Democratic Candidate for the 33rd District Statehouse

Contact: Andrea Geralds

215-837-5305; andreageraldsfordistrict33@gmail.com

Macomb - Andrea Geralds has announced her
filing as a Democratic candidate for State Representative for the 33rd
District representing Macomb, Ray, Lennox, and Richmond.

Residents are invited to meet Geralds in
her home April 18, 2018 at 7 pm. Simply contact her at andreageraldsfordistrict33@gmail.com for
address details. A Virtual Meet the Candidate will be held April 26, 2018 at 7
pm via Facebook Live or Twitch. RSVP at @AndreaGeraldsfor33 on Facebook.

Geralds expressed her desire to run began
with school funding and safety. “The Michigan Legislature passed into law a
bill that allows taking a percentage of the public school millage's that
residents have approved for their local schools to give to public charters. In
Michigan, 85% of these charters, including 100% of the ones in the 33rd
district, are for-profit. In a time when our teachers just took a retroactive
pay cut of 5%, it is unacceptable to under-fund them even more. Especially by
using what is a complete violation of free market principles. The legislature
is now forcing Michigan residents to subsidize for-profit industries through
the use of compulsory tax contributions.”

She expressed a number of additional
concerns including predatory business practices by Nestle. “Nestle is draining
the Great Lakes through Evart, Michigan at a rate of 400 gallons per minute,
while having paid $200 for the year to do so. They are then selling that water
back to consumers at around a 1000% markup. If I watered my lawn to the rate
that Nestle is inhaling our water, my water bill would cost more than my
mortgage. Why is this acceptable? It's not, and will be one of the first things
I work to stop.”

She supports legalizing recreational
marijuana. If the ballot initiative to legalize marijuana fails to get on the
ballot, as a legislator she would work to create responsible, careful laws to
legalize recreational marijuana use. As of now, it is used for medical purposes
in the state, but there is a large part of the population that uses it
regularly for recreational purposes. She stated, “I am happy to take a drug
screen any day of the week, but my lack of use doesn't address parity. We pay
taxes on beer. Our neighbors pay taxes on their wine or liquor. Our seniors pay
taxes on their pharmaceutical medications. It's time for the marijuana users to
start paying the same luxury taxes the rest of us are paying, with the same age
and driving restrictions. We can take 70% of the excise tax and dedicate it to
our schools and roads. Then let's take 25% and give it to police and fire
departments, with the remaining five percent for our libraries.”

Geralds supports Red Flag laws that allow
for the removal of guns on an emergency basis from people considered to be an
immediate threat to the community, after appropriate due process has been
given. She advocated for adding a dedicated fund at a state level to put school
counselors back in schools, and create and maintain a database of people
convicted of domestic violence, child abuse and animal abuse to be used to
screen gun transactions. “Let's have a 72-hour mandatory hold on gun purchases
and run background checks on every single gun transaction, no exceptions. Let's
pass laws that say that if your gun is used in the commission of a crime, you
are as legally responsible as the perpetrator, with the exception of guns
reported stolen previous to the commission of said crime. Mass shootings by far
get the most attention, but the sad reality is that more gun deaths occur
because of unsecured guns or because of suicide than all the mass shootings
combined”. Ms. Geralds believes those small changes will save lives while still
respecting our Second Amendment rights and while not infringing on the rights
of responsible gun owners in our state who have done nothing to deserve being
penalized.

Ms. Geralds also expressed a desire to
control the cost of medical expenses that aren't being addressed at a federal
or state level at this time. “Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending
Accounts are helpful, but what about the hundreds and hundreds of dollars we
pay in a year for things like joint braces, allergy medications, Depends, Advil
for teething babies and Zinc so we can go back to work two days earlier when
we’re sick? The federal government decided these don't qualify as medical
expenses for the purposes of those accounts and this is very wrong.” She is
advocating for a health tax credit from the State of Michigan allowing for a
deduction of 75% of the cost of over-the-counter medications and medical
devices. She also included specialty programs to treat things like Alzheimer’s,
Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, MS and strokes that often cost thousands of dollars
because insurance won't cover them, but that can drastically reduce the
lifetime need for hospitals and medications in her tax credit plan. “While
there is plenty of quack science out there, many programs have provable results
that significantly benefit those who need to use them. The approved programs
would have to meet strict levels of medical improvement for a 90% threshold of
their clients and have to have been in business for at least five years to be
considered eligible for our citizens to use them for tax credit purposes.”