Adam's Platform
The challenges facing Virginia’s 8th District have never been more urgent or interconnected. For too long, Washington's permanent political class has only offered excuses and half-measures at the expense of middle-class and working families.
We need a new generation of leaders who are not beholden to corporate politics or the influence of money in decision-making. As a veteran and former CIA officer, I am motivated only by service to my community, not the special interests of Washington. This is why I'm making a voluntary personal wealth pledge. I will never self-enrich at the expense of the public, while giving my constituents the full transparency they deserve from their elected officials.
This commitment isn't symbolic, it will also be the foundation of how I intended to lead. My 8 for 8 agenda focuses on eight clear priorities that lower costs for families, restore accountability in government, and protect the democratic institutions our community depends on for opportunity and prosperity.
1. Restoring Accountability
Our democracy is backsliding into an authoritarian project. At a moment like this, we need leaders who are only accountable to the voters who elected them. This means breaking the stranglehold of oligarchs, billionaires, corporations, and political insiders who have weaponized their influence against the interests of middle class and working Americans. We must return to governing by a common set of principles, not shareholder value.
Ending the influence of corporate money on our political system requires stronger campaign finance laws, real transparency around who funds political media and "influencers," and strict enforcement of ethics rules that apply to everyone in power, not just those without influence.
In Congress, I will remain committed to aggressive oversight of the Trump administration, exposing corrupt practices, and overturning failed rulings like Citizens United. I will also support bipartisan legislation to ban members of Congress and their families from owning or trading individual stocks while in office.
While serving in Congress, I will also make a personal wealth pledge:
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I will donate 50 percent back to community organizations supporting working families
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I will make my personal finances available for public review
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I will place all of my personal assets in a blind trust
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I will not own or trade individual stocks
Public office is a responsibility, not a reward, and too many in the permanent political class have abused their positions to enrich themselves. Accountability is the only way we make democracy and the rule of law work again for everyone.
2. Building Affordability
"I think affordability is the greatest con job" - President Donald J. Trump
The affordability crisis isn't accidental. Decades of poor decision-making has protected incumbents, rewarded consolidation, and allowed predatory practices to replace policies that actually benefit middle-class and working families. Washington has only managed scarcity, instead of solving the real problems driving it.
In the 8th District, homeownership remains out of reach, rents continue to skyrocket, energy costs are expanding, food and childcare are becoming unaffordable, and transportation challenges have eroded our quality of life. All of which has been made worse by Trump's disastrous tariff policies.
We need to build affordable homes for first-time buyers and crack down on corporate landlords that drive up rents through price-gouging and speculative practices. But housing alone isn’t enough. These efforts must be paired with policies that reduce the financial stress of childcare, so working families aren't priced out of their own communities.
I also believe we need permanent investments in renewable energy projects that will lower utility costs and create new workforce opportunities. That same approach applies to transportation. We must invest in next-generation transportation projects that reduce our carbon footprint, provide more affordable mobility options, and improve our quality of life.
By harnessing the ingenuity of our communities, we can build our way to a more affordable future.
3. Increasing Access to Healthcare
ACA (Obamacare) subsidies expired on December 31, 2025. Healthcare premiums for an estimated 24 million Americans have now more than doubled. 4.8 million Americans are in danger of losing their coverage completely. This is impacting almost 400,000 Virginians, including tens of thousands of people in the 8th District alone. Families throughout our communities will now be exposed to sudden cost hikes, forcing them to make impossible choices between their healthcare, childcare, mortgages, rent, and groceries. This is completely unacceptable.
Healthcare is a human right, not a product for insurance companies, corporations, and shareholders to profit from. I support Medicare for All and decoupling healthcare from employment. We need to protect people from coverage disruptions, regardless of their circumstances, and build a single-payer system that delivers high-quality, affordable care for everyone. This means taking on consolidation in the healthcare industry, fighting outrageous drug costs, and investing in clinics, hospitals, and the next-generation of doctors, nurses, and caregivers.
I also support reproductive healthcare for women, including the right to choose and to make personal medical decisions free from political interference. These decisions belong between a woman and her doctor, and no one else. I will always protect access to contraception, prenatal and maternal care, and abortion services as essential components of women’s healthcare and vigorously oppose any effort to criminalize care or punish providers.
4. Protecting Education, Building Opportunity
Opportunity, prosperity, and building generational wealth starts with investments in education. We need a bold vision with new ideas that can connect the future of education to the future of work. That includes expanding paid workforce training, modernizing vocational and technical education, and strengthening STEM programs, while honoring our commitment to the arts and humanities which prepare students to be thoughtful citizens.
Most importantly, it means treating educators with the dignity and respect they deserve. Paying teachers competitive salaries, supporting collective bargaining, strengthening unions, and providing them the resources, classroom technologies, and materials they need to succeed.
At the same time, we must defend higher-education from the kinds of political interference and ideological attacks that have undermined academic freedom by the Trump administration. Virginia's university tradition is among the oldest and most well-respected in the nation. They should be centers of learning and research, preparing our students to navigate an uncertain world, not battlegrounds for the authoritarian project.
We also need to strengthen our community colleges, which play a vital role in creating accessible pathways to well-paying careers across our region. I also believe programs that lowers the cost of tuition, expands tuition assistance, provides student debt relief, and makes education more accessible for middle-class and working families are an essential component of economic mobility.
5. Supporting Immigrant Communities
A fair immigration system starts with a single admission, our immigrant communities deserve respect and dignity. They are our neighbors, colleagues, friends, and students. This admission carries real obligations. We must expedite pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers who are already contributing to our communities, protect Dreamers, invest in legal representation, and modernize the processes to do so. I believe that our immigration policies should reflect our values, because we are strongest when we choose inclusion over fear and the politics of cruelty.
This is also why we must abolish ICE and fundamentally reform CBP. ICE has deliberately operated outside the rule of law, without transparency or accountability, while routinely violating the civil rights of legal residents and American citizens. Masked agents of the state conducting unlawful raids are unconscionable and incompatible with our democratic values. ICE cannot be reformed. It must be abolished.
ICE's budget will reach $75 billion over the next four years, exceeding the combined budgets of all other federal law-enforcement including the FBI and DEA. This not only draws critical resources away from the actual threats we face as a nation, but sets a dangerous precedent for how law enforcement can be wielded against American citizens in the future.
I will fight to redirect those resources towards confronting the affordability crisis, supporting middle class and working families, and strengthening our communities. Continued investment in mass detention and "deportation officers" only serves to terrorize our cities and is an egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars.
6. Regulating Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is being pushed into every aspect of our lives faster than we can understand the consequences. Right now a handful of oligarchs, billionaires, and corporations are racing to reshape how we work, what we see, and how we engage with the world, without proper regulation and guardrails. This has to change. Disruptive technology such as this needs to be fully evaluated before being adopted at the scale it is.
In Virginia's 8th District, these impacts are already being felt. Northern Virginia's "Data Center Alley" continues to drive up energy bills, strain water resources, and reshape our communities without meaningful local buy-in. More alarming, this locks in a model where our communities will consistently absorb the economic and environmental costs without sharing in the long-term benefits. Our communities cannot be treated as commodities for shareholders.
I will work to establish legal frameworks to ensure AI developers prioritize the public interest over corporate profits through transparent oversight and mandatory audits for high-risk AI systems. These will also include strong federal protections for workers experiencing job displacement and to prevent monopolies on data control. AI should work for the people, not replace them.
7. Investigating DOGE
DOGE must be held accountable. From Elon Musk to "Big Balls," their project was an unlawful enterprise, existing outside of any legal or congressional mandate. The damage caused by their incompetent attempt to dismantle government by targeting our federal workforce will take a generation to fully undo. Instead of reforming government, DOGE sabotaged government. There can be no real accountability without holding unelected tech oligarchs responsible for enriching themselves at the expense of the American people, including families here in the 8th District.
We need to tell the truth about what happened, who benefited, and ensure this kind of project never happens again. Our public institutions are not Silicon Valley startups to be “disrupted” by a gaggle of tech bros who lacked the basic maturity to intern, let alone run our flagship agencies. Targeting our federal families who dedicated their lives to serving this country is a betrayal of the oath we all swore.
Investigating DOGE's actions and exposing their conflicts of interest and incompetence is the only way to hold accountable those who actively tried to dismantle our democracy.
8. Defending Democracy, Fighting Authoritarianism
Loyalty to the Constitution has been replaced by loyalty to Trump. The next-generation of Democratic leaders must demonstrate to their constituents, and the American people, their unwavering commitment to democracy. Strongly worded letters are no longer enough. We need to organize, build coalitions, and translate our values into action. We need to fight the authoritarian project on all fronts.
From January 6, DOGE, masked ICE raids, military deployment in our cities, illegal operations in Venezuela, and the abandonment of our allies abroad, Trump has shown that he prefers the company of autocrats, oligarchs, and human traffickers to the needs of the American people.
My commitment will always be to the Constitution, rule of law, and the independence of our institutions. Reimagining our democratic guardrails is essential to ensure what is happening now, never happens again. If we don't take a stand against authoritarianism, we risk losing what generations before us sacrificed to build, while leaving the next generation with a democracy they no longer recognize.