Issue Priorities

The state’s current minimum wage of $7.15 has not been raised since 2007 and is now between 18 and 83 percent lower than our neighboring states. No wage that puts a full-time worker under the poverty level should be acceptable under any circumstances.

Emily not only supports a $15 minimum wage, but she also supports indexing that wage to automatically annually adjust with inflation to ensure hard-working Pennsylvanians maintain the buying power needed to afford their basic living expenses.

Emily Kinkead will fight to build a healthcare system for all Pennsylvanians that will be immune to Donald Trump's efforts to repeal protections of the Affordable Care Act such as pre-existing conditions and preventative care. She supports closing corporate tax loopholes to fund patient care and taking on big pharmaceutical drug companies to lower prescription drug prices.

Emily will also push to stop the practice of insurance companies cutting off access to those fighting opioid addiction prematurely just to save money and fight to improve access to adequate care for the most vulnerable Pennsylvanians.

The blame for this disparity lies solely at the feet of the State Legislature. Despite their claims to the contrary, Republicans have continually drained state funding for public education in the state budget; even worse, they rely on loopholes and semantics to imply they have actually increased funding. But parents, teachers, and school administrators know the truth.

Additionally, the current scheme of funneling taxpayer dollars to prop up failing cyber charter schools is a complete disgrace. Funding for public education should go into the classroom, not into the pockets of special interest donors who have for too long been able to use public dollars as their own personal piggy banks.

Emily Kinkead knows a quality K-12 education is the foundation of success for our children, which is why she will be the vocal advocate for public education that the 20th District has sorely lacked for far too long.

At the same time, the North Side and Northern Boroughs, like Bellevue and Avalon, have been left to fend for themselves. The great potential for investment and development that exists in these areas in being squandered.

Emily Kinkead is committed to working with communities and developers to ensure that all of the areas in the 20th District get investment, that it is sustainable, and that it centers and benefits the residents of the 20th. Families who have lived in these neighborhoods for generations should be the primary beneficiaries of economic investments rather than finding themselves displaced and pushed out by the economic developments they have been seeking for decades.

Emily supports the immediate passage of the Fairness Act, which will make it unlawful to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Additionally, Emily supports requiring LGBTQIA+ information in our state’s sex education programs, increasing funding and programs aimed at providing affirming mental health care to all Pennsylvanians, but particularly LGBTQIA+ youth, and banning the practice of conversion therapy. She supports requiring all jails and prisons across the state to house transgender inmates with the gender with which they identify and provide all necessary care and treatment for those who are transitioning while incarcerated.

Emily Kinkead knows that it is not the role of the state to interfere with a woman’s reproductive decisions. She believes that the women of Pennsylvania deserve peace of mind in knowing that politicians will not be playing politics with their personal rights. Accordingly, she will fight to enshrine the protections of a woman’s right to have a safe, legal abortion unencumbered by government interference or other barriers, as outlined in Roe v. Wade, into law in Pennsylvania.

Emily will champion the expansion of accurate and comprehensive sexual and reproductive education and healthcare. She will work to end policies that allow healthcare providers to refuse to provide care on the basis of personal beliefs. She will advocate for funding for research and innovation focused on expanding access and equity in sexual and reproductive healthcare, with a commitment to social justice and centering underserved populations. She will also fight for funding for programs to address the implicit biases of healthcare providers to ensure that women, particularly women of color, are taken seriously in their needs and provided adequate care.

Because nothing happens in a vacuum, Emily intends to couple this work with her work to foster economic opportunity, create communities free from violence, secure access to affordable healthcare for all, and ensure non-discriminatory, culturally-competent treatment for all individuals both inside and outside the healthcare setting.

We need to invest in people at every stage from reducing police interactions with children in school and increasing access to diversionary programs to focusing on restorative programs that benefit victims of crime, the accused, and the community in order to make everyone whole.

As a lawyer, Emily Kinkead has seen from the inside the need for change in our system. She is committed to returning our police forces to serving neighborhoods through community policing. This requires working with police and community stakeholders to rebuild trust. Emily supports the establishment of independent citizen review boards with subpoena and disciplinary power to review police misconduct complaints. She also supports encouraging police investment in the communities they serve through rewarding police officers for positive community interactions.

Emily is also committed to expanding restorative justice programs and ensuring that these programs are available to those accused of crimes without the requirement that they plead guilty. She believes that cash bail should be abolished for all non-violent offenses and that the state should be required to affirmatively demonstrate why a defendant cannot be released on their own recognizance before they are denied their freedom prior to any conviction.

Emily believes that schools should be a place of learning and that school infractions should not put students into the criminal justice system. She also supports increasing funding to provide a greater counselor-to-student ratio in school, as well as funding to provide alternatives to detention and suspension that will keep students in school and engaged.

Finally, Emily supports funding programs that train lawyers, court officers and judges, police officers, teachers, and school administrators about implicit bias and effective ways to counteract the unconscious cognitive associations that often lead to the racial disparities we see in our criminal justice system.

Collective action benefits not only union members, but non-union workers and the community at large. Unions have been the impetus for improved workplace standards, expanded access to healthcare and living wages, and the acknowledgement that workers are the true job-creators in this country. The Republican attack on unions is one of the leading causes of our nation's growing income inequality and stagnant wage growth and Emily will fight these anti-union tactics in Harrisburg.

Emily opposes right-to-work (for less) legislation. She supports the passage of the Workplace Freedom Act, which would streamline union formation and allow union representatives direct access to new hires to explain the benefits of union membership. Emily supports efforts to institute industry-wide bargaining.

Emily supports allowing workers to sue employers who illegally interfere with unionizing efforts. She favors imposing financial penalties on employers who illegally fire employees that attempt to unionize and requiring businesses to immediately reinstate these employees while their cases are pending. Emily also supports more severe punishments for employers who violate labor laws. She supports the creation of OSHA-style protections for public employees.

To combat the impact of Janus, Emily supports legislation that would permit unions to control and limit the time period for opting out of membership. Moreover, Emily would like to explore requiring direct reimbursement from public employers rather than employees for the costs of collective bargaining.

But building robust labor unions requires more than just actions against bad actors. Emily supports guaranteeing unions access to good data on membership, which means being provided new hire and bargaining unit lists. She also supports permitting unions to recruit at employer trainings, in-services, and other employer-mandated gatherings of employees.

Allegheny County, with its world-class labor unions and world-class universities, is eminently qualified and nimble enough to be a leader in the coming green economy. As a representative in Harrisburg, Emily will make the case for prioritizing our unions and making Allegheny County a production hub for the 21st century economy.

Emily is dedicated to ensuring that all workers are treated fairly and respectfully and are able to readily form and join unions without fear. To that end, she is committed to an open-door policy with labor leaders that will allow her to best serve the interests of union members, labor in our region, and the needs of all workers across Pennsylvania.

Emily also supports greater accountability for the government agencies tasked with protecting our environment. Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s grand jury investigation into both private energy companies and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection highlights the danger associated with allowing government regulators to operate without proper oversight. And because clean water and clean air transcend legislative boundaries, what happens in other parts of the region is very much our business as well.

Emily is vehemently opposed to HB 1100, a bill that seeks to allocate nearly one billion dollars in subsidies to petrochemical companies to build cracker plants in Pennsylvania. While most subsidies require reauthorization every one to two years, this massive giveaway would linger for 30 years - an entire generation. Allegheny County has the worst air quality and some of the worst water quality in the nation because of a generations of pollution from industries propped up this way. **This bill was recently vetoed by Governor Wolf but there is growing support to override the veto. **

Emily recognizes that Pennsylvania's economy needs to be transitioning to clean, renewable energy sources today. However, she also recognizes that we cannot abandon the petrochemical industry workers, as we have our coal miners and steel workers in the past. Our path forward to a healthier, greener future must include everyone, at all levels. As a member of the PA State House, Emily will fight tooth and nail to protect our environment and our working families.

Currently, Pennsylvania has no campaign contribution limits. As a state representative, Emily has fought to put caps on campaign contributions and fight to establish a system of public financing for elections because if the people who own politicians are the ones who pay for them, then it should be the people - not wealthy special interests.

Emily supports establishing an independent citizens redistricting commission to redraw the boundaries of our legislative districts because people should pick their politicians, not the other way around.

Emily is committed to providing information and transparency about the work of the government. Once elected, she will advertise every bill that comes up for a vote, what it will do for the people of Pennsylvania, where she stands, and why. She will be out in the community talking to her constituents so that they know that they have a leader they can turn to when they need help.

Emily Kinkead supports automatic voter registration and options for early voting. She believes that Election Day should be a state, if not federal, holiday to encourage greater voter participation.

But she also acknowledges that elections are too important to leave them vulnerable to outside interference from hostile foreign powers or rogue hackers. Emily supports the universal use of hand-marked paper ballots with disability-accessible machines in each precinct.

Emily believes that no one should have to go without life-sustaining healthcare or medications simply because they cannot afford to pay for it. But older Americans, many on fixed incomes, are struggling to keep up with the skyrocketing costs of premiums and out of pocket costs on prescription drugs. Emily supports following the lead of states like Colorado and Illinois to cap the out-of-pocket cost of essential drugs like insulin. She believes that the government should be working to bring more generic drugs to the marketplace and crack down on dirty tricks that big pharmaceutical companies use to prevent competition. Moreover, Emily supports passing legislation that would allow Pennsylvania to import cheaper drugs from Canada.

Similarly, Emily acknowledges the increasing need for all households to have access to communications services like cable, internet, and cellular phones, regardless of income. Nevertheless, lack of infrastructure limits competition and allows for a relative few companies to increase prices unchecked. Accordingly, Emily wants to create and expand programs that build our communications infrastructure and allows ready access to every Pennsylvanian without the price-gouging from giant corporations.

Emily also believes that we need to do more to protect seniors from predatory scams. Pennsylvanians are being hit with unprecedented numbers of robocalls and increasingly sophisticated email scams. These are more than an annoyance; they can mean serious financial risks for older Americans. Emily supports passing legislation to enforce the prohibition of robocalls and give Pennsylvanians more resources to report and block numbers and emails that seek to take advantage of our seniors.

Emily believes that every person should be able to age with dignity and live out their days in the environment that is most comfortable for them. For this reason, she supports expanding programs and financial supports that allow seniors to stay in their homes and that assist families in providing the care that their loved ones need and deserve. Quality long-term and in-home care should not just be available to those who can afford it, but to every Pennsylvanian who needs it.

Finally, Emily believes that all workers deserve an opportunity to earn a living wage and be treated with respect. However, too often age discrimination creates obstacles for older workers to obtain or keep employment, threatening their financial security when it is most important. Older Pennsylvanians are a vital part of our economy and should not be sacrificed for the bottom line. Emily supports expansion and robust enforcement of anti-discrimination laws to ensure that every Pennsylvanian who wants to work can do so in a safe, healthy environment.

She also believes that we need to do more to end cruel and inhumane practices like pigeon shoots. That our law currently specifically excepts this practice is egregious. She will vote to protect animals, to ensure that they are treated humanely, and to hold those responsible for harming the defenseless accountable.