Change starts with a single step.Let's take ours.

Why are you not running as a Republican?
Why are you not running as a Democrat?
Who will you caucus with?

These questions came up everywhere as I traveled from my home in northern Idaho up and down the District, collecting signatures to get on the ballot in November. They are the right questions. Policies reflect ideology, and with any candidate, you need to know what you are getting.

I am not running as a Democrat because I don't share their worldview. Democrats put the people first and assume the economy will follow. That sounds noble, until reality sets in. This is where we get ideas like the $30 minimum wage for hotel workers that Los Angeles is implementing. That's great until service cost increases raise prices elsewhere. The end result of this philosophy has been big government programs, burdensome regulations, and continual redistribution of a pie that struggles to grow.

I am not running as a Republican because the party has abandoned the tradition it once held. That tradition rightly recognized that markets are the most powerful engine of prosperity ever devised, that they require maintenance to function, and that government's job is to provide that maintenance and then stop. That idea led to the interstate highway system, the GI Bill, and the research investments that built American technological dominance. But starting about four decades ago, the party convinced itself that tax cuts alone would provide the investment necessary to feed the economy. It doesn't. But rather than invest in the economy and the conditions that sustain it, they lean on borrowing ever greater sums against our future.

I believe that the Republican Party is right to focus on the economy as the engine that drives American prosperity, but that they are missing a key point: the economy itself is an inherently human activity — people producing and consuming and building their lives — and it takes place on and through this planet. That means that investing in the economy includes investing in a healthy, capable workforce and reliable access to natural resources, now and in the future. The people and the planet and the economy are not competing priorities; they are the same priority.

Consider health care. Democrats treat coverage as a human right, unconstrained by cost. Republicans call it a market — you get what you can afford. Their policies are projected to strip health insurance from more than 100,000 Idahoans, roll back a Medicaid expansion that had reduced uncompensated care costs by more than $100 million across two years, and leave our hospitals absorbing costs they can't sustain. That's a poor business decision.

My worldview frames it differently: Our economy succeeds when everyone is able to contribute — workers, business owners, parents raising the next generation. Leaving anyone sidelined by illness that could be prevented or treated is wasteful and unjustifiable. That's not a liberal argument or a conservative one — it's a stewardship argument. Preventive care, managing chronic illness before it becomes disabling, getting people back on their feet: these belong squarely in the common ground.

But common ground and bipartisan support don't get us very far in today's political reality, which brings us back to the third question: Who will you caucus with?

Today's political reality accepts the idea that the biggest questions — even those specifically assigned to Congress, like whether to take the country to war — are decided unilaterally by the President while Congress sits by. I don't accept that and neither should you. But even now, Congress still decides lesser issues of law, and where you sit determines the influence you have in those decisions. These "small" issues include items of critical importance to Idaho, like the Farm Workforce Modernization Act and the Public Lands in Public Hands Act. I will position myself to work with those who provide the assertive center — who demand to be heard on big and small issues, and push the country back to its constitutional norm.