Junie Joseph

Criminal Justice / Public Safety

We also need to end for-profit prisons and get rid of the cash bail system. As a lawyer, I have personal experience of seeing the impact of cash bail in people’s lives. I recently had a client in jail. When I met him for the first time he had a huge gash over his eye lids and I asked him what happened. He told me he was beaten at the jail. My client explained that he was in jail because of traffic tickets and he had a 100 dollar bail he could not pay. I was shocked by learning that my client almost lost his eyes because he could not pay a 100 charge to bail himself out of jail. The cash bail system is downright dangerous because it can lead to a person losing their life behind bars for a mere 100 dollars. No one in our community should be held in jail and separated from their family due to a 100 cash bail. Learn more

We also must look closely at some of the criminal justice processes, and stop thinking that prisons and incarceration are the solutions to problems like drug addiction and mental illness. If we continue incarcerating people for possession of drugs, as we did this past legislative session with the so-called fentanyl accountability bill, we will have to open a new prison. Most of us don’t want that, because we understand that more than two years after George Floyd’s death exposed the level of injustice in our criminal justice systems, Black and brown people are still incarcerated at much higher rates than white people. We need to require all of our district attorneys to track data on arrests and incarcerations and implement changes to address inequities, as our Boulder County DA has done. Learn more

Drug Policy

Addiction is a disease. We should focus on prevention and treatment of drug use, not punishment and incarceration. Prevention and treatment are effective in reducing rates of use and addiction and these are the approaches a majority of us want to pursue. 1 in 5 people in our own country are incarcerated for drug offenses in their life. If incarceration decreased rates of drug addiction and use, we’d have solved this problem by now. We need more prevention and treatment, not more people in prisons. Learn more

Arrests and prison time for drug possession and use disproportionately impact communities of color, who are more likely to be charged and convicted for drug-related offenses. The Vera Institute recently highlighted some of the biases in our criminal justice system. Most Coloradans know someone who struggles with addiction. This is one of the hardest problems facing Colorado families and I will support Colorado families in getting their loved ones the real support they need, not mandating one-size-fits-all punishments. I did not support the so-called “fentanyl accountability” bill that was passed this spring, HB22-1326. Drug possession was already a misdemeanor in our state and this bill is a slippery slope to higher incarceration rates and less investment in treatments. If we continue down this path of making drug possession a felony, we will need to open a new prison. I want to invest your tax dollars in more treatment facilities for people struggling with addiction, not more prisons. Prevention and treatment are much cheaper solutions for drug use and addiction than incarceration. Learn more

Education

Right now one of the biggest problems facing our K-12 schools is a shortage of workers, including: teachers, support staff, bus drivers, and before- and after-school care providers. I am hearing from working families in our community who are not only struggling with preschool and daycare, but who have school-age children who do not have after-school care due to staffing shortages. As Colorado is among the lowest in the country in terms of teacher salaries, it is no surprise we are struggling to find teachers for our schools. Polls earlier this year overwhelmingly showed voters wanted to support a ballot measure to allocate nearly 1 billion into teacher pay, to go toward recruiting and attracting, retaining, and boosting the pay for teachers and paraprofessionals. Just this week we learned that Initiative 63 supporters didn’t get enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot, but I would support similar legislation to increase school funding for teacher retention and recruitment. We need a strong education system to support our state's families and to create and sustain our next generation of workers. It is inexcusable that we are among the lowest paying states for the people who care for and educate our children. Learn more

As a part of this bill I would also include funding for teacher training and accountability for cultural competence, as well as recruitment of teachers whose diversity matches the diversity of our students. Many students of color, LGBT children, and children with disabilities, and their families, experience bias and discrimination in our schools that make them feel unwelcome, that threaten their physical safety, and that exacerbate rates of mental illness and drug use. Our children and families deserve school climates where they are physically and emotionally safe, and where differences are respected and welcomed. Our teachers and school administrators love our children, but when so many of our students are not represented by their teachers, it is far too easy for teachers to perpetuate racism, homophobia, and ableism. Rather than simply resurrecting Initiative 63 to invest more income tax revenue into teacher recruitment and retention efforts, I would work with education advocacy groups and groups that advocate for youth from marginalized groups to identify the best ways to: set aside specific funding in teacher recruitment and retention for cultural competency training, set in place appropriate measurement and monitoring of school climate, and incentivize districts and schools that are investing these additional recruitment and retention funds to measurably improve school climate. Learn more

Environment / Energy

Air pollution impacts our well being as a species. Corporate greed intensifies and accelerates water and air pollution. Corporations, especially the oil and gas industries, have to be held accountable for their actions that have led to more and more days when it is dangerous for many people to breathe the air outside. I believe that corporate polluters should be held accountable for the emissions they create and the effects of those emissions on our community. Since they create a disproportionate amount of pollution they need to be a large part of the solution.I also believe we should be much more proactive in meeting air quality goals. Learn more

In Colorado oil and gas is responsible for not only a large portion of our greenhouse gas emissions, but also significantly contributes to our ground level ozone. This can not continue unaddressed. We need to stop adding new wells, and force companies to take responsibility for the wells and associated emissions they are already creating. More research is showing that air pollution doesn’t just impact our ability to breathe and our physical health, it impacts children and their brain development. We should not be extracting more oil and gas when it harms neighboring communities, exacerbates the climate crisis, and pollutes air across our region. And if oil and gas continues to profit off of our communities’ health and wellbeing, we need to be taxing them much more heavily to account for the extensive harm they are doing to us and future generations. Learn more

We can make real progress on air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. We implement summer timeouts for the oil and gas drilling activity that is one of the worst contributors to ozone-creating gasses. We can also require large employers to reduce driving by their fleets and by their commuting employees, and we can put strict limits or outright denials of air pollution permit applications from large polluters like Suncor’s fuel refinery in Commerce City. We can also put strict emission limits on small gas-powered engines, like lawn mowers and leaf blowers, while offering accelerated rebate or exchange programs for electrified versions to avoid burdening small businesses. Learn more

When we had unusually heavy rains a couple of weeks ago, many of my neighbors’ garden-level apartments flooded. Walkways that usually have children’s toys and bikes and chalk drawings outside their doors had water-logged carpet and cords for fans. Low income workers and families and retirees are always the first to suffer in the climate crisis – or any crisis – and I want to make sure our safety is finally prioritized in climate efforts. The new Inflation Reduction Act is going to bring us one channel of work toward mitigating the climate crisis, but it is missing a critical component the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified as critical to our ability to limit global warming: the intersection of transportation and housing in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning us to a clean and sustainable future. Learn more

For example, we avoid energy inefficiencies and reduce energy demand by providing incentives and rebates to make sure all homes – and especially the lowest income homes – have well-sealed windows and well-insulated homes to reduce energy usage for heating and cooling and make their homes less vulnerable to power outages during extreme temperatures. We can shift our transportation infrastructure to have more abundant and safer walkways, bike paths, and public transit so we aren’t using 5,000 pounds of vehicle to move 150 pounds of people a few miles across town. Finally we can improve what is left by electrifying vehicles and appliances, and eliminating fossil fuels as an energy source. This framework will help us stabilize the climate and make sure we stop increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Learn more

We do not need to turn into Manhattan to achieve these outcomes! Gentle density is sufficient, and it will create a more livable community for all of us. There is also industry opportunity. For example hemp is a drought tolerant plant that has a lot of sustainable building industry potential, but is currently typically imported because we don't have enough manufacturing capacity in the US. Colorado has abundant agricultural land that is suitable, and good train connections, and could be a leader in transformative industries like hemp. Learn more

Guns

I wholeheartedly supported Boulder’s recent common-sense gun violence prevention ordinances and as your House District 10 Representative, I will be a supporter of statewide bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Guns don’t just cause deaths in mass shootings, they affect rates of death in domestic violence, suicide attempts, and police violence. Some legislators are afraid of angering the NRA and its supporters with bans on assault weapons, but I value people’s freedom to stay alive more than I value people’s freedom to have military-grade weapons. Gun violence is an epidemic and we need to end easy access to guns across the state if we want to keep our community safe. I will be honored to take Boulder’s fight to the state legislature. Learn more

Housing

Housing cost continues to be a leading concern for communities across Colorado and the nation. Our housing policies incentivize building large, luxury homes while housing prices increase to the point fewer and fewer can afford to either purchase a home or even rent in the communities where they work. The Marshall Fire caused the destruction of over 1,000 homes in Boulder County and showed how our failing housing policies hurt families and workers. Rents increased substantially after the Marshall Fire, and because of state preemption laws on rent control, we were not able to curtail rent increases caused by this sudden increase in demand for rental housing. Families and workers were driven out of Boulder County, and some may never return. Local communities need to have the flexibility to respond to the housing crisis in any way they see fit, and for this reason I will advocate for eliminating state preemption of rent control, including lot rents in manufactured home communities. Learn more

I believe housing is a human right, and I as your state representative I will act accordingly. From funding development of accessible, affordable housing, to repairing the harm done by historical zoning laws such as redlining that have segregated our communities, to preventing evictions so fewer people and families fall into homelessness, to finding safe places for families and individuals who cannot afford rent, I will support a spectrum of solutions to this problem and I will always be on the side of workers and renters like me who can barely afford to live in our community. Learn more

Homelessness is also an equity issue. As the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative stated in its State of Homelessness report for 2021-22, "[t]his year’s report once again demonstrates the over-representation of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) individuals experiencing homelessness across all data sources. This is the result of systemic oppression and policies which continue to perpetuate this racial disparity." Everyone does better when everyone does better. I will be a champion as the representative for HD-10 to ensure safety for all people and will not use just an equity lens to make policy–I will use my personal knowledge that drives my commitment to the fact-based, data-driven solutions necessary to make any progress on this critical equity issue. Learn more

Infrastructure / Transportation

Walkale, bike-able, transit-oriented housing is one of the best ways to reduce greenhouse gasses from transportation, which is one of the biggest contributors to global emissions. Most cities can decrease their greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 25% by shifting to compact, transit-oriented development. Our current system of car dependence is oppressive and harmful. Cars negatively impact our health, our safety, and our wealth. Strong bus/bike/transit communities give people back their time, money, freedom, and joy. They help create abundance for our communities. The IPCC chose compact, multi-modal development as a recommendation because it creates a measurable impact on greenhouse gas reductions. We have a lot of scientific confidence in compact, multi-modal development as a way to reduce warming. Not only does it shift us to more energy efficient modes of transportation, it increases the efficiency of transporting goods and people, and lets us unlock land from parking lots and create more homes, parks, and mixed use spaces for businesses and for neighbors to come together. Learn more

Wages / Job Benefits

Collective bargaining rights are human rights. I believe that workers throughout Colorado should be empowered to organize in order to ensure the protection and promotion of their rights. As union membership has declined over the past 50 years, income inequality has grown. This is no coincidence. When workers are not able to collectively bargain and organize, their labor is exploited and they are at the mercy of corporations that care more for profits and shareholders than workers. The collective bargaining bill that passed in the last legislative session was so watered down as to be more harmful than it was helpful. I will advocate for strong labor policies that do not constrain workers’ abilities to organize, strike, and collectively bargain. Learn more

When companies do not pay their workers a living wage, us taxpayers pick up the slack. When workers cannot meet their basic costs of living, taxpayers have to provide housing subsidies, childcare subsidies, food stamps, healthcare, and other support that should be provided by their wages. Living wages empower workers to care for themselves and their families, rather than relying on the generosity of taxpayers to subsidize corporate profits. Learn more