About this response & our editorial approach
About this candidate response
DutyStation contacts candidates to ask whether and how they support service members, military families and veterans, and invites them to share their thoughts and priorities. We share their replies here in the candidate’s or campaign’s own words, with minor formatting for readability and correction of obvious spelling mistakes.
No endorsement in either direction. Publishing a reply does not mean DutyStation endorses the candidate. Replying does not mean the candidate or campaign endorses DutyStation.
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Organized by topic. Email greetings and sign-offs are omitted; campaign contact details appear alongside.
Government shutdown and cooperation
- I oppose a government shutdown in 2027. Shutdowns should not be used as political leverage while service members, military families, veterans, federal workers, and the public bear the consequences.
- As an Independent, I would work with Democrats, Republicans, and the administration to pass responsible appropriations on time. I would support negotiations focused on specific spending disagreements rather than tying unrelated political demands to keeping the government operating. If a full appropriations agreement could not be reached before the deadline, I would support a temporary continuing resolution while negotiations continued.
- I would also support legislation protecting military pay during any lapse in appropriations so service members and their families are not asked to serve without receiving their regular paychecks. For veterans, I would work to protect VA healthcare, disability compensation, pensions, education benefits, housing assistance, and other essential services from disruption.
- Current VA contingency planning demonstrates why those protections matter: advance appropriations allow VA medical facilities and major veterans' benefits to continue during a shutdown, although some services can still be suspended.
- Governing requires cooperation. I will work with anyone when it benefits the people I represent, and I will disagree with either party or the administration when I believe their approach does not. My responsibility would be to the people of Florida's 13th District, not to a political party.
Quality of life
- My priorities would be straightforward: military service should not force families to sacrifice financial stability, healthcare, childcare, or a spouse’s career.
- I support competitive active-duty pay that keeps pace with the real cost of housing, food, childcare, and other necessities. Compensation should also recognize that military families face costs and disruptions civilian households often do not. The Defense Department’s own compensation review found that PCS moves reduce military-spouse earnings by an average of about 14% in a year when a move occurs.
- For healthcare, I would protect comprehensive TRICARE coverage while focusing on timely access to primary, specialty, mental-health, dental, and family care. Military families should not face unacceptable delays simply because providers are unavailable where they are stationed.
- Childcare is both a family issue and a readiness issue. I support expanding on-base capacity, increasing access to approved off-base care, addressing staffing shortages, and keeping care affordable. The 2024 Active Duty Spouse Survey found availability was the primary reason families using civilian childcare did not use military childcare.
- I also want military spouses to be able to build careers, not repeatedly start over. I support stronger professional-license portability, expanded remote-work opportunities, employment partnerships, education and training assistance, and reimbursement for employment-related costs caused by PCS moves. DoD identifies PCS moves and childcare as leading obstacles to spouse employment.
- Finally, I support reducing unnecessary PCS moves when operational requirements allow, providing families earlier and more predictable orders, and ensuring moving expenses are fully and promptly reimbursed. The military will always require mobility, but we can reduce needless disruption. Supporting military families is not separate from readiness, it is part of readiness.
Veterans’ care
- I would approach veterans’ care with a simple principle: when our country makes a commitment to someone who served, that commitment should be honored without unnecessary delays or bureaucracy.
- For healthcare, I would focus on timely appointments, adequate staffing, and accountability when veterans face excessive waits. I support maintaining a strong VA healthcare system while ensuring veterans can access appropriate community care when the VA cannot provide needed treatment within a reasonable timeframe.
- Mental healthcare must receive the same priority as physical healthcare. I would support expanded access to counselors, PTSD treatment, substance-use treatment, suicide-prevention programs, and Vet Centers, particularly in communities where VA facilities are difficult to reach. VA currently allows veterans to access certain mental-health services even when they are not enrolled in VA healthcare, and I would protect and strengthen that access.
- For disability benefits, the goal should be accurate decisions without unnecessary delays. There has been meaningful recent progress: VA reports that it processed more than 3 million disability claims in FY2026 by September 18, and its current data show disability-related claims averaged 68.4 days to complete in August 2026. I would work to preserve those improvements while improving coordination of military and VA medical records, modernizing claims processing, and ensuring veterans can get assistance from accredited representatives when navigating the system.
- Finally, transition assistance should begin before someone takes off the uniform, not after problems develop. About 200,000 service members transition to civilian life each year, and VA's existing Transition Assistance Program provides benefits education before separation. I would strengthen the connection between that program and employment assistance, education, housing, healthcare, disability claims, and individualized follow-up after separation.
- Veterans should not have to become experts in federal bureaucracy to receive what they earned through their service. My priority would be a system that is accessible, timely, accountable, and focused on the veteran.
Family housing
- I would treat safe, affordable military housing as a quality-of-life and readiness issue. Service members and their families should not have to choose between housing they can afford and housing that is safe and properly maintained.
- On affordability and availability, I would push the Department of Defense to identify duty stations where housing costs and shortages are creating the greatest hardship and make sure housing allowances reflect actual local conditions. GAO has documented families facing long commutes, geographic separation, and even taking second jobs because of housing costs.
- For on-base and privatized housing, I would demand enforceable maintenance standards, independent inspections, transparent work-order tracking, and meaningful consequences for contractors that repeatedly fail families. Problems such as mold, pests, unsafe conditions, and unresolved repairs should be measured by whether they were actually fixed, not simply whether a contractor responded to a work order. GAO has specifically identified weaknesses in this area and called for stronger oversight and inspection standards.
- I would also protect military families' ability to report unsafe conditions and use an effective dispute-resolution process without fear of retaliation. When a private housing company receives federal support and military families' housing dollars, taxpayers and residents have every right to demand accountability.
- Finally, Congress has a responsibility to fund the infrastructure it expects our service members to live in. As of fiscal year 2025, GAO estimated DOD faced a $285 billion installation-maintenance backlog, including problems affecting quality of life.
- If we ask people to serve this country, providing their families with safe, well-maintained and affordable housing should be a basic part of that commitment.