Meet Gigs

My Story

I grew up in a conservative oil town where I learned early what it feels like to not fit into the boxes society tries to force on you. Even as a kid, I could feel the gap between the world I was told to accept and the world I knew was possible, a world where people take care of each other and everyone gets to live with dignity. When my parents went through a long, painful divorce, my mom and I left to start over. That period shaped me. It taught me resilience, it taught me what instability does to a family, and it taught me how to hold onto your values when life gets hard.I took the long way home. I lived abroad, worked jobs that put me face-to-face with both struggle and care, and spent time in communities that expanded my understanding of what people need to thrive. In my early twenties, I hiked 2,200 miles of the Appalachian Trail, and somewhere in those miles I found a steady truth: I was capable of more than merely surviving, and the world we need will never arrive unless we build it together. When I came to Austin, I enrolled at community college and waited tables to pay the bills, then transferred to UT and graduated with honors after being told the odds weren’t in my favor. As a student teacher, I saw clearly that students, educators, and administrators are not the problem, the system is. Policy decisions were what was leading to public schools failing students and our communities.This awakening led to me becoming an Archer Fellow through UT where I worked in DC, just to see first-hand that the problem with politics goes well beyond one state or one party - the problem is the establishment on both sides that accepts human suffering as part of the status quo for the sake of maximizing profits. I moved into policy and the Texas Legislature just to watch the same harmful systems in DC be replicated in our state, with corporate influence and backroom deals too often deciding what happens to our schools, our healthcare, our wages, and our rights. I’m running because Texans deserve representatives who know what struggle looks like, tell the truth about who’s benefiting and who’s being harmed, and fight for a government and economy that finally belongs to the people.

• Back
• What Is Democratic Socialism?
• Policy
• Donate

What Capitalist Politics Assumes

Think “landlord" style: The economy is privately owned by people who have capital (corporations, hedgefunds, investors, landlords, i.e. the wealthy). The rest of us “rent” access to things we need to live through wages we earn by functioning as “human capital” that is part of the economy.

Under capitalism, the government can influence the market through things like regulations, subsidies, and safety nets, but the default is still: private owners decide what happens and everyone else has to adjust to their decisions. Effectively, it produces a system where people with vast wealth are able to have a mini-dictatorship over things we all need to live.

What Democratic Socialism Argues For

Think “community” style: Democratic socialists want democracy to extend into the economy and every system that shapes our lives, especially the basics.

Democratic socialism isn’t just higher taxes on the rich. It’s a transition away from an economy based on private profit toward democratic control of resources we all use and production we all need, so people have real power in workplaces and communities. That includes decommodifying essentials and bringing key sectors (like energy, transit, and healthcare) under democratic public or social control, so meeting human needs drives the basics of life. Effectively, it produces a system where democracy drives parts of the economy that we all need to survive, so everyone gets an equal vote in the economy as well as the government.

Why This Hits Especially Hard in Texas

Texas politics has long been structured to weaken labor and keep power in the hands of the wealthy few. Texas adopted a right-to-work law in 1947, and state policy has restricted union dues collection, strikes, and public-sector collective bargaining. Wealthy funders have historically and continue to disproportionately influence Texas politics, which continues to lead to policies that favor capitalist policies that build wealth for the few at the cost of the many.That history matters because when unions are weaker, wages and working conditions are more easily dictated from the top down, making the situation worse over time.

Learn More About Planned Policy

• Housing
• Healthcare
• Workers' Rights
• Education
• Human Rights
• Public Transit
• Hemp

Housing for All

Austin’s housing crisis isn’t an accident. It's what happens when homes get treated like profit machines and communities are treated like resources for the wealthy to exploit. Too many neighbors are one rent hike away from eviction, one missed paycheck away from homelessness, and one “redevelopment” away from losing the place they’ve called home for decades. Meanwhile, corporate landlords are allowed to exploit tenants unimpeded under propaganda about “the free market” and “trickle down economics.” Our approach is simple and morally clear: housing is a human right. Our goal is to ensure that people are housed, safe, and able to afford to live in the communities they’ve built.

Key priorities:

• ↓ Healthcare
• All Policy

Healthcare for All

In Texas, too many people avoid the doctor because they’re scared of the bill, and too many families learn the hard way that “having insurance” is just a glorified subscription fee that doesn’t always mean getting the care you need. The current system is a policy decision designed to treat the health of human beings as a resource to be abused by the market. Nobody should have to prove they deserve to live. We’re fighting for meaningful and affordable healthcare for every Texan, a real mental health system that responds with care instead of cages, and a system that allows medical providers to care for people and make a living without being overworked, burnt out, and forced to cruelly deny the care they entered their career to provide. People are not commodities to be exploited for profit.

• ↓ Workers' Rights
• All Policy
• ↑ Housing

Higher Wages & Workers’ Rights

Corrupt politicians and corporate lobbyists are happy to tell Texans to live on their crumbs starting at $7.25 an hour while housing costs, groceries, and childcare climb. Billionaires spend fortunes on propaganda claiming “that’s just the market” while lining the pockets of corrupt politicians to push “culture war” politics for the sake of keeping us divided and distracted from the class war being waged on the working class. That’s not “the market,” it’s rigged policy. It’s exploitation. We’ve been lied to long enough. It’s time for everyday Texans to unite and use our collective power to demand better from our government.

Key priorities:

• ↓ Education
• All Policy
• ↑ Healthcare

Education (K-12 + Higher Ed)

Education is how communities build power, tell the truth, and imagine futures that aren’t limited by what corrupt politicians and their overlords say is acceptable to learn. The state of Texas chronically underfunds schools, attacks teachers, and strips students of their rights, then tries to act surprised when communities struggle. Then good ole boy politicians turn around and try to privatize our schools, claiming only their billionaire buddies can fix the problems they caused. Public education should be a promise we keep and use to create economic equality, not a culture war battleground where kids from the wrong zip code who can’t afford gilded textbooks are funneled into a life of poverty, exploitation, and imprisonment. We’re fighting for our constitutional right for fully funded public schools, more accessible higher education, and absolute academic freedom.

Key priorities:

• ↓ Human Rights
• All Policy
• ↑ Workers' Rights

Human Rights, Immigration, Gun Control, and Justice

Texas politicians keep trying to win power by targeting people’s bodies, identities, votes, and families. We wholeheartedly reject the politics of treating people’s rights as political bargaining chips. Human rights for all are non-negotiable. This campaign is rooted in the belief that freedom from oppression is the highest goal of our government and real safety comes from housing, healthcare, childcare, dignity, and democracy, not from punishment and scapegoating. We fight for the people most harmed by the system, because nobody is free until everybody is free.

• ↓ Public Transit
• All Policy
• ↑ Education

Infrastructure, High Speed Rail, and Public Transit

Texas has forced people into expensive car dependence, endless dangerous traffic, and toll-road paywalls, then calls it “freedom.” At the same time, corrupt politicians give billionaires a blank check to pollute our environment and destroy the future of our planet in the pursuit of endless profits. Real freedom is being able to get to work, school, healthcare appointments, and visit family without financial punishment, hours lost to congestion, or fear of the air we breathe. We’re fighting for environmental justice, inner-city public transit, and that high-speed rails to connect major Texas cities, creates union jobs, lowers transit costs, and gives every Texan the freedom to explore the diversity of our state.

Key priorities:

• ↓ Hemp & Cannabis
• All Policy
• ↑ Human Rights

Hemp & Cannabis Reform

Hemp is a thriving industry in Texas that needs to be protected from federal overreach as well as corporate corruption. Legalization is overdue, but it has to be done in a way that doesn’t replicate the same old story where big corporations win, small businesses get buried, and impacted communities are punished. We’re fighting to replace the failed drug war with a public health approach, clear rules, and real repair that lifts up everyday Texans.

Key priorities:

• All Policy
• ↑ Public Transit