Zach Dembo

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My family has been farming in Kentucky since the mid-1700s. Our farmers feed this country, but they’re getting left behind. Tariffs are wrecking the soybean, cattle, and corn crops grown here in Central Kentucky. We need to protect our farmers by protecting crop insurance, expanding water resources, reforming the tax code to protect family farms, and ensuring fair and open trade.

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Labor unions made the middle class. We only have the 40-hour work week, weekends, paid time off, and overtime pay because organized labor fought for it for all of us. In Congress, I’ll fully support the PRO Act, advocate for workplace safety standards, fund apprenticeship programs, protect unemployment benefits, and defend the right to collectively bargain and unionize.

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I started my career teaching 8th graders in the Mississippi Delta, and it will always be the hardest job I’ve ever had, even if I get the honor of being your next congressman. Our teachers are underpaid and undersupported, our school buildings are crumbling, and too many politicians want to defund public education rather than invest in it. This Administration and Congress have taken a huge step in the wrong direction by basically eliminating the Department of Education and its ability to help us.

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ICE is out of control right now; one need look no further than their killings of two Americans in broad daylight. The firing of Kristi Noem was long overdue and in no way addresses the underlying problems with that overfunded and undersupervised agency. As a former federal prosecutor, I will always be for immigration enforcement against violent criminals and a secure border, but what we’re seeing right now is ICE inspiring fear rather than public safety and killing taxpayers instead of serving them.

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The government shouldn’t have a say in how and when you start a family or in what women choose to do with their own bodies.As the son of two physicians, I know how private and sacred the relationship between a doctor and her patient is. There’s no reason to have the government in that exam room when a patient is facing one of the most difficult decisions of her life. A woman who wants to have an abortion in her first trimester should have that right, and the extreme bans in place in states like Kentucky only means more health risks, expense, and unfairness for working class folks trying to make their own family planning decisions. Abortions should be safe, legal, and rare, and the vast majority of Kentuckians agree, as we saw with the anti-abortion Amendment 2’s resounding defeat in 2022 (including by 20 points here in the Sixth District).Kentucky’s current law is among the most extreme in the country, and Washington Republicans are pushing to make it the law of the land nationally. I won’t let that happen.In Congress. I would be a vote to codify Roe v. Wade, which worked for over 50 years, and protect fertility treatments like IVF. I’d also want to make sure we are truly a pro-family country by fighting for things like universal pre-K and affordable child care, expanding the child tax credit, and creating incentives to reward companies that offer sufficient parental leave for their workers.

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Right now, data centers are being built without enough community input or environmental oversight, and they’re exhausting our power grid in ways that drive up energy bills for working families. Some are also polluting clean air and water and destroying fertile farmland. That’s not progress – that’s passing the costs of corporate expansion onto the rest of us. If a community doesn’t want a data center in their backyard, they should not be forced to have one, and state, local, and county leaders should be responsive to their community’s desires. The first job of any elected official is to listen.

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In Congress, I’ll fight to end this senseless trade war, support free and open trade that helps our farmers and distillers compete globally, and make sure Main Street can compete with Wall Street to lower prices for us all.

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When democracy is attacked anywhere, it threatens democracy everywhere. We need to show countries like China and Russia that we won’t support their attempts to take over other nations. That means supporting Ukraine, protecting Taiwan’s sovereignty, and deescalating this War of Choice in Iran.

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We also need to take steps to make the Department of Justice completely independent from the whims of this president. The enforcement of our nation’s laws should be apolitical, and we need to make sure Congress makes that independence the law by moving the Department of Justice out of the executive branch and protecting the Attorney General and his or her subordinates from the political vicissitudes of an increasingly chaotic White House. I believe the Attorney General should be appointed for six year terms, and he or she should only be removable for cause.

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Housing has become unaffordable, pricing out young people from buying their first home. I know this personally – I was only able to afford buying my home thanks to qualifying for a VA loan. We need to do everything we can to increase housing supply to reduce housing prices – funding research into cheaper construction materials, massive public-private partnerships to increase supply, expanded first-time homebuyer programs like the VA loan program that helped me to other public servants that serve their communities (like teachers, nurses, and first responders), and stopping Wall Street from buying up homes from all the rest of us. Programs that help working families achieve homeownership work; we just need to expand them so everyone has a fair shot, not just veterans like me.

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In Congress, I’ll fight to fully fund our public schools and jobs training programs, fairly pay our teachers and educators, and make sure our universities have the research funding they need to stay best-in-class institutions. We also need to make sure that there is robust funding for apprenticeship and job training programs, since not every job requires a college degree and we want to be sure folks can flourish whether or not they go to college.

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One in three Kentuckians rely on Medicaid for their health coverage. Cutting Medicaid hurts families, threatens our hospitals, and eliminates good-paying jobs. We need to reverse these cuts and fully fund Medicaid so that working families and seniors can access the care they need.

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In Congress, I’ll push for legislation that requires transparency and local input in data center siting decisions, holds companies accountable for their environmental impact, and makes sure Big Tech can’t offload rising energy costs onto Kentucky families. I also support commonsense AI safeguards to protect children interacting with chat bots and make sure the newest models don’t pose major risks to our cybersecurity.

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It also means we need to call out our own country’s actions. I oppose illegal and unnecessary wars. What’s happened in Iran and with the boats coming from Venezuela – and what this administration is hinting at with possible military action in Greenland and Cuba – is a dangerous abuse of power and violates international law. Bare minimum, we need congressional oversight and our international allies to agree before we go to war.

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I spent my career investigating and fighting corruption as a federal prosecutor. In Congress, I’ll shine a light on corruption through proper oversight and accountability, and I’ll work to restore people’s faith that the government works for them, not the rich and powerful.

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Central Kentuckians could also see their premiums double if ACA tax credits aren’t fully funded. These subsidies are keeping healthcare affordable for tens of thousands of families across our state. In Congress, I’ll fight to restore and expand ACA tax credits so that health insurance remains within reach for working families.

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I believe AI has real potential to improve lives – but it also comes with real risks and shouldn’t involve giving Big Tech a blank check. AI should work for all of us, not just for the companies building it. And as AI companies make billions, that prosperity has to be shared with the local communities without harming the community’s health or environment, or they should not be allowed in. We should know if massive layoffs or displacements are happening because of AI and corporations should have to give notice before replacing employees with AI. If this replacement happens, big tech and the companies that profit should be required to pay into a fund that helps retrain workers who lose their jobs to AI so workers don’t lose their livelihoods as our economy transitions into the AI age.

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In Congress, I’ll push for a law to make drug companies charge the same here as they do overseas so Kentuckians can afford the medications they need. We also need price transparency requirements for medical procedures so people know exactly what they’re paying, caps on out-of-pocket expenses, reforms to reduce administrative overhead and waste in the insurance system, and fight for a public option in healthcare so everyone can afford care.

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In Congress, I’ll work to expand health coverage and lower costs so that every Kentuckian has access to quality, affordable care.