Let’s get to work.
Healthcare is a human right, not a job perk, and a pandemic is precisely the time to ensure that healthcare is affordable and accessible to every American. In Congress, Jake will work for a public option to build on Obamacare, for increased federal funding towards basic medical research, and for the right to choose.
Jake believes that building on Obamacare is the most effective way to extend coverage and expand quality care. While the president and his Republican allies in Congress have gutted Obamacare, Jake will work to improve upon the protections guaranteed in President Obama’s original legislation. This includes strengthening the individual mandate, expanding reinsurance, and better aligning incentives between the public and private sectors for healthcare research and delivery. Jake will fight to protect any attempts to privatize or cut social security, Medicare, or Medicaid.
Having grown up in a family of physicians, scientists, and public health officials, Jake also appreciates healthcare and the life sciences as a public service and an engine of the Massachusetts economy. From his own family, he has seen the dedication that healthcare workers bring to patient care and to the front lines of this pandemic.
Jake believes that reproductive care is health care. In Congress, he’ll stand up to President Trump’s dangerous agenda, will defend Title X, and will work to guarantee that safe and legal abortions are accessible to all. From strengthening the ACA birth control mandate to eliminating the Global Gag Rule, Jake will be a strong advocate for pro-choice policy, including codifying the ROE Act at the state and federal level. He will also push for eliminating the Hyde Amendment and will support Senators who will vote for pro-choice federal judges.
In both business and local government, Jake has delivered progressive solutions that match the urgency of the climate crisis. On the city council, Jake has voted in line with Green Newton’s priorities 100% of the time, ranging from municipal solar panels to mixed-use developments that lower our carbon footprints. The city’s leading environmental advocates have endorsed his campaign for Congress.
In Congress, Jake will:
- Make carbon-pricing a day-one priority. Jake was the first candidate in the race to call for a price on carbon, and he considers it one of the most important pieces of legislation of the next Congress. Carbon’s current cost does not reflect its true cost in the damage it does to our environment. Jake knows that implementing carbon pricing is key in moving toward a clean energy economy.
- Champion offshore wind. The Massachusetts Fourth has the potential to be a nationwide leader in wind energy, and Jake will help drive efforts, like Rep. Keating’s H.R. 3068, that will incentivize offshore wind expansion and provide the career training and education needed to support the industry.
- Support federal funding for green R&D, and invest in projects like Manhattan 2 that engage Massachusetts’ academic and tech sectors.
- Back Governor Jay Inslee’s climate justice plan. Gov. Inslee has led on this issue in his home state of Washington and as a presidential candidate. Jake believes Gov. Inslee’s plan is the right path forward in Congress. Specifically, Jake supports:
- Building an “Evergreen Economy” through federal investment in clean energy infrastructure, creating good jobs and a sustainable future.
- Supporting “Community Climate Justice" to ensure that the transition to a clean economy is equitable and inclusive.
Jake will lead on progressive environmental policy, ensuring that each community in the Massachusetts Fourth benefits from progress made.
Unemployment has spiked and Main Street businesses are shuttering. In the aftermath of COVID-19, we need to kickstart job creation and send federal support to cities and towns to prevent cuts to essential services. We can’t just return to the status quo, though: an inclusive economic recovery means every family, everywhere in the district, gets back on their feet with good-paying jobs.
Jake’s plans for economic relief in the short term include helping working families and small businesses, budget relief for state and local governments (H.R. 6800 - The Heroes Act), and providing aid to underserved children. He is also working with local officials to prioritize projects, ranging from water treatment and waste management to transportation, for federal infrastructure investment. For the medium-term, Jake is already working with state and local officials, business leaders, and unions on a roadmap for creating good jobs throughout the district. Read the first installment, centered on life sciences manufacturing, here.
COVID-19 has forced kids, parents, and teachers to sacrifice so much. Cities and towns throughout the district will need federal aid to prevent impossible tradeoffs between essential services, education chief among them. In Congress, Jake will work to ensure our schools don’t lose a dime and our kids don’t lose another year.
The first position Jake took in Newton was as an advocate for early education, helping to bring about full-day Kindergarten and calling for expanded pre-K offerings. Jake has continued to advocate for education — when the Newton City Council debated a pay raise for elected officials, Jake voted No (one of only two out of 24), because Newton teachers hadn’t secured a pay raise yet, too.
Excellent public education is the best way to ensure equal opportunity. In Congress, Jake will fight against Republican cuts to federal education aid, and will be a champion for early education, technical/vocational education, and student debt relief.
Jake is committed to confronting racism, and has helped initiate this work right here in Newton. On the city council, Jake led a review of the Newton Police Department’s policies surrounding use of force and joined his colleagues in backing the police reform Task Force. In his op-ed in WBUR’s Cognoscenti, Jake calls for a demilitarization of our police and advocates for a review of police functions through the lens of race. In Congress, Jake will champion anti-racist policy as we work towards this country’s core aspiration: equal justice and equal opportunity for all.
Your time is valuable, but getting around keeps getting harder. Greater Boston has the worst traffic in the country, and transit is inconvenient and unreliable. Moreover, transportation accounts for more than 40% of Massachusetts’ carbon emissions. Jake has been one of the Newton City Council’s leaders on transportation and an advocate for progressive transportation policies statewide. As a manager at Liberty Mutual’s innovation lab, he helped re-orient a Fortune 100 company to urban planning less dependent on single-occupancy vehicles.
In Congress, Jake will ensure that federal investments in a carbon-neutral future, including any form of a Green New Deal, bring funding for Massachusetts to re-invent its transportation system. The status quo of traffic and pollution is not acceptable. Jake will help deliver smarter transportation policy to Massachusetts, while strengthening the vibrancy of downtowns and neighborhoods from Fall River to Franklin, Needham to Brookline.
Jake commanded an infantry platoon in Afghanistan and special operations in Panama. He slept, ate, trained, and patrolled with an assault weapon for four years. Those are not the ‘arms’ that our Founders had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment 229 years ago. The American gun violence epidemic is one that plagues our schools, our grocery stores, our places of worship, our public squares — and disproportionately affects minority communities.
In Congress, Jake will take on the NRA and will fight to make common-sense gun legislation a reality, including: assault-weapon buybacks, mandatory liability insurance for all weapons, Red Flag laws, and universal background checks. Jake’s policy proposals have earned him a 2020 Gun Sense Candidate distinction from Moms Demand Action. Jake is proud to stand with a coalition of moms, students, veterans, community leaders, and public health officials to confront the gun lobby and end the American gun violence pandemic.
Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. Jake’s great-grandfather, a Russian Jew, fled the pogroms and built a small business in Massachusetts. From those refugee roots, his granddaughter, Jake’s mother, became the first female CEO of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
America’s promise is that the condition of your birth should not determine the outcome of your life. We fail that promise when we shut our doors to immigrants and refugees, or when we deprive those here of the same rights and opportunities of native-born Americans.
As a Newton city councilor, Jake co-docketed Newton’s Welcoming City ordinance, protecting immigrants from ICE overreach. In Congress, Jake will be a steadfast and vocal advocate for America as a nation of immigrants, and will work to roll back the Trump administration’s cruel and counterproductive immigration policies.Jake commanded special operations, and knows what the United States military is capable of—and what it is not. Massive troop deployments in nationbuilding exercises waste our resources and needlessly endanger American lives.
As a member of Congress, Jake will work to reduce the conventional ground-force footprint, to scale naval, air, and cyber commands that protect the global commons, and to invest in surgical special operations that can identify, target, and neutralize terrorists across the globe without overextending the United States. Jake believes that international aid and robust diplomacy can strengthen our standing in the world while helping those most in need around the globe. Read more here.
Jake unequivocally supports military aid to Israel as negotiated in the Obama-era MOU and recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. As a Jew and as an American, he is committed to Israel’s security and prosperity.
Jake favors a two-state solution, recognizing that such a solution must be negotiated between involved actors and cannot be imposed by outsiders. The solution must result in a viable state for the Palestinians and security for Israelis.
America’s alliance with Israel is based on shared values and shared interests; Israel shares our commitment to free and fair elections, individual rights, free speech, a free press, and an independent judiciary. Israel does not always live up to its highest ideals — but it remains committed to democratic values despite decades of war and terrorism.
Jake believes that, in such a volatile region, a democratic partner with a strong military and similar long-term goals is in our strategic interest. America has vital interests in the region – for example, keeping nuclear arms out of the hands of bad actors, and preventing failed states from harboring terrorists. A strong Israel that serves as a close partner, that supports her moderate neighbors, that shares critical intelligence, and that deters war in the region is vital to our ability to manage fallout from aggressive actors and failed states.
Congress must vigorously support and defend the Constitution to protect the republic from a corrupt president who believes he is above the law, who politicizes the judiciary, law enforcement, military, and scientific institutions, and who invited foreign interference into our elections.
Jake publicly called for an impeachment inquiry in 2017, and maintains that President Trump is wholly unfit for office. As a member of Congress, Jake is committed to strengthening Congressional oversight, using the power of appropriations to prevent abuses, and reinforcing the rule of law.
Jake believes systemic change is the most durable and impactful. In Congress, Jake will look beyond the surface to address root causes of the issues we face in our systems and institutions. As a starter, that means overturning Citizens United. Jake also supports the Fair Representation Act and was an early supporter of Ranked Choice Voting, a simple and fair way to better represent the will of the majority in elections. Jake has also presented at conferences on more equitable and transparent financing mechanisms for political campaigns and journalism. Jake is a strong supporter of universal vote by mail as one means to combat voter suppression.
After corporations spent money on a ballot initiative in Newton, Jake detailed the problem to his constituents in his newsletter, later submitting and passing a resolution with the Democratic City Committee calling for an end to opaque corporate spending in local elections. Jake does not accept any corporate PAC donations for his own campaign.