Maria Jukic

[{"question": "Ballotpedia survey responses", "answer_html": "<p>See also: <a href=\"/Ballotpedia%27s_Candidate_Connection\">Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection</a></p>\n<div class=\"row\"><div class=\"col-xs-10 col-md-6 col-xs-offset-1 col-md-offset-3\"><p><a href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/Ballotpedia%27s_Candidate_Connection\"><img align=\"middle\" alt=\"Candidate Connection\" src=\"https://cdn.ballotpedia.org/images/8/88/Candidate_Connection_Logo.png\" width=\"90%\"/></a></p></div></div>\n<p>Maria Jukic completed <a href=\"/Ballotpedia%27s_Candidate_Connection\">Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection</a> survey in 2026. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Jukic's responses.</p>\n<p><span class=\"expand-all\">Expand all</span> | <span class=\"collapse-all\">Collapse all</span></p>\n<div aria-multiselectable=\"true\" class=\"panel-group\" id=\"accordion\" role=\"tablist\"><div class=\"panel panel-default\"><div class=\"panel-heading\" data-toggle=\"collapse\" href=\"#collapse-bio-404850-2026-03-03\" id=\"heading-bio-404850-2026-03-03\" role=\"tab\"><p class=\"panel-title\" style=\"font-size: 14px;font-weight: 600;\"><a aria-controls=\"collapse-bio-404850-2026-03-03\" aria-expanded=\"false\" class=\"collapsed\" data-parent=\"#accordion\" data-toggle=\"collapse\" href=\"#collapse-bio-404850-2026-03-03\" role=\"button\"><i class=\"fa fa-chevron-right pull-right\"></i><i class=\"fa fa-chevron-down pull-right\"></i>\t\t\t\tWho are you? Tell us about yourself.\t\t\t</a></p></div><div aria-labelledby=\"heading-bio-404850-2026-03-03\" class=\"panel-collapse collapse\" id=\"collapse-bio-404850-2026-03-03\" role=\"tabpanel\"><div class=\"panel-body\" style=\"max-height: 500px; overflow-y: scroll;\"><div class=\"answers-container\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">\t\t\t\tI am tired of sorting people into two categories when most of us are in the massive middle. I want to listen, learn, and find common ground.\r\n<p>I am a child of immigrants. Union family. Grounded in Christian ethics: love your neighbor as yourself. Attorney. Healthcare career. Former City Councilwoman.\r\n</p><p>I was born in Cleveland in a Croatian-American family in a working-class neighborhood. My mom was in the UAW and my dad was a draftsman.\r\n</p><p>I was class president and valedictorian at Villa Angela Academy. I have a BA in American Studies, University of Notre Dame; MA in Theology and Religious Studies, John Carroll.; JD, Cleveland State College of Law; and a Fulbright Fellowship.\r\n</p><p>I spent 24 years in healthcare doing Marketing/Public Affairs at Euclid Hospital and Arts and Medicine at Cleveland Clinic. I served 4 years on Euclid City Council, graduated from Leadership Lake County, and served on nonprofit boards.\r\n</p><p>I worked in manufacturing, community organizations, and international humanitarian aid. As a teen, I had two paper routes, worked at the mall, and was a waitress.\r\n</p><p>My family and I know hard work and struggle. I know that having support, education, and opportunity can lead to the American dream. \r\n</p><p>I love this country for our freedom and democratic values, the beautiful tapestry of Americans, the decency and generosity of the people, and the promise of “liberty and justice for all.”\r\n</p>\nI want America to be the “shining city upon a hill” again, and I’m ready to fight for it.\t\t\t</span></div></div></div></div><div class=\"panel panel-default\"><div class=\"panel-heading\" data-toggle=\"collapse\" href=\"#collapse-key-message-404850-2026-03-03\" id=\"heading-key-message-404850-2026-03-03\" role=\"tab\"><p class=\"panel-title\" style=\"font-size: 14px;font-weight: 600;\"><a aria-controls=\"collapse-key-message-404850-2026-03-03\" aria-expanded=\"false\" class=\"collapsed\" data-parent=\"#accordion\" data-toggle=\"collapse\" href=\"#collapse-key-message-404850-2026-03-03\" role=\"button\"><i class=\"fa fa-chevron-right pull-right\"></i><i class=\"fa fa-chevron-down pull-right\"></i>\t\t\t\tPlease list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?\t\t\t</a></p></div><div aria-labelledby=\"heading-key-message-404850-2026-03-03\" class=\"panel-collapse collapse\" id=\"collapse-key-message-404850-2026-03-03\" role=\"tabpanel\"><div class=\"panel-body\" style=\"max-height: 500px; overflow-y: scroll;\"><div class=\"answers-container\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><ul><li>FOR THE PEOPLE: Today’s system is rigged in favor of special interests, large corporations, and the wealthiest among us at the expense of regular people. I want to improve the lives of regular Americans and fight for them. Protect Social Security and Medicare. Restore Medicaid and SNAP. Improve tax policy for people who work for a paycheck, for small businesses, and for farmers. Help the rich and corporations pay their fair share. Provide for our armed services members, veterans, and their families. Create jobs, support unions, and increase the minimum wage. Support education. Collaborate with communities. Defend environmental protections because when polluters are allowed to pollute, regular people get sick and die. Ask Erin Brockovich.</li><li>FOR THE CONSTITUTION AND THE RULE OF LAW: Our government is blatantly and shamelessly violating the Constitution and undermining the Rule of Law - and Congress is letting them. I took an oath to the Constitution twice, as a lawyer 1and as a City Councilwoman. I take that oath seriously and I will stand up for the Constitution - even when I don’t like it. When my family was discriminated against and persecuted in a communist country for their beliefs and for being on the wrong side of the government, they were immensely grateful for this country where everyone was treated equally under the law, regardless of wealth, class, social group, or immigration status. We need to find our way back to that promise - with liberty and justice for all.</li><li>FOR HEALTHCARE ACCESS AND AFFORDABILITY: ~30 million Americans will not have health insurance in 2026. ~100 million owe $220 billion in medical debt. 500,000 households face medical bankruptcy every year. 80% of U.S. counties are healthcare deserts. Prescription drugs are a financial burden for 67% of Americans. And the US ranks last among high-income nations. All of this while insurance and pharmaceutical companies make record profits. There must be a better way, but there is not enough political will to do it, largely because of special interests, lobbying, and campaign finance. But that’s another topic. My goal is to have honest, bipartisan, and broad-ranging conversations to create reasonable, long-term solutions to improve healthcare.</li></ul></span></div></div></div></div><div class=\"panel panel-default\"><div class=\"panel-heading\" data-toggle=\"collapse\" href=\"#collapse1-404850-2026-03-03\" id=\"heading1-404850-2026-03-03\" role=\"tab\"><p class=\"panel-title\" style=\"font-size: 14px;font-weight: 600;\"><a aria-controls=\"collapse1-404850-2026-03-03\" aria-expanded=\"false\" class=\"collapsed\" data-parent=\"#accordion\" data-toggle=\"collapse\" href=\"#collapse1-404850-2026-03-03\" role=\"button\"><i class=\"fa fa-chevron-right pull-right\"></i><i class=\"fa fa-chevron-down pull-right\"></i>\t\t\t\tWhat areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?\t\t\t</a></p></div><div aria-labelledby=\"heading1-404850-2026-03-03\" class=\"panel-collapse collapse\" id=\"collapse1-404850-2026-03-03\" role=\"tabpanel\"><div class=\"panel-body\" style=\"max-height: 500px; overflow-y: scroll;\"><div class=\"answers-container\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">\t\t\t\tI am most passionate about policies that relate to helping regular people. This includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, tax policy, farmers, families, food, military, veterans, small businesses, women’s and civil rights, labor and employment, health, healthcare, infrastructure, energy, education, crime and law enforcement, and more. I am also passionate about policies that defend the Constitution and the rule of law.<br/><br/>\n<p>Important issues for our democracy are campaign finance reform, overturning Citizens United, and voting rights.<br/><br/>\r\nPolicies essential to life on the planet include protecting the environment, renewable energy, and sustainability. <br/><br/>\n</p>\nUrgent issues are affordability, immigration, foreign policy, and national debt/budget.\t\t\t</span></div></div></div></div></div>\n<div class=\"small\" data-nosnippet=\"\"><p><i><b>Note:</b> Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.</i></p></div>\n<div><div style=\"margin-bottom:1.5rem\"><h4>Campaign website</h4><p>Jukic's campaign website stated the following:</p><div style=\"max-height:400px;overflow-y:auto;border:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px;margin:20px\"><blockquote style=\"margin:0px\"><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">Healthcare: The Road to Universal Coverage​</h2><p>The Problem</p><p>The American healthcare system is failing ordinary people — and the numbers prove it:</p><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">27M</h2><p class=\"ql-align-center\">Americans have no health insurance</p><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">100M</h2><p class=\"ql-align-center\">Americans carry a combined $220 billion in medical debt</p><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">500K</h2><p class=\"ql-align-center\">households file for medical bankruptcy every year</p><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">80%</h2><p class=\"ql-align-center\">of U.S. counties are healthcare deserts</p><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">67%</h2><p class=\"ql-align-center\">of Americans say prescription drug costs are a serious financial burden</p><p>The United States ranks last among high-income nations in healthcare outcomes. Meanwhile, insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations are posting record profits.</p><p>This is not a healthcare system. It is a profit system — and ordinary Americans are paying the price with their health, their savings, and their lives.</p><h2>Maria’s Vision</h2><p>Maria believes that healthcare is not a privilege for the wealthy — it is a basic human right and a foundation of a strong, productive society. She is committed to an honest, bipartisan, and broad-ranging conversation about how we get from where we are today to a system that works for everyone.</p><p>There is no single magic solution. The road to universal coverage will require tackling the problem from multiple directions at once — lowering costs, expanding access, breaking up monopolies, and building political will that special interests have blocked for decades.</p><p>Maria is not interested in scoring political points on healthcare. She is interested in fixing it.</p><h2>What Maria Will Fight For</h2><h4>1. Lower the Medicare Eligibility Age</h4><p>Maria will work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to lower the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 62 — matching the earliest age a person can receive Social Security benefits. This closes a critical gap for older workers who are between jobs, self-employed, or simply can’t afford private insurance in their early 60s.</p><h4>2. Break Up Healthcare Monopolies</h4><p>One of the least-talked-about drivers of healthcare costs is consolidation. Today, a single corporation can own your insurance company, your pharmacy, your doctor’s office, and your pharmacy benefit manager — all under one profit-driven roof. This kills competition, drives up prices, and puts corporate shareholders ahead of patients. Maria supports the Break Up Big Medicine Act of 2026, which would rein in these monopolistic structures and restore competition to the healthcare marketplace.</p><h4>3. Take on Pharmaceutical Pricing</h4><p>Americans pay dramatically more for prescription drugs than people in any other high-income country — for the exact same medications. Maria supports allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, capping out-of-pocket costs for insulin and other life-sustaining medications, and cracking down on price-gouging practices that put life-saving drugs out of reach for working families.</p><h4>4. Expand Access in Healthcare Deserts</h4><p>With 80% of U.S. counties classified as healthcare deserts, rural and underserved communities — including parts of Ohio’s 14th — face a crisis of access to healthcare. Maria will fight for expanded funding for community health centers, rural hospital support, and telehealth infrastructure so that geography doesn’t determine whether you can see a doctor.</p><h4>5. Address the Medical Debt Crisis</h4><p>Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Maria supports stronger protections against unfair medical billing, greater hospital price transparency, and real relief options for families already overwhelmed by medical debt.</p><h4>6. The Long Road: Universal Coverage</h4><p>Maria believes the United States must ultimately join every other high-income nation in guaranteeing universal healthcare. She knows this won’t happen overnight — it will require building bipartisan consensus, reducing the influence of special interests in Congress, and having honest conversations about what a sustainable, universal system looks like. She is committed to that work for the long haul, not just for the next election cycle.</p><h2>Why Is This So Hard?</h2><p>Maria will tell you the truth: the lack of progress on healthcare isn’t simply about greed. Yes, insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations spend billions lobbying Congress to protect their bottom lines — and that’s a real problem. But the barriers run deeper than that.</p><p>There’s fear. Fear of losing the coverage you have, however imperfect. Fear that reform means someone else gets something for free. There’s a deep distrust of the government’s ability to get anything right, and an erosion of the belief that we’re all in this together. These fears are understandable — and the people who benefit from the status quo know exactly how to stoke them.</p><p>It’s also worth saying: not every actor in our healthcare system is driven by profit. Many hospitals — nonprofit institutions in communities like ours — are simply trying to keep their doors open, care for their patients, and do important research. The problem isn’t one villain. It’s a system that has grown so complicated, so entrenched, and so politically charged that meaningful change feels impossible.</p><p>Maria believes it isn’t. But she also knows that campaign finance reform and healthcare reform go hand in hand. When corporations have outsized influence over our democracy, the people’s priorities come last.</p><p>That’s why Maria refuses corporate PAC money. She does accept support from unions and community organizations that stand with working families — because she answers to the people of Ohio’s 14th District, not to the healthcare industry.</p><p><br/></p><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">Immigration: Constitutional, Humane, and Smart</h2><p>The Reality</p><p>Immigration is one of the most emotionally charged issues in American politics — and one of the most distorted. Politicians on both sides use it to score points and raise money while real people’s lives hang in the balance. Maria believes the Massive Middle of this country wants something neither extreme is offering: an immigration system that is both secure and humane, both lawful and compassionate.</p><p>The current situation is a failure on every front. Our immigration laws are outdated. Our courts are overwhelmed. Our enforcement agencies are operating outside constitutional boundaries. And hardworking people who have built lives, raised families, and contributed to our communities for decades live in constant fear.</p><p>We can do better. We must do better.</p><h3>The Crisis at Our Door Right Now</h3><p>Before we talk about long-term reform, Maria wants to be direct about what is happening today — because it cannot wait.</p><p>ICE is violating the Constitution. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining people — including American citizens — based on their appearance, without due process, and in pursuit of daily arrest quotas. People are disappearing into a vast network of detention centers with no access to lawyers, no hearing, and no accountability. This is happening in America. Right now.</p><p>This is not border security. This is not law enforcement. This is unconstitutional — and Maria will fight it from her first day in Congress.</p><p>ICE must be reined in, retrained, and restructured. Enforcement must be targeted, lawful, and humane. Profit-driven detention warehousing of human beings is not acceptable in the United States of America.</p><h2>What Maria Will Fight For</h2><h3>1. Restore Due Process</h3><p>Every person on American soil — citizen or not — has constitutional rights. Maria will fight to end warrantless detentions, ensure access to legal counsel, and hold ICE accountable for civil rights violations. No more disappearing people into detention without due process of law.</p><h3>2. A Clear Path to Citizenship</h3><p>Maria supports a fair, structured pathway to citizenship for immigrants who live, work, and contribute to our communities — especially those who have been here for years and have American-born children. These are our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends. They are not criminals. They are Americans in every way that matters except on paper.</p><h3>3. Protect DACA Recipients</h3><p>People who were brought to this country as children — who grew up here, went to school here, built careers here — should not be punished for decisions made before they could walk. Maria fully supports a permanent legislative solution for DACA recipients, providing them a clear and certain path to citizenship.</p><h3>4. Reform the Immigration Courts</h3><p>The immigration court system is in crisis. Cases are backlogged for years. Judges are overwhelmed. Families are left in legal limbo for a decade or more. Maria will fight for significant new investment in immigration courts — more judges, more staff, more resources — so that cases are decided fairly and promptly.</p><h3>5. Create Legal Pathways for Workers</h3><p>Across Ohio’s 14th District and across the country, industries from agriculture to healthcare to construction depend on immigrant labor. Rather than criminalizing this reality, Maria supports expanding and modernizing legal visa pathways for essential workers — including seasonal agricultural workers, skilled tradespeople, and healthcare professionals — so that businesses can meet their workforce needs lawfully and workers have legal protections.</p><h3>6. Improve the Refugee and Asylum System</h3><p>People who are fleeing violence or real danger deserve a system that works — one that’s fair and doesn’t leave them waiting in limbo for years. Maria supports fixing the backlog, updating the technology, ensuring sufficient staffing to handle cases, and setting clear, consistent standards. And she believes people should be treated with basic dignity while their cases are being decided.</p><h3>7. End the Political Football</h3><p>Immigration has been used as a wedge issue by both parties for decades — kept deliberately broken because it works better as a campaign issue than as a solved problem. Maria refuses to play that game. She will work across the aisle with anyone who is serious about comprehensive, lasting reform — because the people of Ohio’s 14th deserve a representative who is here to govern, not just to campaign.</p><h2>Immigration and the Economy</h2><p>Maria also wants to connect the dots that too many politicians ignore: immigration policy is economic policy.</p><p>Right now, the administration’s mass deportation campaign is causing labor shortages in food production — driving up grocery prices for every family in every county in our district. Rounding up hardworking people doesn’t make America safer. It makes your groceries more expensive and leaves crops to rot in the fields.</p><p>Immigrants are not taking from our economy. Study after study shows they are net contributors — starting businesses, filling critical jobs, paying taxes, and revitalizing communities that would otherwise be shrinking. Whole towns across America have been brought back to life by immigrant families who chose to put down roots there.</p><p>Smart immigration policy isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s good economics.</p><p><br/></p><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">Social Security: Protect What Americans Earned</h2><p>The Promise</p><h3>Social Security is not a government handout. It is not welfare. It is not charity.</h3><p><br/></p><p>It is a promise — made by the United States government to every working American — that if you spend your life contributing to this country, you will not be left to struggle alone in your old age, or if you become disabled, or when you lose a spouse.</p><h3 class=\"ql-align-center\">70 million</h3><h3 class=\"ql-align-center\">Americans depend on Social Security today.</h3><p>For most retirees, it is their single largest source of income. For millions of seniors in our community, it is the difference between dignity and poverty.</p><p>That promise is now in danger. And Maria will not let it be broken.</p><h2>The Problem</h2><p>Social Security’s trust funds are projected to face a serious shortfall within the next decade. If Congress does nothing, benefits could be automatically cut by roughly 20% — affecting every single person who receives a check.</p><p>This is not a secret. Washington has known about this for years. And yet Congress has done almost nothing, because fixing Social Security requires political courage — the kind that special interests and career politicians work very hard to avoid.</p><p>At the same time, the current administration is actively undermining Social Security’s infrastructure — cutting staff, disrupting operations, and making it harder for Americans to access the benefits they earned. This is unacceptable, and Maria will fight it directly.</p><p>The clock is ticking. This is not a problem we can keep kicking down the road.</p><h2>What Maria Will Fight For</h2><h3>1. A Social Security Lock-Box</h3><p>One of the most persistent abuses in Washington is Congress raiding Social Security funds to pay for other priorities. Maria will advocate for a permanent Social Security Lock-Box — a legislative firewall that prevents Social Security funds from ever being diverted for other purposes. The money workers pay into Social Security belongs to them. Period.</p><h3>2. A Bipartisan Middle Class Working Group</h3><p>Maria will initiate a serious, bipartisan congressional working group dedicated exclusively to the long-term solvency of Social Security. Not a committee that holds hearings and does nothing. A working group with a mandate to produce real legislative solutions — one that brings together members of Congress who are willing to put the American people ahead of their party and their donors.</p><h3>3. Make the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share</h3><p>Here is something most Americans don’t know: right now, Social Security payroll taxes stop applying above a certain income level — meaning a billionaire pays the same dollar amount into Social Security as someone earning a comfortable middle-class salary. Maria supports lifting or eliminating this cap so that higher earners contribute more, just as working Americans do on every dollar they earn. This one change alone would dramatically improve Social Security’s long-term finances.</p><h3>4. Expand the Contribution Base</h3><p>Currently, Social Security is funded primarily through wages, but wealthy Americans earn much of their income through investments, which are not subject to FICA contributions. Maria supports exploring ways to include more investment income in the Social Security contribution base, so that the burden of keeping this promise doesn’t fall exclusively on working people who earn a paycheck.</p><h3>5. Protect and Expand Benefits</h3><p>Any solution to Social Security’s solvency must protect current beneficiaries completely and must not cut benefits for people who are already retired or near retirement. Maria will oppose any proposal that balances the books on the backs of seniors who have already spent a lifetime contributing to the system.</p><h3>6. Defend Social Security Operations</h3><p>The current effort to gut Social Security’s administrative capacity — cutting workers, closing offices, and disrupting payment systems — is an attack on the 70 million Americans who depend on it. Maria will fight every attempt to defund, privatize, or dismantle the operational infrastructure that delivers Social Security benefits to the people who earned them.</p><h2>What Maria Will Oppose</h2><ul><li>Privatization. Placing Social Security funds in the stock market exposes retirees to market crashes and Wall Street risks. Maria will not support any plan that gambles seniors’ retirement security on the stock market.</li><li>Raising the retirement age. For people who work physical jobs — in manufacturing, agriculture, construction, and care work — raising the retirement age is a benefit cut by another name. Maria opposes it.</li><li>Benefit cuts of any kind for current or near-retirement beneficiaries.</li></ul><h2>Social Security and the Bigger Picture</h2><p>Let’s be clear about what Social Security actually is: it’s your money. Not the government’s money. Yours. You paid into it every paycheck — you were required to — on the promise that it would be there when you retired. That’s not a handout. That’s a contract.</p><p>For many seniors, that contract is the difference between getting by and getting evicted. Between filling a prescription and going without. And yet there are people in Washington who talk about cutting it, privatizing it, or raising the retirement age as if they’re doing you a favor by figuring out how to give you less of what you already paid for.</p><p>Maria won’t stand for that. Protecting Social Security isn’t a political position for her — it’s a matter of basic honesty. You held up your end of the deal. Washington should hold up its.</p><p><br/></p><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">Tax Policy: For the Paycheck, Not the Portfolio</h2><p>The Problem</p><h3>For the past 25 years, tax policy in America has been written by and for the wealthy. The results speak for themselves:</h3><ul><li>Trillions of dollars have been added to the national debt through tax cuts that disproportionately benefited corporations and the investor class</li><li>Middle-class wages have stagnated while corporate profits have soared</li><li>Working families pay a higher effective tax rate than billionaires who earn their money through investments</li><li>A tax code so riddled with loopholes, carve-outs, and special interest provisions that it takes an army of accountants to navigate — if you can afford one</li></ul><p>The tax code is not broken by accident. It was carefully designed over the decades by the wealthy, the well-connected, well-funded lobbyists, and politicians to move wealth upward. And it has worked exactly as intended.</p><p>Maria believes it is time to rewrite it for the people who actually built this country.</p><h2>The Fundamental Unfairness</h2><h3>Here is something that should make every working American angry.</h3><p>A teacher in Ravenna, a nurse in Eastlake, a factory worker in Madison — they pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on every single dollar they earn. They can’t hide their income. It shows up on a W-2. The IRS knows exactly what they made.</p><h4 class=\"ql-align-center\">A hedge fund manager or a wealthy investor</h4><h4 class=\"ql-align-center\">pays a lower tax rate</h4><h4 class=\"ql-align-center\">than a teacher, nurse, or factory worker.</h4><p>A hedge fund manager or a wealthy investor, on the other hand, can earn millions through capital gains, carried interest, and investment income — and pay a lower tax rate than the teacher, the nurse, and the factory worker. They have access to tax shelters, offshore accounts, and loopholes that no ordinary family will ever see.</p><p>This is not a free market. This is a rigged system. And Maria intends to un-rig it.</p><h2>What Maria Will Fight For</h2><h3>1. A Bipartisan Tax Reform Working Group</h3><p>Maria will build a coalition of Congress members from both parties who are serious — not just rhetorical — about rewriting the tax code for working Americans. Not another round of tax cuts for the wealthy dressed up as middle-class relief. Real, structural reform that makes the system fairer, simpler, and more honest.</p><h3>2. Tax Relief for Working Families</h3><p>Most families don’t need a lecture on tax policy — they need a little breathing room. Maria supports tax relief that actually shows up in everyday life. Help with childcare, healthcare, school — the things people are already paying for.</p><p>It’s not complicated. When working families have a little more to work with, it makes a difference.</p><h3>3. Close the Carried Interest Loophole</h3><p>Hedge fund managers pay a lower tax rate on their earnings than most middle-class workers because of a provision called “carried interest” that allows them to classify their income as investment gains rather than wages. This is indefensible. Maria will fight to close it.</p><h3>4. Make Investment Income Pay Its Fair Share</h3><p>People who earn their living through wages pay payroll taxes on every dollar. People who earn their living through investments largely do not. Maria supports reforming the tax treatment of investment income so that wealth is taxed at rates comparable to work — not at rates that reward having money over earning it.</p><h3>5. End Corporate Tax Avoidance</h3><p>Big corporations have figured out how to move profits overseas and use loopholes so they pay far less in taxes than most working people. Maria supports closing those loopholes, cracking down on offshore tax shelters, and making sure corporations that profit from American workers and infrastructure actually pay their fair share.</p><h3>6. Raise the Minimum Wage</h3><p>Tax policy alone cannot fix economic inequality. Maria also supports raising the federal minimum wage so that work pays — reducing the need for government assistance and putting more money into the hands of people who will spend it in their local communities.</p><h3>7. Responsible Deficit Reduction</h3><p>Maria takes the national debt seriously — not as a talking point, but as a real long-term threat to American prosperity. She believes the path to fiscal responsibility runs through a fairer tax code that generates adequate revenue, not through cutting Social Security, Medicare, or programs that working families depend on. You cannot balance the budget by taking from people who have nothing left to give.</p><h3>8. Stop Unconstitutional Tariffs</h3><p>The current administration’s tariff policy is not tax reform — it is a hidden tax on every American family. Tariffs raise prices on goods that ordinary people buy every day, from groceries to appliances to clothing. And these tariffs are being imposed without Congressional approval, in violation of the Constitution. Maria will fight to reassert Congressional authority over trade policy and end the tariff chaos that is driving up costs for families across Ohio’s 14th.</p><h2>What Maria Will Oppose</h2><ul><li>Tax cuts for the wealthy disguised as broad-based relief</li><li>Deficit spending that benefits corporations and investors while cutting services for working people</li><li>Tax policy that punishes work while rewarding passive wealth</li><li>Complexity that serves accountants and lobbyists at the expense of ordinary taxpayers</li></ul><h2>The Bigger Picture</h2><p>Tax policy is ultimately a statement of values. When we decide who pays and who doesn’t, we are deciding what kind of country we want to be.</p><p>Maria believes in a country where the person who works the hardest pays a fair rate — not a higher rate than someone whose money makes money while they sleep. She believes in a country where corporations that profit from American workers and American consumers contribute to the American common good. And she believes in a country where the tax code is written in plain English for ordinary people, not in fine print for lobbyists.</p><p>That is the tax system Maria will fight to build.</p><p><br/></p><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">Campaign Finance &amp; Ethics Reform: Giving Government Back to the People</h2><p>The Root of the Problem</p><h3>Maria will tell you something that most politicians won’t:</h3><p>Almost every issue on this website — healthcare, Social Security, tax policy, the environment — has a known solution. The ideas are not the problem. The problem is that the people with the power to implement those solutions are financially dependent on the people who benefit from keeping things broken.</p><p>That is not cynicism. That is the reality of American politics in 2026. And until we fix it, we cannot fully fix anything else.</p><p>Special interests, corporate lobbyists, and billionaire donors spend billions of dollars every election cycle to ensure that Congress remains responsive to them — not to the teacher in Ashtabula, not to the small business owner in Mentor, not to the retiree in Warren living on Social Security.</p><p>Maria is running to change that. And she is starting immediately with this campaign.</p><h2>Who Funds This Campaign</h2><p>Maria believes corporations shouldn’t have outsized influence in our democracy. That’s why she doesn’t accept corporate PAC money — no donations from corporate PACs, pharmaceutical companies, insurance corporations, or Wall Street banks.</p><p>She does accept support from unions and community organizations that stand with working families. She’s building this campaign on small-dollar donations from real people — neighbors, coworkers, anyone who believes the 14th District deserves a representative who answers to them.</p><p>This campaign is funded by people like you — not corporate PACs, not special interests. If you believe the 14th District deserves a representative who actually answers to them, <a href=\"https://donorbox.org/maria-jukic-for-congress\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">even a small donation helps.</a></p><h2>The Scale of the Problem</h2><h3>The American campaign finance system is broken in ways that most people feel, but few fully understand:</h3><ul><li>The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate and special interest spending in elections — treating corporations as people and money as speech</li><li>Dark money — political spending by nonprofit organizations that are not required to disclose their donors — has poured billions of dollars into elections with zero transparency or accountability</li><li>Super PACs allow wealthy donors and corporations to spend unlimited amounts to influence elections, as long as they maintain a legal fiction of not coordinating directly with campaigns</li><li>Members of Congress spend an estimated 30 to 70 percent of their time on fundraising — time that should be spent governing</li><li>Lobbyists write legislation, fund campaigns, and then move through the revolving door between industry and government with virtually no restrictions</li><li>Congressional stock trading allows members of Congress to profit from non-public information they receive in their official capacity — information that would send a private citizen to jail</li></ul><p>The result is a Congress that is structurally incapable of acting in the public interest on issue after issue — because acting in the public interest would cost its members their funding.</p><h2>What Maria Will Fight For</h2><h3>1. Overturn Citizens United</h3><p>The Citizens United Supreme Court decision was a catastrophic blow to American democracy. Maria supports a constitutional amendment to make clear that corporations are not people and money is not speech — and that Congress has the authority to regulate campaign finance in the public interest. This is a long road, but it is the right destination and Maria will walk it.</p><h3>2. Full Disclosure of Dark Money</h3><p>Every dollar spent to influence an American election should be publicly disclosed. No exceptions. No shell corporations. No anonymous donors hiding behind nonprofit status. Maria supports the DISCLOSE Act and any legislation that brings full transparency to political spending so that voters know who is trying to buy their elections.</p><h3>3. Public Financing of Elections</h3><p>Maria supports a small-dollar matching system for federal elections. Under this kind of system, small donations are matched with public funds — turning a $50 donation from a nurse into $300 or more. It doesn’t erase the influence of big money overnight. But it does mean that candidates have a real financial incentive to talk to ordinary people instead of spending all their time chasing checks from corporate PACs. More small donors means more accountability to real people — and that’s how democracy is supposed to work.</p><h3>4. Ban Congressional Stock Trading</h3><p>This one should not even be controversial. Members of Congress regularly receive non-public information about industries, companies, and economic conditions through their official duties. Using that information to trade stocks is insider trading — full stop. The fact that it has been legal for members of Congress is an outrage that erodes public trust every single day.</p><p>Maria supports requiring members of Congress and their immediate families to either divest their individual stock holdings or place them in a blind trust managed by an independent trustee. What is illegal on Wall Street should be illegal on Capitol Hill. We should not have to tell people not to cheat — but since we apparently do, we need real enforcement to back it up.</p><h3>5. Close the Revolving Door</h3><p>The movement of individuals between government positions and the industries they regulate or legislate — taking their inside knowledge and relationships with them — is one of the most corrosive forces in American politics. Maria supports significantly strengthening revolving door restrictions, including longer cooling-off periods before former members of Congress and senior staff can become lobbyists.</p><h3>6. Strengthen Lobbying Disclosure and Reform</h3><p>Lobbyists play a powerful role in shaping legislation — and that role is largely invisible to the public. Maria supports stronger lobbying disclosure requirements, stricter rules on gift-giving and travel paid for by special interests, and real enforcement of existing lobbying laws that are routinely ignored.</p><h3>7. Restore the Office of Congressional Ethics</h3><p>Independent ethics oversight of Congress has been systematically weakened over the years. Maria supports restoring and strengthening the Office of Congressional Ethics as a truly independent body with the resources and authority to investigate and hold members accountable — regardless of party.</p><h3>8. End Gerrymandering</h3><p>Rigged maps produce rigged outcomes. When politicians choose their voters instead of voters choosing their politicians, accountability disappears. Maria supports independent redistricting commissions that draw congressional maps based on communities — not partisan advantage.</p><h2>Why This Issue Connects to Everything Else</h2><p>Maria wants to be direct with voters about something: campaign finance reform is not a standalone issue. It is the issue that unlocks all the others.</p><p>We have to be honest about something. Drug prices are where they are because pharma has a lot of power in Washington. The tax code reflects the same reality — the people with money have a voice in how the rules get written. And climate action has been slowed down for years by industries that didn’t want change.</p><p>The special interests are not going to fix this. The politicians they fund are not going to fix this. It will take a new generation of representatives — people who are genuinely accountable to their constituents rather than their donors — to fix this.</p><p>That is exactly what Maria intends to be.</p><p><br/></p><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">Environment &amp; Climate Change: Protecting What’s Ours</h2><p>Start With What’s Right Outside Our Door</p><h3>Before we talk about global climate policy, let’s talk about Lake Erie.</h3><p>Lake Erie is the heart of Ohio’s 14th Congressional District. It is our greatest natural asset — a source of drinking water for 11 million people, a foundation for fishing, tourism, and recreation, and a defining feature of life in Lake and Ashtabula counties. Generations of families have built their lives around it.</p><p>And it is under threat.</p><p>Algal blooms fueled by agricultural runoff and industrial pollution have become a recurring crisis. In 2014, the city of Toledo could not use its tap water for three days because of toxic algae in Lake Erie. Shoreline erosion is accelerating. Water quality is declining in ways that affect not just swimmers and fishermen, but every single person who drinks from the Lake Erie watershed.</p><p>This isn’t an abstract environmental issue. This is our water, our economy, and our home.</p><h2>The Bigger Picture</h2><p>What’s happening on Lake Erie isn’t isolated. It connects to bigger issues — pollution, weak oversight, and a system that too often lets powerful interests off the hook.</p><p>For decades, large corporations have polluted communities for profit and then used their influence to avoid real consequences. And at the federal level, environmental protections have been rolled back over time in ways that people here can see and feel.</p><p>This isn’t theoretical. It shows up in the water, the air, and the land across Ohio’s 14th District.</p><p>And climate change isn’t something in the future anymore. It’s already affecting farming, infrastructure, and extreme weather. Warmer water is making algal blooms worse. Bigger storms are speeding up erosion along the shoreline. Farmers in places like Ashtabula and County are already dealing with less predictable seasons.</p><p>Maria thinks we have to deal with that reality honestly — neither exaggerating nor pretending it’s not happening.</p><h2>Maria’s Approach: Pragmatic, Local, and Jobs-Forward</h2><p>Maria is not interested in ideological purity on energy and the environment. She is interested in results. That means a pragmatic, all-of-the-above approach that takes climate seriously, invests in clean energy, holds polluters accountable, and does not leave working people behind in the transition.</p><h2>What Maria Will Fight For</h2><h3>1. Protect Lake Erie — Full Stop</h3><p>Maria will be a fierce and unrelenting advocate for Lake Erie in Congress. That means fighting for strong clean water standards, increased federal investment in algal bloom research and prevention, accountability for agricultural and industrial polluters, and restoration of shoreline and wetland ecosystems. Lake Erie is not a partisan issue. It is our most precious regional resource, and Maria will treat it that way.</p><h3>2. Restore and Strengthen Environmental Protections</h3><p>The systematic rollback of EPA regulations, clean water rules, and air quality standards under the current administration is putting communities at risk. Maria will fight to restore these protections and strengthen enforcement so that corporations cannot treat our air, water, and land as a free dumping ground.</p><h3>3. Hold Polluters Accountable</h3><p>Current environmental laws are only as good as their enforcement. Maria supports robust funding for the EPA, aggressive prosecution of corporate polluters, and strengthening the legal tools available to communities harmed by environmental violations. If you poison a community’s water, you should pay to clean it up — not write it off as a cost of doing business.</p><h3>4. Invest in Clean Energy — and the Jobs That Come With It</h3><p>Ohio has enormous potential to be a leader in clean energy manufacturing and deployment. Solar, wind, and next-generation nuclear represent not just an environmental opportunity but an economic one — good-paying, American-made jobs that cannot be outsourced. Maria supports significant federal investment in clean energy infrastructure, manufacturing tax incentives, and workforce training programs that prepare Ohio workers for the energy economy of the future.</p><h3>5. A Pragmatic All-of-the-Above Energy Strategy</h3><p>Maria understands that energy transitions take time and that working families cannot absorb the cost of a chaotic or poorly managed shift. She supports a responsible all-of-the-above energy strategy that aggressively expands clean energy while managing the transition away from fossil fuels in a way that protects workers, keeps energy affordable, and maintains grid reliability. Energy independence — not dependence on foreign oil or foreign-manufactured solar panels — is the goal.</p><h3>6. Support Ohio Farmers on Conservation</h3><p>Farmers in Ashtabula and Geauga counties are dealing with a lot right now. Maria supports conservation programs that are voluntary and practical — things farmers can actually use. Cover crops, buffer strips, better ways to manage nutrients. The goal is simple: keep runoff out of Lake Erie without making it harder to run a farm. Those two things should go together.</p><h3>7. Fight for Environmental Justice</h3><p>Low-income communities and communities of color disproportionately bear the burden of industrial pollution, toxic waste sites, and environmental neglect. Maria supports an environmental justice framework that ensures all communities — regardless of zip code or income — have access to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment.</p><h3>8. Oppose the Gutting of Environmental Infrastructure</h3><p>Cutting the EPA, defunding environmental research, and eliminating the scientists and enforcement officers who protect our environment is not fiscal responsibility — it is a gift to corporate polluters at the expense of ordinary Americans. Maria will oppose every effort to defund, dismantle, or politicize the federal agencies that keep our environment safe.</p><h2>What Maria Will Oppose</h2><ul><li>Rolling back clean water and clean air protections — especially when communities are the ones left dealing with the consequences</li><li>Weakening the EPA or stripping away enforcement power so rules exist in name only</li><li>Corporate polluters getting a pass because of influence in Washington</li><li>Energy decisions that drive up costs for working families without any real transition plan in place</li><li>Letting Lake Erie slip down the priority list — because for this district, it’s not optional, it’s essential</li></ul><h2>The Economic Case</h2><p>Some politicians treat the environment and the economy as opposites. Maria believes a healthy environment and a strong economy go hand in hand.</p><p>A healthy Lake Erie is worth billions of dollars to this region in tourism, fishing, recreation, and property values. Clean air and water reduce healthcare costs. Investing in clean energy creates jobs that stay here. And the long-term economic cost of ignoring climate change — in infrastructure damage, agricultural disruption, and public health crises — dwarfs the cost of acting now.</p><p>Protecting the environment is not a luxury. It is an investment in the long-term prosperity of Ohio’s 14th District and every family that calls it home.</p><p><br/></p><h2 class=\"ql-align-center\">Artificial Intelligence: Getting It Right Before It’s Too Late</h2><p>A Different Kind of Issue</p><h3>Artificial Intelligence is unlike any other issue in this campaign.</h3><p>Healthcare, Social Security, and tax policy — these are problems that have been building for decades. We know what they look like. We understand their contours. We have a body of research, experience, and policy debate to draw from.</p><p>AI is different. It is moving faster than any technology in human history. It is reshaping the economy, the job market, the information landscape, and the basic fabric of daily life — right now, today — and Washington is years behind in understanding it, let alone governing it.</p><p>Maria believes that getting AI policy right is one of the most important things Congress needs to address in the immediate future. Not because AI is inherently dangerous — it is also an extraordinary technology with enormous potential to improve lives. But because the decisions made in the next few years will determine whether AI’s benefits are shared broadly across society, or captured exclusively by the corporations and billionaires who build and own it.</p><p>We have a narrow window to get this right. Maria intends to use it.</p><h2>What Is Already Happening</h2><p>AI is not a future concern. It is a present reality — and its impacts are already being felt by ordinary Americans in ways that are often invisible:</p><ul><li>Jobs are being automated at an accelerating pace, with working and middle-class jobs in manufacturing, customer service, transportation, legal work, accounting, and many other fields at risk of displacement</li><li>Algorithmic decision-making is already determining who gets a loan, who gets a job interview, who gets flagged by law enforcement, and who gets approved for housing — often with no transparency, no accountability, and built-in biases that disadvantage people of color, women, and low-income Americans</li><li>AI-generated misinformation — deepfakes, synthetic media, and automated disinformation — is polluting our information environment and threatening the integrity of our elections and public discourse</li><li>Surveillance technology powered by AI is being deployed by corporations and governments in ways that raise serious civil liberties concerns</li><li>Personal data is being harvested, analyzed, and monetized by AI systems with no meaningful consent or compensation for the people it belongs to</li><li>Healthcare, education, and social services are increasingly being shaped by AI systems whose decisions affect people’s lives in profound ways — with little oversight or recourse</li></ul><p>These are not hypothetical scenarios. They are happening now, to real people, with virtually no federal guardrails in place.</p><h2>Maria’s Approach: Rights, Regulation, and Responsibility</h2><h3>Maria believes AI should serve people — not the other way around.</h3><p>That means making sure this technology is built and used responsibly, with transparency, accountability, and real protections for everyday Americans — not just for the companies that profit from it.</p><p>She’s not against innovation. She’s against a system where innovation moves faster than accountability. And right now, AI is advancing in a space with too few rules and too little oversight.</p><h2>What Maria Will Fight For</h2><h3>1. A Federal AI Rights Framework</h3><p>Americans should have clear, enforceable rights when AI is involved in decisions that affect their lives. Maria will push for a federal framework that guarantees basic protections — including knowing when you’re interacting with an AI, having meaningful human review for major decisions, getting an explanation when AI is used to deny you things like credit, employment, or benefits, and protection from biased or discriminatory algorithms.</p><p>These aren’t extreme ideas. They’re basic safeguards for a system that’s already shaping people’s lives in very real ways.</p><h3>2. Protect Workers from AI Displacement</h3><p>The economic disruption caused by AI automation is real and accelerating. Maria will fight for policies that support workers whose jobs are displaced by AI — including expanded job retraining programs, portable benefits that follow workers between jobs, and requirements that companies investing in AI automation contribute to workforce transition funds. The productivity gains from AI should benefit the workers whose labor made those companies successful — not just their executives and shareholders.</p><h3>3. Regulate Algorithmic Decision-Making</h3><p>When an algorithm is making decisions about your life — a mortgage approval, a job application, or even a parole determination — that system needs to be accountable. Maria believes people deserve to know when AI is involved, understand how those decisions are made in broad terms, and have real ways to challenge outcomes that are wrong or discriminatory. If companies are going to use these systems, they should also be responsible for making sure they’re tested, reviewed, and not quietly replicating bias at scale.</p><h3>4. Combat AI-Generated Misinformation</h3><p>Deepfakes and AI posts are everywhere now. A lot of people honestly can’t tell what’s real anymore. Maria thinks there should be clear labels so people know when something is synthetic. And platforms can’t just look the other way when false content spreads — especially when it’s driving engagement. We also need better tools to catch it earlier. Not after it’s already everywhere. Now.</p><h3>5. Protect Privacy and Personal Data</h3><p>Right now, most people have very little say in how their data gets collected or used. Maria supports a real privacy law — not a symbolic one — that gives people actual control over what gets collected, how it’s used, and who gets it. And when companies ignore those rules, there need to be consequences that matter.</p><h3>6. Ensure AI Safety and Transparency</h3><p>Even the people building AI systems will tell you — they don’t fully know how all of it behaves yet. That alone should make us cautious. Maria wants to see basic guardrails: more transparency when AI is used in high-stakes decisions, proper testing before it’s deployed in sensitive settings, and oversight where the risks are serious. Not to slow things down. Just to make sure we’re not flying blind.</p><h3>7. Keep AI Out of Unaccountable Surveillance</h3><p>Facial recognition, predictive policing, and AI-powered surveillance tools are being deployed by law enforcement and private corporations in ways that should be raising serious constitutional concerns. Maria wants practical limits on government use of AI-powered law enforcement tools and robust civil liberties protections against AI-enabled mass surveillance.</p><h3>8. Invest in AI Literacy and Public Research</h3><p>America’s response to AI cannot be left entirely to the private sector. Maria supports significant public investment in AI research — particularly research focused on safety, fairness, and public benefit — as well as AI literacy programs in schools and communities so that every American has the knowledge to navigate an AI-powered world.</p><h3>9. Protect Creative Workers</h3><p>Creative professionals are seeing their work used without consent or compensation. Their highly valuable personal talents are being used to train AI systems that then compete against them in the marketplace. Maria supports robust intellectual property protections for creative workers in the AI era and will push for legislation requiring consent and fair compensation when copyrighted work is used to train commercial AI systems.</p><h2>What Maria Will Oppose</h2><ul><li>Letting AI make high-stakes decisions about people’s lives — jobs, loans, housing, or freedom — without real accountability or transparency</li><li>The use of AI-driven surveillance in ways that undermine basic civil liberties or expand government monitoring without clear limits</li><li>The idea that companies can police themselves when it comes to deploying powerful AI systems that affect the public</li><li>The use of AI-generated deepfakes or synthetic media to mislead voters or interfere in elections</li><li>A transition to AI that leaves workers to absorb the disruption on their own, without support, retraining, or a fair share of the gains</li></ul><h2>The Bigger Picture</h2><h3>Maria sees AI through the same lens she sees every other issue affecting our district: who does it work for?</h3><p>Right now, the extraordinary economic value being created by AI is flowing almost entirely to a small number of technology companies and their shareholders. The risks and disruptions — job displacement, algorithmic discrimination, privacy violations, misinformation — are being borne by everyone else.</p><p>That is the same story as the tax code. The same story as healthcare. The same story as campaign finance. In every domain, the powerful are capturing the gains and distributing the costs to ordinary people.</p><p>Maria believes in a different model — one where transformative technologies are developed responsibly, governed democratically, and made to work for everyone. That will not happen on its own. It will require representatives in Congress who understand the stakes, are not funded by the tech industry, and are willing to act before the window closes.</p></blockquote><div style=\"text-align: right; font-size: 0.9em; color: #555; margin-top: 0.5em;\"><p style=\"font-size:0.9em;color:#555\">— Maria Jukic's <a href=\"https://www.mariajukicforcongress.com/healthcare-the-road-to-universal-coverage/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">campaign website</a> (April 24, 2026)</p></div></div></div><div style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;\"><i>Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.</i></div></div>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\"></div>\n<p>Maria Jukic did not complete <a href=\"/Ballotpedia%27s_Candidate_Connection\">Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection</a> survey.\n</p>", "answer_text": "See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection\n\nMaria Jukic completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2026. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Jukic's responses.\nExpand all | Collapse all\nWho are you? Tell us about yourself. I am tired of sorting people into two categories when most of us are in the massive middle. I want to listen, learn, and find common ground. I am a child of immigrants. Union family. Grounded in Christian ethics: love your neighbor as yourself. Attorney. Healthcare career. Former City Councilwoman. I was born in Cleveland in a Croatian-American family in a working-class neighborhood. My mom was in the UAW and my dad was a draftsman. I was class president and valedictorian at Villa Angela Academy. I have a BA in American Studies, University of Notre Dame; MA in Theology and Religious Studies, John Carroll.; JD, Cleveland State College of Law; and a Fulbright Fellowship. I spent 24 years in healthcare doing Marketing/Public Affairs at Euclid Hospital and Arts and Medicine at Cleveland Clinic. I served 4 years on Euclid City Council, graduated from Leadership Lake County, and served on nonprofit boards. I worked in manufacturing, community organizations, and international humanitarian aid. As a teen, I had two paper routes, worked at the mall, and was a waitress. My family and I know hard work and struggle. I know that having support, education, and opportunity can lead to the American dream. I love this country for our freedom and democratic values, the beautiful tapestry of Americans, the decency and generosity of the people, and the promise of “liberty and justice for all.” I want America to be the “shining city upon a hill” again, and I’m ready to fight for it. Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office? FOR THE PEOPLE: Today’s system is rigged in favor of special interests, large corporations, and the wealthiest among us at the expense of regular people. I want to improve the lives of regular Americans and fight for them. Protect Social Security and Medicare. Restore Medicaid and SNAP. Improve tax policy for people who work for a paycheck, for small businesses, and for farmers. Help the rich and corporations pay their fair share. Provide for our armed services members, veterans, and their families. Create jobs, support unions, and increase the minimum wage. Support education. Collaborate with communities. Defend environmental protections because when polluters are allowed to pollute, regular people get sick and die. Ask Erin Brockovich. FOR THE CONSTITUTION AND THE RULE OF LAW: Our government is blatantly and shamelessly violating the Constitution and undermining the Rule of Law - and Congress is letting them. I took an oath to the Constitution twice, as a lawyer 1and as a City Councilwoman. I take that oath seriously and I will stand up for the Constitution - even when I don’t like it. When my family was discriminated against and persecuted in a communist country for their beliefs and for being on the wrong side of the government, they were immensely grateful for this country where everyone was treated equally under the law, regardless of wealth, class, social group, or immigration status. We need to find our way back to that promise - with liberty and justice for all. FOR HEALTHCARE ACCESS AND AFFORDABILITY: ~30 million Americans will not have health insurance in 2026. ~100 million owe $220 billion in medical debt. 500,000 households face medical bankruptcy every year. 80% of U.S. counties are healthcare deserts. Prescription drugs are a financial burden for 67% of Americans. And the US ranks last among high-income nations. All of this while insurance and pharmaceutical companies make record profits. There must be a better way, but there is not enough political will to do it, largely because of special interests, lobbying, and campaign finance. But that’s another topic. My goal is to have honest, bipartisan, and broad-ranging conversations to create reasonable, long-term solutions to improve healthcare. What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about? I am most passionate about policies that relate to helping regular people. This includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, tax policy, farmers, families, food, military, veterans, small businesses, women’s and civil rights, labor and employment, health, healthcare, infrastructure, energy, education, crime and law enforcement, and more. I am also passionate about policies that defend the Constitution and the rule of law. Important issues for our democracy are campaign finance reform, overturning Citizens United, and voting rights. Policies essential to life on the planet include protecting the environment, renewable energy, and sustainability. Urgent issues are affordability, immigration, foreign policy, and national debt/budget.\nNote: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.\nCampaign website Jukic's campaign website stated the following: Healthcare: The Road to Universal Coverage​ The Problem The American healthcare system is failing ordinary people — and the numbers prove it: 27M Americans have no health insurance 100M Americans carry a combined $220 billion in medical debt 500K households file for medical bankruptcy every year 80% of U.S. counties are healthcare deserts 67% of Americans say prescription drug costs are a serious financial burden The United States ranks last among high-income nations in healthcare outcomes. Meanwhile, insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations are posting record profits. This is not a healthcare system. It is a profit system — and ordinary Americans are paying the price with their health, their savings, and their lives. Maria’s Vision Maria believes that healthcare is not a privilege for the wealthy — it is a basic human right and a foundation of a strong, productive society. She is committed to an honest, bipartisan, and broad-ranging conversation about how we get from where we are today to a system that works for everyone. There is no single magic solution. The road to universal coverage will require tackling the problem from multiple directions at once — lowering costs, expanding access, breaking up monopolies, and building political will that special interests have blocked for decades. Maria is not interested in scoring political points on healthcare. She is interested in fixing it. What Maria Will Fight For 1. Lower the Medicare Eligibility Age Maria will work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to lower the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 62 — matching the earliest age a person can receive Social Security benefits. This closes a critical gap for older workers who are between jobs, self-employed, or simply can’t afford private insurance in their early 60s. 2. Break Up Healthcare Monopolies One of the least-talked-about drivers of healthcare costs is consolidation. Today, a single corporation can own your insurance company, your pharmacy, your doctor’s office, and your pharmacy benefit manager — all under one profit-driven roof. This kills competition, drives up prices, and puts corporate shareholders ahead of patients. Maria supports the Break Up Big Medicine Act of 2026, which would rein in these monopolistic structures and restore competition to the healthcare marketplace. 3. Take on Pharmaceutical Pricing Americans pay dramatically more for prescription drugs than people in any other high-income country — for the exact same medications. Maria supports allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, capping out-of-pocket costs for insulin and other life-sustaining medications, and cracking down on price-gouging practices that put life-saving drugs out of reach for working families. 4. Expand Access in Healthcare Deserts With 80% of U.S. counties classified as healthcare deserts, rural and underserved communities — including parts of Ohio’s 14th — face a crisis of access to healthcare. Maria will fight for expanded funding for community health centers, rural hospital support, and telehealth infrastructure so that geography doesn’t determine whether you can see a doctor. 5. Address the Medical Debt Crisis Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Maria supports stronger protections against unfair medical billing, greater hospital price transparency, and real relief options for families already overwhelmed by medical debt. 6. The Long Road: Universal Coverage Maria believes the United States must ultimately join every other high-income nation in guaranteeing universal healthcare. She knows this won’t happen overnight — it will require building bipartisan consensus, reducing the influence of special interests in Congress, and having honest conversations about what a sustainable, universal system looks like. She is committed to that work for the long haul, not just for the next election cycle. Why Is This So Hard? Maria will tell you the truth: the lack of progress on healthcare isn’t simply about greed. Yes, insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations spend billions lobbying Congress to protect their bottom lines — and that’s a real problem. But the barriers run deeper than that. There’s fear. Fear of losing the coverage you have, however imperfect. Fear that reform means someone else gets something for free. There’s a deep distrust of the government’s ability to get anything right, and an erosion of the belief that we’re all in this together. These fears are understandable — and the people who benefit from the status quo know exactly how to stoke them. It’s also worth saying: not every actor in our healthcare system is driven by profit. Many hospitals — nonprofit institutions in communities like ours — are simply trying to keep their doors open, care for their patients, and do important research. The problem isn’t one villain. It’s a system that has grown so complicated, so entrenched, and so politically charged that meaningful change feels impossible. Maria believes it isn’t. But she also knows that campaign finance reform and healthcare reform go hand in hand. When corporations have outsized influence over our democracy, the people’s priorities come last. That’s why Maria refuses corporate PAC money. She does accept support from unions and community organizations that stand with working families — because she answers to the people of Ohio’s 14th District, not to the healthcare industry. Immigration: Constitutional, Humane, and Smart The Reality Immigration is one of the most emotionally charged issues in American politics — and one of the most distorted. Politicians on both sides use it to score points and raise money while real people’s lives hang in the balance. Maria believes the Massive Middle of this country wants something neither extreme is offering: an immigration system that is both secure and humane, both lawful and compassionate. The current situation is a failure on every front. Our immigration laws are outdated. Our courts are overwhelmed. Our enforcement agencies are operating outside constitutional boundaries. And hardworking people who have built lives, raised families, and contributed to our communities for decades live in constant fear. We can do better. We must do better. The Crisis at Our Door Right Now Before we talk about long-term reform, Maria wants to be direct about what is happening today — because it cannot wait. ICE is violating the Constitution. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining people — including American citizens — based on their appearance, without due process, and in pursuit of daily arrest quotas. People are disappearing into a vast network of detention centers with no access to lawyers, no hearing, and no accountability. This is happening in America. Right now. This is not border security. This is not law enforcement. This is unconstitutional — and Maria will fight it from her first day in Congress. ICE must be reined in, retrained, and restructured. Enforcement must be targeted, lawful, and humane. Profit-driven detention warehousing of human beings is not acceptable in the United States of America. What Maria Will Fight For 1. Restore Due Process Every person on American soil — citizen or not — has constitutional rights. Maria will fight to end warrantless detentions, ensure access to legal counsel, and hold ICE accountable for civil rights violations. No more disappearing people into detention without due process of law. 2. A Clear Path to Citizenship Maria supports a fair, structured pathway to citizenship for immigrants who live, work, and contribute to our communities — especially those who have been here for years and have American-born children. These are our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends. They are not criminals. They are Americans in every way that matters except on paper. 3. Protect DACA Recipients People who were brought to this country as children — who grew up here, went to school here, built careers here — should not be punished for decisions made before they could walk. Maria fully supports a permanent legislative solution for DACA recipients, providing them a clear and certain path to citizenship. 4. Reform the Immigration Courts The immigration court system is in crisis. Cases are backlogged for years. Judges are overwhelmed. Families are left in legal limbo for a decade or more. Maria will fight for significant new investment in immigration courts — more judges, more staff, more resources — so that cases are decided fairly and promptly. 5. Create Legal Pathways for Workers Across Ohio’s 14th District and across the country, industries from agriculture to healthcare to construction depend on immigrant labor. Rather than criminalizing this reality, Maria supports expanding and modernizing legal visa pathways for essential workers — including seasonal agricultural workers, skilled tradespeople, and healthcare professionals — so that businesses can meet their workforce needs lawfully and workers have legal protections. 6. Improve the Refugee and Asylum System People who are fleeing violence or real danger deserve a system that works — one that’s fair and doesn’t leave them waiting in limbo for years. Maria supports fixing the backlog, updating the technology, ensuring sufficient staffing to handle cases, and setting clear, consistent standards. And she believes people should be treated with basic dignity while their cases are being decided. 7. End the Political Football Immigration has been used as a wedge issue by both parties for decades — kept deliberately broken because it works better as a campaign issue than as a solved problem. Maria refuses to play that game. She will work across the aisle with anyone who is serious about comprehensive, lasting reform — because the people of Ohio’s 14th deserve a representative who is here to govern, not just to campaign. Immigration and the Economy Maria also wants to connect the dots that too many politicians ignore: immigration policy is economic policy. Right now, the administration’s mass deportation campaign is causing labor shortages in food production — driving up grocery prices for every family in every county in our district. Rounding up hardworking people doesn’t make America safer. It makes your groceries more expensive and leaves crops to rot in the fields. Immigrants are not taking from our economy. Study after study shows they are net contributors — starting businesses, filling critical jobs, paying taxes, and revitalizing communities that would otherwise be shrinking. Whole towns across America have been brought back to life by immigrant families who chose to put down roots there. Smart immigration policy isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s good economics. Social Security: Protect What Americans Earned The Promise Social Security is not a government handout. It is not welfare. It is not charity. It is a promise — made by the United States government to every working American — that if you spend your life contributing to this country, you will not be left to struggle alone in your old age, or if you become disabled, or when you lose a spouse. 70 million Americans depend on Social Security today. For most retirees, it is their single largest source of income. For millions of seniors in our community, it is the difference between dignity and poverty. That promise is now in danger. And Maria will not let it be broken. The Problem Social Security’s trust funds are projected to face a serious shortfall within the next decade. If Congress does nothing, benefits could be automatically cut by roughly 20% — affecting every single person who receives a check. This is not a secret. Washington has known about this for years. And yet Congress has done almost nothing, because fixing Social Security requires political courage — the kind that special interests and career politicians work very hard to avoid. At the same time, the current administration is actively undermining Social Security’s infrastructure — cutting staff, disrupting operations, and making it harder for Americans to access the benefits they earned. This is unacceptable, and Maria will fight it directly. The clock is ticking. This is not a problem we can keep kicking down the road. What Maria Will Fight For 1. A Social Security Lock-Box One of the most persistent abuses in Washington is Congress raiding Social Security funds to pay for other priorities. Maria will advocate for a permanent Social Security Lock-Box — a legislative firewall that prevents Social Security funds from ever being diverted for other purposes. The money workers pay into Social Security belongs to them. Period. 2. A Bipartisan Middle Class Working Group Maria will initiate a serious, bipartisan congressional working group dedicated exclusively to the long-term solvency of Social Security. Not a committee that holds hearings and does nothing. A working group with a mandate to produce real legislative solutions — one that brings together members of Congress who are willing to put the American people ahead of their party and their donors. 3. Make the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share Here is something most Americans don’t know: right now, Social Security payroll taxes stop applying above a certain income level — meaning a billionaire pays the same dollar amount into Social Security as someone earning a comfortable middle-class salary. Maria supports lifting or eliminating this cap so that higher earners contribute more, just as working Americans do on every dollar they earn. This one change alone would dramatically improve Social Security’s long-term finances. 4. Expand the Contribution Base Currently, Social Security is funded primarily through wages, but wealthy Americans earn much of their income through investments, which are not subject to FICA contributions. Maria supports exploring ways to include more investment income in the Social Security contribution base, so that the burden of keeping this promise doesn’t fall exclusively on working people who earn a paycheck. 5. Protect and Expand Benefits Any solution to Social Security’s solvency must protect current beneficiaries completely and must not cut benefits for people who are already retired or near retirement. Maria will oppose any proposal that balances the books on the backs of seniors who have already spent a lifetime contributing to the system. 6. Defend Social Security Operations The current effort to gut Social Security’s administrative capacity — cutting workers, closing offices, and disrupting payment systems — is an attack on the 70 million Americans who depend on it. Maria will fight every attempt to defund, privatize, or dismantle the operational infrastructure that delivers Social Security benefits to the people who earned them. What Maria Will Oppose Privatization. Placing Social Security funds in the stock market exposes retirees to market crashes and Wall Street risks. Maria will not support any plan that gambles seniors’ retirement security on the stock market. Raising the retirement age. For people who work physical jobs — in manufacturing, agriculture, construction, and care work — raising the retirement age is a benefit cut by another name. Maria opposes it. Benefit cuts of any kind for current or near-retirement beneficiaries. Social Security and the Bigger Picture Let’s be clear about what Social Security actually is: it’s your money. Not the government’s money. Yours. You paid into it every paycheck — you were required to — on the promise that it would be there when you retired. That’s not a handout. That’s a contract. For many seniors, that contract is the difference between getting by and getting evicted. Between filling a prescription and going without. And yet there are people in Washington who talk about cutting it, privatizing it, or raising the retirement age as if they’re doing you a favor by figuring out how to give you less of what you already paid for. Maria won’t stand for that. Protecting Social Security isn’t a political position for her — it’s a matter of basic honesty. You held up your end of the deal. Washington should hold up its. Tax Policy: For the Paycheck, Not the Portfolio The Problem For the past 25 years, tax policy in America has been written by and for the wealthy. The results speak for themselves: Trillions of dollars have been added to the national debt through tax cuts that disproportionately benefited corporations and the investor class Middle-class wages have stagnated while corporate profits have soared Working families pay a higher effective tax rate than billionaires who earn their money through investments A tax code so riddled with loopholes, carve-outs, and special interest provisions that it takes an army of accountants to navigate — if you can afford one The tax code is not broken by accident. It was carefully designed over the decades by the wealthy, the well-connected, well-funded lobbyists, and politicians to move wealth upward. And it has worked exactly as intended. Maria believes it is time to rewrite it for the people who actually built this country. The Fundamental Unfairness Here is something that should make every working American angry. A teacher in Ravenna, a nurse in Eastlake, a factory worker in Madison — they pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on every single dollar they earn. They can’t hide their income. It shows up on a W-2. The IRS knows exactly what they made. A hedge fund manager or a wealthy investor pays a lower tax rate than a teacher, nurse, or factory worker. A hedge fund manager or a wealthy investor, on the other hand, can earn millions through capital gains, carried interest, and investment income — and pay a lower tax rate than the teacher, the nurse, and the factory worker. They have access to tax shelters, offshore accounts, and loopholes that no ordinary family will ever see. This is not a free market. This is a rigged system. And Maria intends to un-rig it. What Maria Will Fight For 1. A Bipartisan Tax Reform Working Group Maria will build a coalition of Congress members from both parties who are serious — not just rhetorical — about rewriting the tax code for working Americans. Not another round of tax cuts for the wealthy dressed up as middle-class relief. Real, structural reform that makes the system fairer, simpler, and more honest. 2. Tax Relief for Working Families Most families don’t need a lecture on tax policy — they need a little breathing room. Maria supports tax relief that actually shows up in everyday life. Help with childcare, healthcare, school — the things people are already paying for. It’s not complicated. When working families have a little more to work with, it makes a difference. 3. Close the Carried Interest Loophole Hedge fund managers pay a lower tax rate on their earnings than most middle-class workers because of a provision called “carried interest” that allows them to classify their income as investment gains rather than wages. This is indefensible. Maria will fight to close it. 4. Make Investment Income Pay Its Fair Share People who earn their living through wages pay payroll taxes on every dollar. People who earn their living through investments largely do not. Maria supports reforming the tax treatment of investment income so that wealth is taxed at rates comparable to work — not at rates that reward having money over earning it. 5. End Corporate Tax Avoidance Big corporations have figured out how to move profits overseas and use loopholes so they pay far less in taxes than most working people. Maria supports closing those loopholes, cracking down on offshore tax shelters, and making sure corporations that profit from American workers and infrastructure actually pay their fair share. 6. Raise the Minimum Wage Tax policy alone cannot fix economic inequality. Maria also supports raising the federal minimum wage so that work pays — reducing the need for government assistance and putting more money into the hands of people who will spend it in their local communities. 7. Responsible Deficit Reduction Maria takes the national debt seriously — not as a talking point, but as a real long-term threat to American prosperity. She believes the path to fiscal responsibility runs through a fairer tax code that generates adequate revenue, not through cutting Social Security, Medicare, or programs that working families depend on. You cannot balance the budget by taking from people who have nothing left to give. 8. Stop Unconstitutional Tariffs The current administration’s tariff policy is not tax reform — it is a hidden tax on every American family. Tariffs raise prices on goods that ordinary people buy every day, from groceries to appliances to clothing. And these tariffs are being imposed without Congressional approval, in violation of the Constitution. Maria will fight to reassert Congressional authority over trade policy and end the tariff chaos that is driving up costs for families across Ohio’s 14th. What Maria Will Oppose Tax cuts for the wealthy disguised as broad-based relief Deficit spending that benefits corporations and investors while cutting services for working people Tax policy that punishes work while rewarding passive wealth Complexity that serves accountants and lobbyists at the expense of ordinary taxpayers The Bigger Picture Tax policy is ultimately a statement of values. When we decide who pays and who doesn’t, we are deciding what kind of country we want to be. Maria believes in a country where the person who works the hardest pays a fair rate — not a higher rate than someone whose money makes money while they sleep. She believes in a country where corporations that profit from American workers and American consumers contribute to the American common good. And she believes in a country where the tax code is written in plain English for ordinary people, not in fine print for lobbyists. That is the tax system Maria will fight to build. Campaign Finance & Ethics Reform: Giving Government Back to the People The Root of the Problem Maria will tell you something that most politicians won’t: Almost every issue on this website — healthcare, Social Security, tax policy, the environment — has a known solution. The ideas are not the problem. The problem is that the people with the power to implement those solutions are financially dependent on the people who benefit from keeping things broken. That is not cynicism. That is the reality of American politics in 2026. And until we fix it, we cannot fully fix anything else. Special interests, corporate lobbyists, and billionaire donors spend billions of dollars every election cycle to ensure that Congress remains responsive to them — not to the teacher in Ashtabula, not to the small business owner in Mentor, not to the retiree in Warren living on Social Security. Maria is running to change that. And she is starting immediately with this campaign. Who Funds This Campaign Maria believes corporations shouldn’t have outsized influence in our democracy. That’s why she doesn’t accept corporate PAC money — no donations from corporate PACs, pharmaceutical companies, insurance corporations, or Wall Street banks. She does accept support from unions and community organizations that stand with working families. She’s building this campaign on small-dollar donations from real people — neighbors, coworkers, anyone who believes the 14th District deserves a representative who answers to them. This campaign is funded by people like you — not corporate PACs, not special interests. If you believe the 14th District deserves a representative who actually answers to them, even a small donation helps. The Scale of the Problem The American campaign finance system is broken in ways that most people feel, but few fully understand: The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate and special interest spending in elections — treating corporations as people and money as speech Dark money — political spending by nonprofit organizations that are not required to disclose their donors — has poured billions of dollars into elections with zero transparency or accountability Super PACs allow wealthy donors and corporations to spend unlimited amounts to influence elections, as long as they maintain a legal fiction of not coordinating directly with campaigns Members of Congress spend an estimated 30 to 70 percent of their time on fundraising — time that should be spent governing Lobbyists write legislation, fund campaigns, and then move through the revolving door between industry and government with virtually no restrictions Congressional stock trading allows members of Congress to profit from non-public information they receive in their official capacity — information that would send a private citizen to jail The result is a Congress that is structurally incapable of acting in the public interest on issue after issue — because acting in the public interest would cost its members their funding. What Maria Will Fight For 1. Overturn Citizens United The Citizens United Supreme Court decision was a catastrophic blow to American democracy. Maria supports a constitutional amendment to make clear that corporations are not people and money is not speech — and that Congress has the authority to regulate campaign finance in the public interest. This is a long road, but it is the right destination and Maria will walk it. 2. Full Disclosure of Dark Money Every dollar spent to influence an American election should be publicly disclosed. No exceptions. No shell corporations. No anonymous donors hiding behind nonprofit status. Maria supports the DISCLOSE Act and any legislation that brings full transparency to political spending so that voters know who is trying to buy their elections. 3. Public Financing of Elections Maria supports a small-dollar matching system for federal elections. Under this kind of system, small donations are matched with public funds — turning a $50 donation from a nurse into $300 or more. It doesn’t erase the influence of big money overnight. But it does mean that candidates have a real financial incentive to talk to ordinary people instead of spending all their time chasing checks from corporate PACs. More small donors means more accountability to real people — and that’s how democracy is supposed to work. 4. Ban Congressional Stock Trading This one should not even be controversial. Members of Congress regularly receive non-public information about industries, companies, and economic conditions through their official duties. Using that information to trade stocks is insider trading — full stop. The fact that it has been legal for members of Congress is an outrage that erodes public trust every single day. Maria supports requiring members of Congress and their immediate families to either divest their individual stock holdings or place them in a blind trust managed by an independent trustee. What is illegal on Wall Street should be illegal on Capitol Hill. We should not have to tell people not to cheat — but since we apparently do, we need real enforcement to back it up. 5. Close the Revolving Door The movement of individuals between government positions and the industries they regulate or legislate — taking their inside knowledge and relationships with them — is one of the most corrosive forces in American politics. Maria supports significantly strengthening revolving door restrictions, including longer cooling-off periods before former members of Congress and senior staff can become lobbyists. 6. Strengthen Lobbying Disclosure and Reform Lobbyists play a powerful role in shaping legislation — and that role is largely invisible to the public. Maria supports stronger lobbying disclosure requirements, stricter rules on gift-giving and travel paid for by special interests, and real enforcement of existing lobbying laws that are routinely ignored. 7. Restore the Office of Congressional Ethics Independent ethics oversight of Congress has been systematically weakened over the years. Maria supports restoring and strengthening the Office of Congressional Ethics as a truly independent body with the resources and authority to investigate and hold members accountable — regardless of party. 8. End Gerrymandering Rigged maps produce rigged outcomes. When politicians choose their voters instead of voters choosing their politicians, accountability disappears. Maria supports independent redistricting commissions that draw congressional maps based on communities — not partisan advantage. Why This Issue Connects to Everything Else Maria wants to be direct with voters about something: campaign finance reform is not a standalone issue. It is the issue that unlocks all the others. We have to be honest about something. Drug prices are where they are because pharma has a lot of power in Washington. The tax code reflects the same reality — the people with money have a voice in how the rules get written. And climate action has been slowed down for years by industries that didn’t want change. The special interests are not going to fix this. The politicians they fund are not going to fix this. It will take a new generation of representatives — people who are genuinely accountable to their constituents rather than their donors — to fix this. That is exactly what Maria intends to be. Environment & Climate Change: Protecting What’s Ours Start With What’s Right Outside Our Door Before we talk about global climate policy, let’s talk about Lake Erie. Lake Erie is the heart of Ohio’s 14th Congressional District. It is our greatest natural asset — a source of drinking water for 11 million people, a foundation for fishing, tourism, and recreation, and a defining feature of life in Lake and Ashtabula counties. Generations of families have built their lives around it. And it is under threat. Algal blooms fueled by agricultural runoff and industrial pollution have become a recurring crisis. In 2014, the city of Toledo could not use its tap water for three days because of toxic algae in Lake Erie. Shoreline erosion is accelerating. Water quality is declining in ways that affect not just swimmers and fishermen, but every single person who drinks from the Lake Erie watershed. This isn’t an abstract environmental issue. This is our water, our economy, and our home. The Bigger Picture What’s happening on Lake Erie isn’t isolated. It connects to bigger issues — pollution, weak oversight, and a system that too often lets powerful interests off the hook. For decades, large corporations have polluted communities for profit and then used their influence to avoid real consequences. And at the federal level, environmental protections have been rolled back over time in ways that people here can see and feel. This isn’t theoretical. It shows up in the water, the air, and the land across Ohio’s 14th District. And climate change isn’t something in the future anymore. It’s already affecting farming, infrastructure, and extreme weather. Warmer water is making algal blooms worse. Bigger storms are speeding up erosion along the shoreline. Farmers in places like Ashtabula and County are already dealing with less predictable seasons. Maria thinks we have to deal with that reality honestly — neither exaggerating nor pretending it’s not happening. Maria’s Approach: Pragmatic, Local, and Jobs-Forward Maria is not interested in ideological purity on energy and the environment. She is interested in results. That means a pragmatic, all-of-the-above approach that takes climate seriously, invests in clean energy, holds polluters accountable, and does not leave working people behind in the transition. What Maria Will Fight For 1. Protect Lake Erie — Full Stop Maria will be a fierce and unrelenting advocate for Lake Erie in Congress. That means fighting for strong clean water standards, increased federal investment in algal bloom research and prevention, accountability for agricultural and industrial polluters, and restoration of shoreline and wetland ecosystems. Lake Erie is not a partisan issue. It is our most precious regional resource, and Maria will treat it that way. 2. Restore and Strengthen Environmental Protections The systematic rollback of EPA regulations, clean water rules, and air quality standards under the current administration is putting communities at risk. Maria will fight to restore these protections and strengthen enforcement so that corporations cannot treat our air, water, and land as a free dumping ground. 3. Hold Polluters Accountable Current environmental laws are only as good as their enforcement. Maria supports robust funding for the EPA, aggressive prosecution of corporate polluters, and strengthening the legal tools available to communities harmed by environmental violations. If you poison a community’s water, you should pay to clean it up — not write it off as a cost of doing business. 4. Invest in Clean Energy — and the Jobs That Come With It Ohio has enormous potential to be a leader in clean energy manufacturing and deployment. Solar, wind, and next-generation nuclear represent not just an environmental opportunity but an economic one — good-paying, American-made jobs that cannot be outsourced. Maria supports significant federal investment in clean energy infrastructure, manufacturing tax incentives, and workforce training programs that prepare Ohio workers for the energy economy of the future. 5. A Pragmatic All-of-the-Above Energy Strategy Maria understands that energy transitions take time and that working families cannot absorb the cost of a chaotic or poorly managed shift. She supports a responsible all-of-the-above energy strategy that aggressively expands clean energy while managing the transition away from fossil fuels in a way that protects workers, keeps energy affordable, and maintains grid reliability. Energy independence — not dependence on foreign oil or foreign-manufactured solar panels — is the goal. 6. Support Ohio Farmers on Conservation Farmers in Ashtabula and Geauga counties are dealing with a lot right now. Maria supports conservation programs that are voluntary and practical — things farmers can actually use. Cover crops, buffer strips, better ways to manage nutrients. The goal is simple: keep runoff out of Lake Erie without making it harder to run a farm. Those two things should go together. 7. Fight for Environmental Justice Low-income communities and communities of color disproportionately bear the burden of industrial pollution, toxic waste sites, and environmental neglect. Maria supports an environmental justice framework that ensures all communities — regardless of zip code or income — have access to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment. 8. Oppose the Gutting of Environmental Infrastructure Cutting the EPA, defunding environmental research, and eliminating the scientists and enforcement officers who protect our environment is not fiscal responsibility — it is a gift to corporate polluters at the expense of ordinary Americans. Maria will oppose every effort to defund, dismantle, or politicize the federal agencies that keep our environment safe. What Maria Will Oppose Rolling back clean water and clean air protections — especially when communities are the ones left dealing with the consequences Weakening the EPA or stripping away enforcement power so rules exist in name only Corporate polluters getting a pass because of influence in Washington Energy decisions that drive up costs for working families without any real transition plan in place Letting Lake Erie slip down the priority list — because for this district, it’s not optional, it’s essential The Economic Case Some politicians treat the environment and the economy as opposites. Maria believes a healthy environment and a strong economy go hand in hand. A healthy Lake Erie is worth billions of dollars to this region in tourism, fishing, recreation, and property values. Clean air and water reduce healthcare costs. Investing in clean energy creates jobs that stay here. And the long-term economic cost of ignoring climate change — in infrastructure damage, agricultural disruption, and public health crises — dwarfs the cost of acting now. Protecting the environment is not a luxury. It is an investment in the long-term prosperity of Ohio’s 14th District and every family that calls it home. Artificial Intelligence: Getting It Right Before It’s Too Late A Different Kind of Issue Artificial Intelligence is unlike any other issue in this campaign. Healthcare, Social Security, and tax policy — these are problems that have been building for decades. We know what they look like. We understand their contours. We have a body of research, experience, and policy debate to draw from. AI is different. It is moving faster than any technology in human history. It is reshaping the economy, the job market, the information landscape, and the basic fabric of daily life — right now, today — and Washington is years behind in understanding it, let alone governing it. Maria believes that getting AI policy right is one of the most important things Congress needs to address in the immediate future. Not because AI is inherently dangerous — it is also an extraordinary technology with enormous potential to improve lives. But because the decisions made in the next few years will determine whether AI’s benefits are shared broadly across society, or captured exclusively by the corporations and billionaires who build and own it. We have a narrow window to get this right. Maria intends to use it. What Is Already Happening AI is not a future concern. It is a present reality — and its impacts are already being felt by ordinary Americans in ways that are often invisible: Jobs are being automated at an accelerating pace, with working and middle-class jobs in manufacturing, customer service, transportation, legal work, accounting, and many other fields at risk of displacement Algorithmic decision-making is already determining who gets a loan, who gets a job interview, who gets flagged by law enforcement, and who gets approved for housing — often with no transparency, no accountability, and built-in biases that disadvantage people of color, women, and low-income Americans AI-generated misinformation — deepfakes, synthetic media, and automated disinformation — is polluting our information environment and threatening the integrity of our elections and public discourse Surveillance technology powered by AI is being deployed by corporations and governments in ways that raise serious civil liberties concerns Personal data is being harvested, analyzed, and monetized by AI systems with no meaningful consent or compensation for the people it belongs to Healthcare, education, and social services are increasingly being shaped by AI systems whose decisions affect people’s lives in profound ways — with little oversight or recourse These are not hypothetical scenarios. They are happening now, to real people, with virtually no federal guardrails in place. Maria’s Approach: Rights, Regulation, and Responsibility Maria believes AI should serve people — not the other way around. That means making sure this technology is built and used responsibly, with transparency, accountability, and real protections for everyday Americans — not just for the companies that profit from it. She’s not against innovation. She’s against a system where innovation moves faster than accountability. And right now, AI is advancing in a space with too few rules and too little oversight. What Maria Will Fight For 1. A Federal AI Rights Framework Americans should have clear, enforceable rights when AI is involved in decisions that affect their lives. Maria will push for a federal framework that guarantees basic protections — including knowing when you’re interacting with an AI, having meaningful human review for major decisions, getting an explanation when AI is used to deny you things like credit, employment, or benefits, and protection from biased or discriminatory algorithms. These aren’t extreme ideas. They’re basic safeguards for a system that’s already shaping people’s lives in very real ways. 2. Protect Workers from AI Displacement The economic disruption caused by AI automation is real and accelerating. Maria will fight for policies that support workers whose jobs are displaced by AI — including expanded job retraining programs, portable benefits that follow workers between jobs, and requirements that companies investing in AI automation contribute to workforce transition funds. The productivity gains from AI should benefit the workers whose labor made those companies successful — not just their executives and shareholders. 3. Regulate Algorithmic Decision-Making When an algorithm is making decisions about your life — a mortgage approval, a job application, or even a parole determination — that system needs to be accountable. Maria believes people deserve to know when AI is involved, understand how those decisions are made in broad terms, and have real ways to challenge outcomes that are wrong or discriminatory. If companies are going to use these systems, they should also be responsible for making sure they’re tested, reviewed, and not quietly replicating bias at scale. 4. Combat AI-Generated Misinformation Deepfakes and AI posts are everywhere now. A lot of people honestly can’t tell what’s real anymore. Maria thinks there should be clear labels so people know when something is synthetic. And platforms can’t just look the other way when false content spreads — especially when it’s driving engagement. We also need better tools to catch it earlier. Not after it’s already everywhere. Now. 5. Protect Privacy and Personal Data Right now, most people have very little say in how their data gets collected or used. Maria supports a real privacy law — not a symbolic one — that gives people actual control over what gets collected, how it’s used, and who gets it. And when companies ignore those rules, there need to be consequences that matter. 6. Ensure AI Safety and Transparency Even the people building AI systems will tell you — they don’t fully know how all of it behaves yet. That alone should make us cautious. Maria wants to see basic guardrails: more transparency when AI is used in high-stakes decisions, proper testing before it’s deployed in sensitive settings, and oversight where the risks are serious. Not to slow things down. Just to make sure we’re not flying blind. 7. Keep AI Out of Unaccountable Surveillance Facial recognition, predictive policing, and AI-powered surveillance tools are being deployed by law enforcement and private corporations in ways that should be raising serious constitutional concerns. Maria wants practical limits on government use of AI-powered law enforcement tools and robust civil liberties protections against AI-enabled mass surveillance. 8. Invest in AI Literacy and Public Research America’s response to AI cannot be left entirely to the private sector. Maria supports significant public investment in AI research — particularly research focused on safety, fairness, and public benefit — as well as AI literacy programs in schools and communities so that every American has the knowledge to navigate an AI-powered world. 9. Protect Creative Workers Creative professionals are seeing their work used without consent or compensation. Their highly valuable personal talents are being used to train AI systems that then compete against them in the marketplace. Maria supports robust intellectual property protections for creative workers in the AI era and will push for legislation requiring consent and fair compensation when copyrighted work is used to train commercial AI systems. What Maria Will Oppose Letting AI make high-stakes decisions about people’s lives — jobs, loans, housing, or freedom — without real accountability or transparency The use of AI-driven surveillance in ways that undermine basic civil liberties or expand government monitoring without clear limits The idea that companies can police themselves when it comes to deploying powerful AI systems that affect the public The use of AI-generated deepfakes or synthetic media to mislead voters or interfere in elections A transition to AI that leaves workers to absorb the disruption on their own, without support, retraining, or a fair share of the gains The Bigger Picture Maria sees AI through the same lens she sees every other issue affecting our district: who does it work for? Right now, the extraordinary economic value being created by AI is flowing almost entirely to a small number of technology companies and their shareholders. The risks and disruptions — job displacement, algorithmic discrimination, privacy violations, misinformation — are being borne by everyone else. That is the same story as the tax code. The same story as healthcare. The same story as campaign finance. In every domain, the powerful are capturing the gains and distributing the costs to ordinary people. Maria believes in a different model — one where transformative technologies are developed responsibly, governed democratically, and made to work for everyone. That will not happen on its own. It will require representatives in Congress who understand the stakes, are not funded by the tech industry, and are willing to act before the window closes. — Maria Jukic's campaign website (April 24, 2026) Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.\n\nMaria Jukic did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey."}]