Show up. Listen. Do the homework. Answer honestly.

Yes

Representation requires being accessible to the people you represent. I will meet with veterans, Veterans Service Organizations, military families, caregivers, and survivors — including people who disagree with me.

I won't expect veterans to come to Montgomery to be heard.

Yes — but I don't think the answer always needs to be asking veterans to attend another meeting.

If veterans and Veterans Service Organizations are already gathering, I'll come to you. I'll make myself available to attend your meetings, listening sessions, events, and other gatherings when invited.

My job as your senator shouldn't be to create another obligation on your calendar just so I can say I held a town hall. It should be to make myself accessible in the places where veterans are already doing the work and having these conversations.

And when a dedicated public forum would be useful, I'll be available to hold one.

I've already made this commitment to everyone in District 16: if elected, I will publish a monthly report explaining what happened in Montgomery, how I voted, and why.

Veterans shouldn't have to search legislative databases or depend on campaign mail to learn what their senator is doing.

If I vote on legislation affecting Alabama veterans, I'll tell you how I voted and explain why.

Save this page.

Save my campaign platform.

Save the answers I give between now and Election Day.

Then compare them with my votes.

I intend to make that easy by publishing my voting record and explaining my decisions in plain language. If I tell you during this campaign that I'll do something and then don't do it, you should ask me why.

That's accountability.

Not enough yet.

That's one reason I'm answering these questions publicly instead of manufacturing a fifty-point veterans platform overnight.

I want to hear from veterans themselves, from military families, from people who work with the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs, from Veterans Service Organizations, and from people providing services in our communities.

If your veterans organization would be willing to have me visit, listen, answer questions, or speak to your members, I would welcome the invitation.

From what I've read, and from conversations with veterans in my own family, one concern keeps bothering me: we make promises to people when they serve, and too often accessing the benefits and services they've been promised can be difficult, confusing, or painfully slow.

But I also recognize the limits of my own experience.

Talking to people in my own bubble isn't enough.

So if you're asking me to name the single most significant issue facing Alabama veterans today, my honest answer is: I don't know yet.

And I think that's an important answer.

I'm a teacher running for the Alabama Senate. I'm not going to tell Alabama veterans what their greatest challenge is before I've listened to enough Alabama veterans to understand it.

I can read reports and statistics — and I will. I can listen to people I already know — and I have.

But neither is a substitute for listening to the people living it across Alabama.

So I'm asking.