Invest in Public Health & Safer Communities

Safety is a public health emergency. Every person deserves to feel safe in St. Louis. But today, that’s not our reality. Institutions that promote safety are under attack. Programs that help our residents are being defunded and dismantled. Our judicial system continues to punish rather than support. We need care, not criminalization. We deserve access to institutions that foster health and well-being for everyone.

As your Congresswoman, I'll continue pushing to transform public safety, confront the climate crisis, address the gun violence epidemic, and protect survivors of violence.

I’ll work on additional legislation and resources to combat gun violence. Stopping mass shootings and the crisis of gun violence needs a champion, and I'll continue to be at the forefront of this fight. I helped pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the first major gun violence bill in decades. A huge step forward for victims of domestic violence, this law closes the “Boyfriend Loophole,” which lets people convicted of domestic violence keep their guns if they aren’t married or living with their partners. But we have so much more work to do. In Congress, I’ll focus on curbing the flow of guns into our communities and address the root causes of violence. I’ll continue bringing home money to St. Louis to combat and respond to these tragedies, responding directly to the heartbreak in our neighborhoods’ fabric that bullets pierce.
I’ll continue to fight Big Pharma to lower prescription drug costs. Senator Bernie Sanders and I pressured Eli Lilly to cut insulin prices, and we won. I introduced a bill to cap insulin at $20 a vial. I’ll continue fighting for this in Congress and I’ll go further by supporting Medicare drug negotiations, cracking down on price gouging, and breaking up monopolies.
I’ll continue holding those responsible accountable for the nuclear contamination and pollution they caused. In my position, I worked to make sure my district was cared for, steering our priorities to promote clean energy and safe environments. I introduced policies that held federal agencies accountable and improved access to affordable utilities. I co-introduced the Environmental Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act, which was part of the most consequential piece of climate legislation ever passed: the Inflation Reduction Act. Locally, we acted on environmental issues that are very harmful to the community, delivering funding for waste management and contamination cleanup efforts at local spots like Coldwater Creek.
I helped write the People’s Response Act. This legislation would help transform how we keep communities safe, creating a new public safety division inside the Department of Health and Human Services. We desperately need it built around inclusive community needs and public health. These policies and reforms would prevent harm, strengthen communities, and end the incentives behind for-profit incarceration. I’ll continue advancing legislation like this to transform what safety in our community looks like.
For too long, safety has meant prisons, punishment, and surveillance. It’s a system that has been failing Black and Brown communities. The United States is the world leader in incarceration. Here in St. Louis, we feel the impact of this every day. In our district, police have led the nation in civilian killings for nearly a decade — including the killing of Michael Brown in 2014. I co-wrote the Helping Families Heal Act with Lezley McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown, to set aside $100 million for community and school-based programs that will help people who have experienced, witnessed, or been in proximity to police violence to receive the counseling they need.
I’ll continue to ensure that public safety is a top priority. In my capacity as a leader on Congressional Committees, I shared personal stories and became the voice for the voiceless. I was appointed to the powerful House Judiciary Committee, named Vice Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, and served as a member on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. These experiences gave me a platform to offer Washington perspectives they hadn’t been exposed to before.
I introduced the first resolution in Congress to set a baseline on reparations for descendants of enslaved people. The legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade lives on today. This resolution makes it clear that the federal government has a moral and legal duty to repair the harm from slavery, Jim Crow, the War on Drugs, mass incarceration, lynchings, and race massacres. It calls for a holistic approach to support descendants by providing solutions that address segregation, restitution, rehabilitation, and justice.