully ill-equipped to fix our current reality, but there are several steps we can take right now to at least fix the things within our control. 

So here’s my plan:

Expanding and Strengthening Background Checks

• Work with our federal representatives in the U.S. House and Senate to pass into law universal background checks. In 2019, the U.S. House passed two such bills – H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Check Act of 2019 and H.R. 1112, the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019. I, along with Mayors Barnett (Rochester Hills) and Ray (Rochester) support this bipartisan legislation, and we must continue to put pressure on our U.S. Senators to prioritize this.

• Amend accidental typos in current Michigan law to require criminal background checks on all firearms, not just “handguns.”

• Remove unsafe background check exemptions for loaned firearms, as are currently granted in Michigan law.

Guaranteeing Community Safety

• Protect our students by ensuring that the only firearms allowed on school campuses are those which are maintained by sanctioned law enforcement and security personnel.

• Demilitarize civilian Michiganders. There is no reason the weapons our troops use in battle are needed on the streets of Rochester. I will work to enact state law to outright prohibit the transfer or possession of assault weapons, 50 caliber rifles, or large capacity ammunition magazines.

• Prevent crises before they occur by enacting extreme risk detection laws, sometimes called “red flag laws.” These proposed laws, which are supported by Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, allow concerned family members and local law enforcement officials to ask a court for an extreme risk protection order to, while ensuring due process, temporarily suspend access to guns by a person who poses a serious threat to themselves or others.

• Reexamine the utility and effectiveness of Michigan’s Stand Your Ground law. A 2018 study concluded that these laws actually increase homicides instances, particularly where firearms are involved. Any law that results in more Michigander deaths is not a good law.

Closing Loopholes and Ensuring Safe Ownership

• End the gun-involved domestic abuse crisis against women. The vast majority of women killed with guns in the United States are killed by intimate partners or family members and the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely that a woman will be killed. To end this tragic pattern, I will: 

• Support state law prohibiting people in any relationship, not just spouses, who have been convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors from having any firearms – not only handguns.

• Support state law requiring abusers convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors to turn in their firearms when they become prohibited from having them.

• Support state law prohibiting all people under final domestic violence restraining orders from having firearms.

• Support state law prohibiting all people under temporary domestic violence restraining orders from having firearms.

• Support state law prohibiting all convicted stalkers in the state of Michigan from having firearms.

• Support state law requiring law enforcement to remove firearms from the scene of a domestic violence incident.

• Ensure child safety at home by enacting safe storage laws, requiring firearm owners to lock their weapons in appropriate cases when not in use.

• Make Michigan make sense with one minimum age. Since different gun laws in Michigan yield different minimum ages (18 vs. 21) for firearm purchase, all minimum ages should be set at 21 years old.

Join our campaign or chip in $25 today to show your support of this plan to prevent gun violence

For more information on Michigan gun laws, please visit the Gifford Law Center here.

Want to influence this or future policies? Brendan is establishing several Advisory Board committees to help guide his policies during the campaign and also when he is elected in Lansing. Sign up to join!

Mental Health

Brendan’s Plan for Michigan’s Mental Healthcare

For far too long, too many Michiganders have gone undiagnosed, untreated, and unsupported when it comes to our mental and behavioral healthcare. In their 2019 study, Mental Health America found that 1.32 million Michiganders were living with a mental illness – roughly 17 percent of our population. Yet 19 percent of adults and 64 percent of youths go without access to mental healthcare every year. This is part of why, on average, one Michigander dies by suicide every six hours, making suicide the second biggest cause of death for youths. We must address this.

So here’s Brendan’s plan:

Short-Term Fixes

• Commit to being #StigmaFree. Brendan is a proud signatory of the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ StigmaFree Pledge, and he will push all other members of the Michigan Legislature to commit to combating social stigma by living #StigmaFree.

• Fund and improve student services. Michiganders come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of ability, and social workers, nurses, mental health professionals, and IEPs are just some of the critical resources many students rely on. I endorse and will work to support Superintendent Shaner’s plan to put a mental health clinician in every school in Rochester Community Schools and work to ensure that Avondale schools achieve the same.

• Make mental and behavioral healthcare cheaper by addressing disparities in insurance laws. More than a decade after the passage of the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, Michigan is still graded an “F” in mental health parity.

• Support local communities and local needs by adequately funding the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services during the state appropriations process.

Long-Term Solutions

• Identify areas of most immediate need. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Michigan ranks third worst of all states in what they call Mental Health Care Health Professional Shortage Areas. We need more mental healthcare professionals. 

• Eliminate obstacles for practitioners who want to move to Michigan. Currently psychiatrists need at least ten years of experience in their state of license origin before they are eligible to apply for "endorsement" in Michigan. If we want to attract mental health professionals to set up shop in Michigan, we must make it easier to do so.

• Advance the use of telemedicine by closing gaps in broadband internet capacity and connection. Helping physicians and mental health providers prescribe controlled substances through telemedicine will go a long way toward reducing the supply-demand mismatch currently existing.

• Commit to national education and labor standards by promulgating Michigan’s accession to the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Board’s Agreement of Reciprocity. This will allow for more practitioners to work in Michigan and will also attract out-of-state students to study at Michigan universities.

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Want to influence this or future policies? Brendan is establishing several Advisory Boards to help guide his policies during the campaign and also when he is elected in Lansing. Sign up to join!

Water

Brendan’s Plan for the Great Lakes and Our Water

Humans, like all living creatures, need three basic things to survive: food, water, and shelter. While hunger and homelessness are chronic problems the entire world has struggled with for millennia, the one vital resource that should not be a problem for any Michigander is our access to safe, clean, fresh water. The Great Lakes Basin is home to 21 percent of the entire planet’s accessible fresh water resources (95 percent of the fresh water in the United States!), and yet lead and PFAS contamination have made headlines worldwide, giving the Water Wonderland a deservedly infamous reputation. As the most-populated areas of the world prepare for a water scarcity dilemma worse than anything humanity has ever known, it is our moral obligation here in Michigan to be better stewards of our most important natural resource.

So here’s Brendan’s plan:

Defending the Great Lakes

• Champion the integrity of the Great Lakes Compact. Every year or so, it seems that various states in the southwest region of our country propose siphoning off some of our abundant fresh water to rescue their unsustainable housing and agricultural habits. Fortunately the ten Great Lakes states and provinces have a legal framework (the Great Lakes Compact) to prevent this. In 2016 we began seeing legal challenges to this Compact, and we must remain vigilant in protecting its integrity. 

• Demand equitable and sustainable business contracts. It is no wonder that Michigan is home to several wells for bottled water. Nestlé extracts and exports upwards of 576,000 gallons of water per day – that’s 400 gallons every minute – and pays only a $200 per year paperwork fee, far less than what Michigan’s most valuable resource is worth.

• Remove the threat of a rupturing Enbridge Line 5. A rogue anchor strike in 2018 damaged the 67-year-old Enbridge Line 5 oil and natural gas pipeline and could have had potentially catastrophic repercussions on our Great Lakes. Unless they pass independent, third-party safety inspections, pipelines that run under our Great Lakes should not operate.

• Collaborate with researchers and the agricultural industry to reduce nutrient runoff and Lake Erie algal blooms. High-phosphorus, nutrient-rich fertilizers used in agriculture are one of the biggest contributors to the massive algal blooms we have seen develop in Lake Erie over the last several years. The State must work with farmers in Michigan, especially in the Maumee River Basin, to implement runoff-prevention techniques to prevent the phosphorus from entering the Lake.

• Eradicate invasive species in our Great Lakes. Ballast water from ocean-going ships has introduced zebra mussels, sea lampreys, and asian carp among other invasive species which are disrupting native food chains and ecosystems. Though Michigan’s current regulations are stricter than the federal government’s, some legislators (including our own Rep. Mike Webber) voted to curb regulations and make it easier for alien species to invade our fresh waters. Fortunately this bill was vetoed by then-Gov. Snyder. We cannot let down our guard when it comes to invasive species.

Securing our Water Infrastructure

• Work with municipalities to identify and remove all lead water pipes. Since the Flint Water Crisis began, Michigan has been a leading state on strict lead level requirements, however many cities have fought back, saying that the financial burden of removing the lead pipes is too extreme. The State of Michigan must be both fervent in its commitment to the health of our neighbors and also accessible to working with municipalities to ensure this reality can come to fruition. We don’t have time to wait.

• Maintain pressure on the federal government to reconstruct the Soo Locks. Critical to Michigan’s shipping industry as well as our homeland and national security, the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie must be reconstructed. Our leaders in Congress including Sen. Debbie Stabenow have been working hard to secure funding for this project, and we must continue to pressure them and the White House from Lansing.

Building Capacity and Disaster Readiness

• Properly fund the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. Governor Whitmer made waves when she reorganized and expanded Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality into the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. Unfortunately many in the State Legislature have been uncooperative. We should be working together to improve our Great Lakes, not protect lobbyist boards like the Environmental Rules Review Committee. 

• Continue current PFAS remediation and protect against future poisoning. Fortunately one area of bipartisan cooperation at the state and federal level has been on issues of PFAS remediation. In the last year, Michigan has made several strides to protect residents against PFAS contamination, but there is yet much work to be done to prevent future contamination, including working toward completely phasing the chemical compounds out of industrial use.

• Erect “rainy day funds” to anticipate the impacts of climate change. Though we are ironically a land-locked state, the erratic effects of climate change impact us and our Great Lakes ecosystems. Currently, unusually wet seasons are causing Great Lake levels to rise to record heights, only a few years after they had fallen to record low levels. Expenses due to erosion and property damage as a result of these record changes have prompted several cries for a state of emergency.

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Education

Brendan’s Plan for Michigan’s Students and Educators

The single best investment we can make to ensure Michigan’s long-term success is to ensure that our children receive the best possible education – knowledge that provides them both the technical know-how and invaluable critical thinking skills needed to compete in the economies of today and tomorrow. We have a lot to be proud of in the 45th district: because of our local commitment, Rochester Community Schools are consistently ranked among the state’s best, and U.S. News & World Report lists Rochester Adams as the fifth best high school in Michigan for 2019. 

But we must do more. For years, policies in Lansing have chipped away at public confidence in our schools. Michigan has fallen severely behind other states, diverting resources away from our children and failing to support our educators. 

So here’s Brendan’s plan:

Sustaining our Students

• Expand access to full-day preschool for four-year-old children, provisional preschool for some three-year-olds, and high-quality early childcare. Research shows definitively that access to educator-driven, early childhood programs are highly cost-effective and carry long-term benefits to both the students and their communities.

• Increase base funding for K-12 students. Current research shows that, in school districts like Rochester and Avondale, the lowest adequate per-pupil base funding to meet the state’s education standards is $9,590. For 2019-20, Rochester area schools budgeted for a base per-pupil funding of $8,409.

• Recommit to student services. Michiganders come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of ability, and social workers, nurses, mental health professionals, and IEPs are just some of the critical resources many students rely on. We should be doing everything we can to accommodate and support all students from pre-kindergarten through university, so that any student that needs an extra helping hand has access to it. 

• Encourage academic excellence by expanding access to dual enrollment programs for high schoolers at colleges and universities. Our students must be ready for whichever path is right for them after graduating high school – be that higher education, a trades program, or entering the workforce. This provides growth opportunities for students and strengthens our economy with an educated, well-prepared workforce.

• Empower the next generation of holistic leaders. The economy of tomorrow will emphasize proficiency in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM), and our state’s curriculum must reflect that. However, Michigan must also commit to seeing the whole child. Our students not only need a well-rounded academic foundation, but also the social and emotional skills needed to effectively navigate the world around them.

• Ensure a safe learning environment for our students by prioritizing mental health in our schools; supporting immigrant, non-native-anglophone, minority, and LGBTQ+ students; and building comprehensive gun violence prevention measures throughout our state.

Empowering our Educators

• Commit to paying teachers a dignified wage. With effective wage stagnation, teachers in Michigan are actually earning 12.1 percent less now than they did back in 2003 when adjusting for inflation. Further, Michigan public school teachers earn an estimated 19.5 percent less than workers with similar education and experience in other industries. Teachers must be compensated fairly for their hard work.

• Recalibrate teacher evaluations. Michigan’s educators should be evaluated in a way that helps them grow their craft and advance their teaching, acknowledging geographic, socioeconomic, and racially systemic inequities. Evaluations should prioritize long-term educational impact, classroom climate, and student-teacher relationships rather than ability to teach-to-the-test.

• Establish incentives in the educator pipeline. Michigan’s full-time, salaried teacher population is unevenly distributed and shrinking every year, leaving more students in the hands of long-term substitutes and many classes overcrowded. By establishing a Michigan State Loan Repayment Program for teachers, like our state already has for many healthcare professionals, we can attract more qualified individuals to this profession.

• Eliminate the expectation that teachers stock their own classrooms. The average Michigan teacher spends $628 of their own money on basic classroom supplies, the second-highest figure anywhere in the nation. The burden that supplying basic classroom supplies puts on our teachers (and often students’ parents) is frankly inexcusable; the state must step up.

• Support strong unions for educators and staff, with the guaranteed ability to collectively bargain and work in solidarity. Our teachers are responsible for educating entire generations of our citizens, and our school districts must be willing to meet them at the negotiating table.

Sound good to you? Join our campaign or make a donation to show your support!

Want to influence this or future policies? Brendan is establishing several Advisory Boards to help guide his policies during the campaign and also when he is elected in Lansing. Sign up to join!