I've been an activist for women's rights, single-payer health care, and social justice for most of my adult life. My three highest priorities:

1. Health care that covers everyone. The New York Health Act guarantees reproductive, maternity, and gender-affirming care for every New Yorker, with no networks or deductibles, and coverage that moves with you from job to job. I'll also fight to reopen nonprofit community hospitals, because our region has lost its birthing services.

2. Economic security for working women and families. Affordable child care, real enforcement of New York's equal pay laws, and restoring early childhood programs for ages 3–5, which have been cut in half, using what the state saves under the NYHA.

3. Protecting the rights we've won. New York's Equal Rights Amendment, GENDA, and reproductive freedom laws must be defended and enforced in schools, workplaces, housing, and health care. I'll stand with LGBTQIA+ residents against efforts to roll back their rights, and hold regular town halls so every community has a direct line to me.

We start to live up to "a more perfect union" when there is equity and dignity for everyone. We all need each other.

I own a small business, and Lincoln said labor comes before capital. The biggest opportunity in front of our region is locally owned energy, and women, people of color, and local businesses should own a real share of it from the start.

• Local energy, local business. Solar on roofs, barns, schools, and parking lots, plus geothermal, wind, and hydro, owned by our towns, schools, co-ops, and municipal utilities, with NYPA building and financing it. Fairport's public utility charges $30 for the same month of power RG&E charges $95. That's work for local electricians, installers, and contractors: jobs in two years, not twenty. Community projects should buy from local and MWBE contractors first, with contracts sized so small firms can win them and payment on time.
• Open the trades. Paid apprenticeships through our schools, BOCES, community colleges, and unions, so women and people of color get these well-paying jobs.
• A second income. Remove the Albany limits so homes, farms, and businesses can produce more power than they use and get paid for the surplus.
• Restructure the economy before the jobs are gone. Our country has been losing manufacturing jobs for decades, and AI is now taking over more work. Women and workers of color are often hit first. We need to restructure our economy now, not after the damage is done: training for the jobs that are growing, locally owned energy that brings manufacturing back, and a serious discussion of how people earn a living (Question 9).
• Remove the other barriers. The NYHA lets people start a business without losing health coverage. I'll push for enforcement of New York's pay transparency laws, and for affordable child care.

Rights on paper mean nothing if you can't reach a doctor. Insurers posted record profits while Wayne County lost its last birthing center, and expectant mothers now drive to Rochester or Canandaigua to deliver.

• Pass the New York Health Act. Every New Yorker covered for abortion, contraception, fertility care including IVF, prenatal care, and postpartum care, with no premiums, deductibles, copays, or networks.
• Bring maternity care back close to home. Work with nonprofits and local groups to buy our remaining hospital and reopen the Myers campus in Sodus as nonprofit community hospitals with birthing services, and help doctors, midwives, and clinics open practices in our towns.
• Use broadband to reach rural women. Rural broadband makes telehealth for prenatal check-ins and postpartum and mental-health follow-up a real option in rural Wayne County.
• Defend New York's protections. Defend and strengthen our reproductive freedom and shield laws for patients and providers, and fund the clinics that provide care.

At the WROC-8 debate there were three candidates and only one talking about solutions. Both of my opponents oppose the New York Health Act. Watch it and judge for yourself: fitzsimmonsforassembly.com/short-form-general/

A mother's health and her child's start in life shouldn't depend on her race, her zip code, or her paycheck. Black mothers in New York die from pregnancy-related causes at far higher rates than white mothers, and most of those deaths are preventable.

• Universal, continuous care. The NYHA covers every mother from the first prenatal visit through the full postpartum year, including postpartum mental-health care.
• Fund the people who catch problems early. Full coverage and fair pay for doulas, midwives, and community health workers; anti-bias training for maternity teams; and public maternal outcome data so we can see where mothers are being failed.
• Birthing care close to home, as described in Question 3.
• Affordable childcare. Move New York toward universal childcare, starting with a living wage for childcare workers, and restore early childhood programs for ages 3–5 using NYHA savings.
• Lower providers' costs. Most childcare providers are small, women-owned businesses. The NYHA takes health insurance off their books, and my energy plan lets them cut power bills with solar financed at public rates.

Prevention costs less than crisis.

My answer to Question 3 covers coverage and bringing care close to home. Beyond that:

• Financial: help with travel and childcare for patients who must go far for care, and paid time off for medical appointments.
• Geographic: mobile clinics, rural transportation for medical visits, and rural broadband so telehealth for follow-up care reaches every corner of Wayne County.
• Administrative: about a third of every health care dollar goes to billing and paperwork. Until the NYHA passes, limit prior authorization for reproductive care, and support language access and confidential billing.
• Privacy: as part of my "Rein in AI" work, stop apps, data brokers, and AI tools from collecting or selling reproductive health and location data.
• Safety: enforce New York's clinic access protections, fund clinic security, provide address confidentiality for providers and staff, and strengthen our shield laws.

Care delayed is care denied.

As a former Planning Board member, I've seen families who can't find a home they can afford, and good projects that stall over infrastructure, cost, and red tape. At the WROC-8 debate I said that fixing energy and health care is what lets us improve education, food, and housing.

• Close the gap from the cost side. Under the New York Health Act, families stop paying premiums and deductibles, and towns and school districts save on employee coverage, which comes straight off the property-tax levy. Locally owned public power cuts bills; Fairport's public utility charges about a third of what RG&E does.
• Build for the energy future, not the past. Builders say they can't build without natural gas. The state is right to move toward electric homes; the mistake is moving without building local power to supply them. Locally owned geothermal, solar, wind, hydro, and biomass make an all-electric home cheaper to run, and every geothermal well and rooftop array is work for local contractors. Too many of our energy ideas were written by hydrocarbon lobbyists: privatized gains, socialized losses.
• Build more homes where they make sense. State help for towns to allow accessory units, duplexes, and small apartment buildings near village centers, and to rehab older village housing.
• Fund the pipes. In much of Wayne County, housing can't be built because water and sewer don't reach the land. Water and sewer investment is housing policy, and it protects Lake Ontario.
• Help families own and stay. Community land trusts, housing co-ops, first-time buyer help, accessibility standards so seniors can age in place, and code enforcement with fair protections for responsible tenants and responsible landlords alike (Question 13).

I want our kids to be able to afford to raise their families here.

My housing plan is in Question 6. This is how to pay for it:

• Public financing. Expand state housing bonds and let towns, land trusts, and co-ops borrow at public rates, the same way my energy plan uses NYPA and municipal bonds.
• Fund homeownership. Down-payment assistance, permanently affordable homes through land trusts, and home repair grants. Many families of color in Monroe County were kept from homeownership by redlining; funding should close that gap, including help with heirs' property title issues.
• Keep homes for families. I don't support private equity or real estate investors buying up our homes at all. This is not about the neighbor who rents out a single unit. It's about investment firms and corporate buyers.
• Hire locally. Publicly funded projects built by local workers, with a fair share for women- and minority-owned firms.
• Free up money we already spend. NYHA savings come straight off the property-tax levy, leaving room to invest in housing.

I served on a Planning Board, and I've spent my career in IT, including work for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Most delay is a systems problem, and systems can be fixed.

• One application, one timeline: coordinated state and local funding rounds.
• A public tracker for every project: status, next step, who is responsible, and the deadline.
• Do the hard work up front: state funding for towns to update plans, zoning, and environmental reviews, plus pre-approved designs for small homes and duplexes.
• Shared staff for small towns: state-funded regional planning and engineering staff.
• Real accountability: enforceable affordability commitments, clawbacks, open records, conflict-of-interest disclosure, and early public input.

The cheapest affordable home is the one a family already lives in.

• Rental assistance and vouchers: a statewide voucher program to fill the Section 8 gap, fast emergency rental help, and enforcement of the ban on source-of-income discrimination.
• Eviction prevention: a right to counsel in eviction cases statewide, and mediation before court.
• Fair rules for tenants and landlords: protections against evictions without good cause and sudden rent spikes, and tools for communities to adopt rent stabilization where the shortage calls for it. Housing is a two-way street. These rules protect responsible tenants and responsible landlords alike (Question 13).
• Remove the causes: the NYHA ends medical-bill debt, public power lowers utility bills, and investor purchases end (Question 7).
• Keep homeowners in their homes: property-tax relief and repair grants for seniors and people on fixed incomes.

Restructure our economy now. Housing costs keep rising while good jobs keep disappearing. For decades our country has lost the manufacturing jobs that let one paycheck support a family and a home, and our region knows that loss well. Now AI is starting to take over office, service, and technical work too. When there are fewer jobs that pay a living wage, no voucher program can keep up. This is a serious problem, and we cannot wait until the damage is done.

We need serious discussions now about how our economy is structured and how people earn a living: AI working for us, not putting us out of work; a shorter workweek that shares the gains instead of handing them to shareholders; bringing manufacturing back with locally owned energy that lowers costs for employers; and new ways to earn. When a home, farm, or school is paid for its surplus power, families have a second income no algorithm can take away.

Over the long run, the way we keep people housed is to make sure everyone can still earn a living.

Homelessness here often looks like a family in a car or a teenager couch-surfing. Rural communities have almost no shelter beds. Prevention is in Question 9; for people already without a home:

• Housing first, with services that stay: expand supportive housing, convert vacant village buildings, and use the NYHA to cover mental-health and addiction care.
• Women and families: more emergency and transitional housing for domestic violence survivors, including in rural areas, and shelters that keep families together.
• LGBTQIA+ residents: youth shelters, host-home programs, and shelter rules that respect gender identity.
• People with disabilities: fully accessible shelters and trained staff.
• Veterans: as an 82nd Airborne veteran, I'll connect state housing and health programs with VA services. Women veterans are among the fastest-growing homeless groups. Those who served should never sleep on the streets.
• No one left behind: support for youth aging out of foster care, rural outreach and transportation, and one shared intake with real-time bed information.

• Work across all three levels: coordinate with our representatives in Congress, the State Senate, and local government so projects have champions in Albany and Washington.
• Bring rural and federal dollars home: USDA Rural Development, HUD, VA and HUD-VASH vouchers for homeless veterans, and state agencies including HCR, OMH, and OASAS.
• Help towns and nonprofits compete: state-funded shared grant-writing staff (Question 8), and an office that helps local groups apply.
• Make funding last: multi-year commitments with dedicated funding, and state protection for programs hit by federal cuts.
• Report back: regular town halls on what funding we won and where it went.

I served on a Planning Board. Most opposition comes from neighbors with real worries about traffic, schools, taxes, water, and fit. Calling people NIMBYs doesn't build a home; answering their concerns does.

• Make Pro-Housing certification easy and worth it: shared state-funded staff to help small towns certify, and more funding behind certification.
• Answer the tax worry: NYHA savings reduce the property-tax levy, and solar and geothermal homes put less strain on the grid.
• Infrastructure first (Question 6), and pre-approved designs that fit our villages.
• Bring people in early, at the comprehensive plan stage and at town halls.
• Hold the line on fairness: enforce fair-housing law where opposition becomes discrimination.

Housing is a two-way street. It works when landlords keep homes safe and tenants keep up their end. Most landlords here are local families with a unit or two, and most tenants are working people who pay their rent. The policies should protect both from the few who don't play fair.

• Hold negligent landlords accountable: clear inspection standards, escalating penalties for repeat violations, and rent escrow until repairs are made.
• Protect tenants who speak up: enforce anti-retaliation laws, and help families relocate when a building is unsafe.
• Enforce fair-housing law against discrimination of every kind, including source of income.
• Support responsible landlords: low-interest repair loans and grants; the NYHA and public power lower their costs too.
• Expect responsibility from tenants: mediation first, and a fair, timely process for landlords when a tenant won't meet their obligations.

Responsible landlords and responsible tenants want the same thing: a safe home and a fair deal.

Yes. Local police are for local safety, not federal immigration enforcement. ICE agents have killed innocent Americans, including Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and deported law-abiding immigrants. That doesn't make a nation great.

When immigrants fear the police, they don't report crimes or call for help, and everyone is less safe. Driving through Wayne County, where I grew up working in the orchards, I see more apples left on the trees and on the ground than ever. The workers who harvest the food we all eat are being driven away. Is there a more important job than that?

We are either a nation of laws or we are not. The law exists to protect people, not to be used as a weapon against them. Laws that discriminate should be repealed, and the law should never be used to make someone illegal. Yet this administration has stripped legal status from immigrants who came here lawfully and detained people who are here legally. That should never happen in America.

I support the New York for All Act:

• No 287(g) agreements, and no local police or jails used for civil immigration enforcement.
• A judge's warrant, not an ICE form, to hold anyone or enter non-public areas of schools, hospitals, and courthouses.
• No sharing of personal information with ICE for civil enforcement.
• Public reporting of every ICE request.

Police will keep working with federal agencies on criminal cases with a judge's warrant.

My answers to Questions 13 and 14 cover most of this. Beyond them, I would support:

• Crime victims and witnesses: prompt U and T visa certifications, and enforcing New York's Protect Our Courts Act, so no one is arrested on the way to testify or seek a protection order.
• Health care: under the New York Health Act, every resident is covered, with no papers needed to see a doctor.
• Language and legal help: language access in every public service, and funding for legal services.
• Trusted partners: funding churches, clinics, schools, and community groups to connect families with services.

When everyone can call for help, see a doctor, and send their kids to school, everyone is safer.

Question 14 sets the basic rules: a judge's warrant, and no sharing of personal information for civil enforcement. Having worked in IT for the federal courts, I know safeguards must be built into the systems:

• Data: enforce the Green Light Law for DMV records, and apply the same rules to license plate readers, facial recognition, county databases, and the vendors and AI tools the county uses.
• Facilities: clearly marked non-public areas, and staff trained to ask for a judge's warrant and document every ICE visit.
• Detention: no holds on ICE detainers alone, and no county jail beds rented to ICE.
• Accountability: every request logged, and an annual public audit with penalties for violations.

We are either a nation of laws or we are not. The Constitution guarantees due process to every person. I would support:

• A lawyer for everyone facing deportation, including in rural areas and for farmworkers. Due process means little without one.
• Know-your-rights education in every language, through schools, churches, clinics, and farms.
• Rapid response: a hotline and trained local responders, so no family faces an enforcement action alone.
• Protecting every child, citizen or not: standby guardian planning, school safety plans so no child comes home to an empty house, counseling for children who lose a parent to detention, and no loss of benefits because of a parent's status.

Families are the foundation of our communities, and we should keep them together.

As an 82nd Airborne veteran, I swore an oath to defend the Constitution. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments protect every person, not just citizens. If federal agents violate those rights in our community, I will:

• Show up and document what happened, and connect families with a lawyer and rapid response.
• Demand answers from local agencies about their role, using public records requests if needed.
• Refer violations to the New York Attorney General and to our members of Congress for oversight.
• Push for Assembly hearings and legislation to close any gaps.
• Speak out publicly with the facts, and report back at a town hall.
• Support civics education, so everyone understands their rights and their neighbors' rights.

We are either a nation of laws or we are not.

People with disabilities should be able to live, work, and get around in their own communities. I would support:

• Community-based services: the New York Health Act covers home care and long-term care, so people can live at home instead of in an institution. I'll fight for a living wage for direct support professionals and home care workers; without them, services exist only on paper.
• Transportation: expanded paratransit and rural on-demand transit, especially in Wayne County, where a missed ride can mean a missed job or doctor's visit.
• Employment: competitive, integrated jobs at full wages, an end to subminimum wages, and training for the jobs that are growing as AI changes the economy (Question 9).
• Housing: accessibility standards, home modification grants, and accessible supportive housing (Questions 6 and 10).
• Technology: rural broadband and assistive technology that make telehealth, remote work, and independent living possible.

I've spent my career in IT, and accessibility has to be built in from the start, not added after a complaint. As an Assemblymember, I'd use state funding and standards to make sure:

• Websites and communications meet current accessibility standards, in plain language, with captioning, ASL, large print, and screen-reader support.
• Public meetings and town halls, including my own, are held in accessible buildings, with remote participation and accommodations on request.
• Voting is accessible at every polling place, with accessible machines, curbside help, and accessible absentee and early voting.
• Emergency services include text-to-911, accessible shelters and alerts, and evacuation plans that include people with disabilities.
• Public facilities are audited and fixed, with state funds to help small towns that can't afford upgrades.

Access should be the rule, not a request.

Nothing about us without us. I would support:

• A county disability advisory council with real authority: members chosen by the disability community, a formal role in reviewing budgets and policies, and a required public response to their recommendations.
• Seats at the table: people with disabilities appointed to planning boards, transit boards, and housing authorities, with stipends and accommodations so service is possible.
• My own office: I'll hire people with disabilities, consult the disability community before I vote on bills that affect them, and report back at accessible town halls.
• Accountability: public data on how services, hiring, and access are working for people with disabilities.

We all need each other. Good policy is made with the people it affects, not for them.

No child should be poisoned by the home they live in. Lead damage is permanent, and it is completely preventable. I would support:

• Find the lead before children do: proactive inspections of older rental housing, starting in the neighborhoods with the highest childhood lead levels, and follow-up for every child who tests high.
• Fund the fixes: state grants and low-interest loans for lead abatement, window replacement, and lead service line removal, so responsible landlords and homeowners can make repairs without raising rents (Question 13).
• Safe water everywhere: replace lead water lines in our cities, and help rural families test and treat private wells.
• Healthy, warm homes: weatherization and electric heat pump and geothermal retrofits that end cold apartments, cut energy bills, and improve indoor air quality, paid for through my public energy plan.
• Mold and pests: clear code standards, enforced, with rent escrow when landlords won't make repairs.
• Care for affected children: the New York Health Act covers testing, early intervention, and follow-up care for every child.

The same neighborhoods that were redlined decades ago still carry more pollution, more heat, and more asthma today. The current system privatizes the gains and socializes the losses, and low-income communities pay the losses first. I would support:

• Enforce New York's environmental justice laws: the state's cumulative impacts law, so no new polluting facility is added to an already overburdened neighborhood, and the climate law's requirement that disadvantaged communities receive a fair share of clean energy investment.
• Clean energy owned by the neighborhood: community solar, solar canopies, and efficiency programs owned locally, so residents get lower bills and a second income, not just cleaner air.
• Stop new polluters at the door: close the loopholes that let existing facilities convert to power-hungry crypto mining and data centers, and make data centers pay their own way (my "Rein in AI" work).
• Cooler, healthier streets: tree planting, green space, and cooling centers in the neighborhoods that need them most.
• Clean water: protect Lake Ontario and invest in water and sewer systems.
• Monitor and report: neighborhood air and water monitoring, with results made public.

My answer to Question 13 covers this. Housing is a two-way street: responsible landlords and responsible tenants both deserve protection from the few who don't play fair. In short:

• Accountability for negligent landlords: inspections, escalating penalties for repeat violations, and rent escrow so rent pays for repairs.
• No retaliation: strong enforcement of anti-retaliation laws, and a safe way to report hazards.
• No displacement: when repairs require tenants to leave, the landlord pays for temporary housing and the tenant has the right to return at the same rent. When a building is unsafe, the state helps families move.
• Help responsible landlords fix problems: repair grants and low-interest loans (Question 22), so repairs don't become rent increases.

My answer to Question 20 covers accessible polling places and absentee voting. Beyond that, I would support:

• Early voting that reaches everyone: more early voting sites, especially in rural Wayne County, with evening and weekend hours for working people.
• Registration: full implementation of automatic voter registration, and pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds through our schools.
• Language access: ballots, notices, and poll worker help in the languages our communities speak.
• Transportation: free public transit on Election Day and during early voting, and rural ride programs.
• No intimidation: strong enforcement of the New York Voting Rights Act and our laws protecting voters at the polls.

I've seen what works. In the primary, my campaign reached out to Democrats who hadn't voted in years, and they turned out. People vote when someone asks them, listens, and explains what's at stake. I would support:

• Plain-language ballot propositions: a short, nonpartisan explanation of every proposition, mailed to voters and posted online, in multiple languages.
• Nonpartisan voter guides for local races, so voters know who is running and where they stand.
• Civics in our schools and communities, as described in Question 18.
• Public campaign financing: I'm running with New York's small-donor matching program and no corporate money. It lets candidates without wealthy backers run, and it gives every voter's $10 donation real weight.
• Town halls: I hold them as a candidate and will keep holding them, in accessible places, so people see their government is listening.

When more people vote, our government looks more like the people it serves.

My heritage is Irish, and on this question I stand wholeheartedly with the position of the country of Ireland. The Irish know what occupation, famine, and a long road to peace look like. Ireland's position is grounded in international law and in respect for every human life.

• A ceasefire that is real. The ceasefire announced a year ago exists largely on paper. Strikes continue, families still live in tents, and reconstruction hasn't begun. I support an immediate and permanent ceasefire that is actually honored, full and unhindered humanitarian aid, and rebuilding.
• Palestinian self-determination. For generations before 1948, Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived side by side on this land. Palestinians lived there long before they were driven from their homes, and they have the right to a state of their own, as Ireland recognized in 2024. The Irish know what it means to be ruled by people who believed they were superior. Israeli governments that expand settlements and deny Palestinians equal rights have repeated that wrong. The answer is two states, with both peoples living in freedom, safety, and dignity.
• History did not begin on October 7. As someone of Irish heritage, I know what generations of dispossession do to a people, and that a people denied justice will resist. Palestinians have endured the Nakba of 1948, decades of occupation, a blockade that controlled their food and water, and now starvation used as a weapon of war. None of that justifies killing civilians, by anyone. Nor does October 7 justify the collective punishment of two million people. Lasting peace will come only with justice, freedom, and a Palestinian state.

Americans remember Bloody Sunday in Selma. Ireland has its own. In 1920, British forces fired into a crowd at a football match in Dublin, killing 14 people, including children. In 1972, British soldiers shot unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry, people inspired by the American civil rights movement. Ireland's history shows that civilians are always the ones who pay, and that even the longest conflicts can end in peace.

Foreign policy is set in Washington, but I will use my voice for the same principle Ireland follows: international law, applied equally to everyone.

• Military assistance must follow the law. U.S. law already bars aid to forces that commit gross human rights violations. Those laws should be enforced, and no American weapons should be used against civilians.
• Humanitarian aid without obstruction, including funding for UN relief agencies such as UNRWA, which Ireland continues to support.
• Accountability regardless of who commits violations, through international courts and independent investigations, whether the violator is Hamas, the Israeli government, or anyone else.
• Settlements are illegal under international law. Ireland has banned imports of settlement goods, and the U.S. should stop treating them as legitimate.

Within the authority of a state legislator, I would:

• Support humanitarian relief: help New York charities and relief groups get aid to civilians, and support refugee resettlement services in our communities.
• Protect every community: fight antisemitism and Islamophobia with equal force, fund security for mosques, synagogues, and churches, and protect everyone's right to peaceful protest and free speech.
• Bring people together: hold interfaith town halls. I joined the Rochester Islamic Center candidate forum, and I'll keep showing up and listening.
• Keep public money consistent with international law: support a review to make sure state investments and contracts don't support activities ruled illegal under international law.
• Use my voice: resolutions and letters urging Congress and the administration to uphold international law and humanitarian aid.

1. Health care for everyone: pass the New York Health Act, including full reproductive and maternal care, and reopen our community hospitals.

2. Locally owned public energy: lower bills, local jobs, and a second income for homes, farms, and schools.

3. Restructure our economy now: prepare for the jobs we're losing to AI and the loss of manufacturing, before the damage is done.

4. Housing families can afford and keep: more homes, lower costs, and fair rules for responsible tenants and responsible landlords.

5. A nation of laws: due process and civil rights for every person, and local police for local safety, not immigration enforcement.