On the Issues

The following section lays out the concrete policies and laws that Heidi will help fight for when elected to the US House of Representatives.

In America we work hard, and we can provide the good life for everyone. But billionaires control our system and put their friends like Roger Williams in charge. The laws their politicians pass make them richer and leave us paying more for the things we need to survive. It’s time for the working class to work together and create a system that is fair to everyone and not just good for the rich. When we control the results of our labor, there will be plenty for everyone to live a decent life.

Medicare for All

Healthcare is a human right and right now too many people go without it. Texans feel deeply the failure of our current healthcare system: we lead the country in people without health insurance, and have seen the most rural hospital closings of any state in the last 10 years. District 25 saw the 2014 closure of a rural hospital in Whitney, thirty-five miles north of Waco. Working-class Texans are putting off necessary surgeries and doctor visits because we simply can’t afford them. Others are forced to use sites like GoFundMe to raise money for expensive hospital visits or life-saving medications like insulin. Meanwhile, health insurance companies and private hospitals are making record profits.

Heidi Sloan has fought for health justice: with the Austin Democratic Socialists of America, she fought for the right of workers in Austin to have paid sick days, and urged Congressman Doggett of TX-35 to become a cosigner of the Medicare for All Act of 2019.

Housing for All

Decent housing is a basic human need, but we have let greed and profit deprive thousands of Texans of safe, stable, affordable homes. Long-time residents are pushed out of their neighborhoods by explosive rents and gentrification. We see working class families, communities of color, artists, musicians, students, and retirees displaced for luxury condos and corporate chains.

The market builds houses for investors, not homes for people. Wall Street sees our homes not as places for humans to live but as assets they can use to make profits. Every year, housing in central Texas gets more expensive, more people have to move further away from where they work, and more people end up homeless.

Housing is a human right. We will fight against predatory foreclosures and evictions to keep people in their homes. We will use public money to build beautiful, eco-friendly housing available to everyone.

A Green New Deal

Climate change is real and it is destroying our planet. Scientists say we have 10 to 12 years to transform our society before we face disaster. We see this as an opportunity. In the 1940s Americans transformed our economy to produce the materials we needed to win World War II. If we approach climate change in the same way we can transform our society, prevent the worst of climate change and create a society that works for people and not for profit.

Childcare and Abortion

Raising children should not be a for-profit industry. That’s why our platform focuses on healthcare, abortion, childcare, and education – so that families can have the resources we need to raise happy, healthy families, when and how and if they choose, regardless of how much money we make. We believe the decision of whether and when to start a family is deeply personal. If the answer is no, we support people in that choice, and if the answer is yes, we support them too.

Workplace Democracy and Unions for All

We spend most of our waking hours at work. If we don’t have democracy in the workplace, then we are not living in a democratic society. The only way we can win our country back from the 1% is standing shoulder to shoulder with our co-workers and fighting back together in the workplace. To fully empower workers in our fight, we must expand workplace democracy while reducing the power bosses and big corporations have over us – at our jobs and in our lives.

Good Jobs, Wages, Benefits, and Free Time

We live in the wealthiest society in the history of the world, but too many of us are working multiple jobs and struggling to get by. It is time we force corporations to pay out fewer profits and use that money to pay us what we deserve. I want the good life for all of us, and we can have it if we stand together and demand it.

Labor organizers in the past won the 40 hour workweek, an end to child labor, weekends and OSHA. It’s time to fight for the next generation.

Tax the Rich

For the first time in American history, working-class Americans are paying more in taxes than the super rich. Taking money from the poor and giving tax breaks to the rich is class war, and it’s time to fight back. We will make the rich pay their fair share and use that money to fund universal social programs that will benefit all of us. When people ask me, “How are you gonna pay for that?”, these are my answers.

A System of Justice

Too many of us feel scared and not safe when a police car passes. Over the past 30 years America has arrested and put more people in jail, even as crime rates have dropped. These arrests target people of color, specifically our black neighbors. Justice isn’t about punishment, it’s about safety and healing. It’s time we had a justice system that understands that.

Elder Care

Healthcare is a human right, and we must ensure that as people age we meet their changing needs. We will pass Medicare for All and guarantee seniors can receive all their medical needs, including dental care, hearing aids, prescription drugs and long-term home care free of cost through a single payer system. We will provide accessible housing and services for our aging neighbors, including the Social Security benefits they’ve spent their entire lives investing in. And we will take care of the workers taking care of America’s senior citizens.

Justice for Immigrants

Too often, our immigrant neighbors are scapegoats for right-wing politicians to blame for the economic struggles faced by our working class. The racist lies told by politicians like Roger Williams stoke the fire of violence against our immigrant community, leading to the mass shooting in El Paso, to separating and caging children, to deporting families back to certain death. All working people, documented or undocumented, are hurt when we are unable to come together and organize for our common interests. We refuse to be divided any longer. Our struggle is one struggle.

Gun Violence and Freedom from Fear

We should be free from fear in our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our places of worship, and our communities. With the number of mass shootings on the rise both nationally and in our own state, fear of gun violence has become a barrier to this freedom. However, guns are deeply ingrained in American culture. They have a place in the lives of many Americans, who may enjoy deer hunting or need to protect cattle herds from predators. No matter how people may personally feel about guns, there is no practical way to remove all guns from our current society, and even the best attempt would not heal the many other harms that working-class people face. But we can address the root causes of gun violence, which are deeply connected to many other issues at the core of this campaign: poverty, trauma, and corporate greed.

An Accessible Society for All

Disability rights are human rights, and a community that respects individuals with disabilities is a stronger community. We collaborated with our friends who are leaders in the fight for access to society to draft a platform that identifies where disability intersects other issues and centers the right to access for all people. We are ready to bring this world into being, and that means we have to fight alongside our siblings – to demand we all have equal access to public space, to housing, to employment and fair wages, and to defend our communities against discrimination and unjust treatment in schools, workplaces, and everywhere else.

LGBTQIA+ Liberation

We are proud of the progress our society has made in recognizing the rights of our LGBTQIA+ siblings, but we know we have a long way to go. Our neighbors in this community still face enormous obstacles––disporportionate rates of homelessness and suicide, completely legal discrimination in housing and employment, and violence that is actively promoted in many parts of our society.

But this community is also fiercely energized, and LGBTQIA+ organizers work tirelessly to build queer pride, to promote inclusion, and to demand a world in which all people can live our lives free from fear. This is a world we all have a stake in, and I am committed to standing in solidarity with LGBTQIA+ people in the fight for liberation.

International Solidarity

For too long, the Washington foreign policy establishment—unelected “analysts,” “experts,” “elites,” and bureaucrats––have controlled how our country and our people relate to the rest of the world, to disastrous effects like neverending war, terrorism, international instability, mass inequality, pollution and environmental injustice.

We’re going to need a foreign policy based around international solidarity rather than competition, nationalism and endless war to solve some of humanity’s most pressing crises on a global scale––climate change, food and water security, public health, and poverty. The United States must be building power with the global working class, not power over.

A Renewal of Higher Education

The purpose of higher education is to allow us as individuals to contribute our skills and abilities to society as effectively as possible. In this sense, college and vocational schools are crucial to the collective welfare of everyone in the United States and should be treated as a public good. We demand an end to college tuition and the abolition of student loan debt, and we commit to the establishment of public trade schools throughout the country that will create a school-to-union pipeline, building the workforce necessary to rebuild America’s infrastructure with a Green New Deal.

Beyond tuition, the American university system is rife with challenges. From pervasive sexual harassment and assault on campuses to rampant underpayment of student and adjunct university staff, the institutions of higher learning in this country are in dire need of structural change. We commit to not just making college and trade schools accessible to all, but to making them safe, inclusive, and run by workers who are respected and well-paid.

A Commitment to Public Education

Our education system is one of the most resilient public institutions the United States has ever created. Public schools provide a model for what our society can achieve – free access to a necessary resource built through everyone pooling together, establishing education as a public good which is not for profit and not for sale.

But public schools are under attack. The rich want to take this public good and turn it into something they can own and profit off of, destroying schools as centers of community and democracy for the benefit of the wealthy. We can reinvest in public schools to address these problems and stake out an even bolder vision for what public schools can become.

True Democracy in America

Every American deserves a say in how our government runs and how our society is structured. We will remove the barriers to voting and ensure that everyone is able to vote and have their vote count. We will remove the structural racism that prevents people of color from voting, and we will end the gerrymandering that inhibits Democracy here in Texas.

A Farmer's Right to Grow

As a farmer, I know that our society does not value the people who grow the food on our tables. I am committed to fighting the big corporations that control our farming system and to creating a new system that provides a dignified living for all farmers and values our land.

Justice for Veterans

Our veterans are not disposable. We will defend and rebuild the VA, expand eligibility for VA care, demand equal respect for all who serve, stop deportations of undocumented veterans, end veteran homelessness, and guarantee quality education and good-paying union jobs for all veterans.