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About me

I grew up an Army brat and the oldest of eleven siblings. My mom is Puerto Rican, my dad from Eastern Washington, and they met as cadets at West Point. After they graduated, got married, and had me and my three brothers, their marriage ended when I was nine. My childhood was shaped by constant moves, tight finances, and watching my parents work hard through difficult times.

I was in 6th grade when I watched as the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center. At that moment, I gave up on being an architect and decided I wanted to serve my country.

My high school years were full of transition. Alternating between living with my dad, step mom, an aunt and even a family friend, I saw first hand the hardships of working class people working full time jobs and often still needing to rely on food stamps to feed the children in their care. By high school graduation in 2008, I had moved a dozen times and gone to three high schools in three different states.

I applied to only one college, the United States Military Academy at West Point, where I studied Computer Science and trained in military ethics, leadership, and the laws of just warfare. The program was rigorous and tested me in every way, both academically and personally. Like many cadets, I faced challenges that forced me to dig deep, ask for help and support when I needed it, and build the resilience to lead under pressure. Fighting through exhaustion, mental health struggles, family and relationship complications to finish the academy strong shaped my commitment to service. It strengthened my belief that access to support systems, whether in education, health, or community, can change the course of someone’s life. I’ll be forever grateful for the mental health care support that I had in the Army, and I graduated in 2013, ready to put those lessons into action as an Army officer.

I commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Field Artillery branch and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, before reporting to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for Artillery School. While I was there, I got to take Precision Fires where I learned how to use guided munitions and minimize collateral damage. I also learned about the military responsibility to prevent war crimes prohibited by international law and the Geneva conventions such as indiscriminate or deliberate targeting of civilians/civilian infrastructure and collective punishment, among others.

My first duty station was in South Korea, where I met my wife, a California native and the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, who was teaching English after graduating from Cal Poly Pomona. Around that time, the Army created the Cyber Warfare branch, and I was one of just a handful of artillery officers accepted into the new Cyber Corps. In early 2016, we left Korea for Augusta, Georgia, where I joined the U.S. Army Cyber Protection Brigade on 152 Cyber Protection Team (CPT). I led a mission element specializing in discovery and counter-infiltration, providing cyber support to corps and below units. The work took me to training centers across the country, including Fort Irwin, California, and Fort Polk, Louisiana.

After finishing my active duty service in 2018, I left the Army so my wife and I could start a family. I always wanted children of my own, but I wanted them to have more stability than the constant moves of my Army childhood. We settled in Northern California, where I worked in nonprofit healthcare at Kaiser Permanente in Walnut Creek and Oakland, later joining Sutter Health. When the pandemic began, we moved to Sacramento County. During this time, I earned my MBA from UC Berkeley while working full-time, graduating in 2022 before taking a role in technology consulting with PwC Strategy&.

Like many families, we faced challenges starting a family of our own and pursued IVF. That endeavor was ultimately unsuccessful, and opened my eyes to how corrupt and profit-driven decisions in healthcare can deeply affect people’s lives. This painful experience fuels my commitment to fight for a system that puts people before profits.

Professionally, I loved my job and the people I worked with at Strategy&, but the state of our country was alarming. Seeing peaceful students and ordinary people getting snatched off the street by the modern day gestapo and sent to foreign prisons without due process in violation of our laws, court orders, and the Constitution, I couldn’t continue with business as usual. So I quit my job to run for Congress, believing that our elected representatives have abdicated their responsibility to check the power of executive branch, and knowing I could do a better job.

Let’s be frank - our country’s been sold out. Both parties are in the pocket of billionaires and corporate lobbyists, and regular people are paying the price. The rich and powerful use their media machines to pit us against each other, blaming immigrants, trans people, and other vulnerable groups so we don’t look up and see the real problem: a ruling class getting rich while the rest of us struggle.

I’ve seen how health insurance companies profit from misery, denying care and jacking up prices just to boost their bottom line. As a disabled veteran who gets care through the VA, I know how dangerous it would be to privatize it. I’m fighting for Medicare for All because healthcare is a human right, and no one should have to go bankrupt just because they got sick.

For decades, our government has funneled wealth from working people to Wall Street and the billionaire class.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. It’s time our government worked for us, not them.

Top Issues

A rising tide lifts all boats. It’s time we fight for everyone’s basic needs and stop prioritizing the profits of unaccountable billionaires, corrupt politicians, and the military-industrial complex.

Affordable Housing & Groceries

Everyone deserves a safe, stable place to live and healthy food in their bellies.

I’ll fight to build more lower & middle income housing, develop a public homeowners insurance option, protect SNAP, expand WIC to ALL new mothers - regardless of income, and end grocery deserts.

PEOPLE FIRST so families can stay and thrive in the communities they call home.

Medicare for All

Health care is a human right.

As a former health care worker, I’ve seen how the system turns pain into health insurance and big pharma profits.

I’ll fight for an expanded health care workforce including mental health, Medicare For All, Rural Hospitals, and drug use intervention programs so we pay less, stay healthier, and live without fear for our loved ones if we leave or lose our jobs.

Good Jobs, Livable Wages & Labor Power

Civil Service jobs and power to the workers.

Democracy thrives when there is low inequality and working people have good jobs with strong labor protections.

I will fight to create Civil Service jobs in infrastructure and green energy.

I support an inflation adjusted livable minimum wage.

I support expanding workers’ rights including collective bargaining and the right to organize with the PRO Act(➚).

Reproductive Justice

Protect children & reproductive freedoms.

I support universal childcare, access to fertility treatments like IVF, and a Constitutional right to reproductive care.

SisterSong defines Reproductive Justice(➚) as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.

Environmental Justice

Protect our lands, communities & futures.

Climate change, environmental destruction & economic injustice are linked and demand bold action. My plan: a Green New Deal, creating jobs, restoring ecosystems & building a resilient future.

I’ll work to cut emissions, protect public lands & forests from corporate exploitation, and ensure disadvantaged communities benefit from clean energy investments.

Social Security & Medicaid

Hands off our safety nets.

Our seniors and most vulnerable people are being directly targeted with unprecedented attacks on Social Security and Medicaid.

Once elected, I will work to overturn the “Big Beautiful Bill”, remove the social security cap, undo DOGE damages, make social security easier to use, and sustain Medicaid until we have Medicare for All.

Veterans & Military

Support those who served

As Vets, we’re abused by war hungry politicians and forced to fight for care after harms caused during service.

As a disabled Vet, I oppose efforts to privatize the VA.

I oppose handouts to defense contractors when troops are on food stamps or living with black mold.

I oppose sending troops to die in pointless wars.

It’s time we prioritize care for our Vets and Troops.

End the Genocide

No support for crimes against humanity.

The Army teaches that collective punishment, forced starvation, and targeting of civilians are war crimes. These immoral acts of barbarism violate every rule of just warfare and threaten our national security.

I oppose sending any money or weapons to support Israel’s or any other country’s apartheid or genocide.

Never again means never again for anyone.

LGBT+ Rights

LGBTQIA+ rights are human rights.

Trans people existing does nothing to harm you. Gay marriage does nothing to harm you. LGBT+ people deserve the same rights and protections we all do.

I will fight to keep LGBTQIA+ status a federally protected class and end the ability of billionaires and oligarchs to use bigotry to keep us divided while they rob us blind and take away our freedoms.

Empower Public Education

Support teachers & students.

Classes are overcrowded, kids are hungry, programs are getting cut, and millions have endless student loan debt.

I support fully funding and staffing our schools(➚), universal Pre-K, free meals for all students, free public college & trade schools, and cancelling all federal student loan debt.

Everyone benefits from education and we need to fight to protect it.

Defend the Constitution

Protect our rights and freedoms.

When I joined the U.S. Army, I swore an oath to defend the Constitution and the rights granted to all US persons, not just citizens. That includes freedom of speech & religion, due process, and no military or secret police on our streets.

Once elected, I will hold the executive branch accountable and claw back Congressional powers from the President.

Break up the monopolies

Reinvigorate anti-trust enforcement so small businesses can compete

For half a century, our government has given up on stopping monopolies. The result is unprecedented consolidation across every industry making it impossible for small businesses or new entrants to compete and corrupting our political system.

I will fight to break up the monopolies, prevent new ones, and bring back real competition.

Money Out of Politics

Whoever has the most money, shouldn’t get the biggest say.

Wealthy interests spend infinite money buying our politicians which is why a Princeton study found that what ordinary people want has almost no impact on what policy outcomes actually get passed (➚).

That MUST change.

I support public financing of elections and a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Democratic Reforms

Neither party truly represents most Americans because our electoral system turns everything into a false binary:

  • Red vs. Blue
  • Left vs. Right
  • Us vs. Them

But our world is more complex than that.

That’s why I support proportional representation - the gold standard for representative democracy - which our Founding Fathers would have chosen had it been invented when they wrote the Constitution.