Diversity in Leadership

Jessee Carlton Fleenor believes that what we need in Washington is a diverse group of leaders, more accurately representative of our great American community at large.  Leaders who come from communities all over the country with fresh ideas and new ways of looking at the issues.  Together with this new wave of American lawmakers, Jessee looks to change the conversation from one dominated by difference and distrust to a Washington where a whole cohort of believers in the power of progress and diversity can come together for the good of all Americans.

Specifically Jessee is a strong believer that we need more women in politics and in positions of power more generally.  If elected Jessee will set-up a young leaders forum in Louisiana's 5th district, offering opportunities for leadership and policy development to the future leaders of our great state of Louisiana.  

Environmental
Realism

Jessee believes that it is our responsibility as a community of farmers and fishermen to take the threat of climate change seriously.  In a state that is already suffering from increased extreme weather events such as hurricanes and heat waves, we cannot afford to pretend like the world is not getting hotter each year.  Louisiana farmers are already suffering from decreased vegetable, milk and beef yields due to higher temperatures and increased pest populations.  Left unchecked, coastal erosion due to rising sea levels will only complicate the situation.

Instead of focusing on who is to blame for global warming, Jessee Carlton Fleenor believes we should work together as a state to come up with bold initiatives to cut back on carbon pollution and increase economic opportunity in communities previously dependent on fossil fuel extraction.  Specifically Jessee believes we need new national investments in sustainable energy programs, with special concentration of investments in the states historically dependent on energy production, such as Louisiana, Texas and the Appalachian south.   

Raises for Teachers

Both of Jessee Fleenor's parents were educators and both of his children attend public schools here in Louisiana.  He believes we need to do better by the children and teachers of our great state.  All across the nation schools are reporting teacher shortages in key subject areas like math and science and the tirelessly overworked teachers we do have report twice the levels of stress of most other groups of workers.

Jessee believes we need to awaken a new national movement of respect and engagement with our teaching communities.  We need to listen to what our teachers are saying and give them the resources to do this most important of all jobs right.  Instead of trillion dollar corporate tax cuts we need real government policy, for the people, that pumps those same trillions out of bloated corporations and into our schools in the form of books, supplies and long overdue pay increases for the teachers of America's children.

A Farm Bill that works for Small & Medium Farmers

Jessee was born and raised on a Louisiana farm and makes his living as a small business owner, farming vegetables, eggs, beef and milk, and working with three generations of his family on the Fleenor family farm.  As in so many other areas of government policy, Jessee believes we need to refocus our efforts on helping regular working families and small business owners get up and running, instead of focusing so much of our budget on subsidies for mega farms and millionaires. We don't want a modern plantation system in this state, we want more small to medium sized family farms.

When crops are are bought and sold locally in grocery stores and farmers markets all across this state, that money goes right back into the local economy, helping to make farming once again a viable profession that does not require huge capital expenditures on the front end.  The more chaotic the issue of global trade tariffs becomes under this administration, the less of a chance the regular farmers in the small-towns of America have to break even, much less get and stay ahead.  What we need is a farm bill that refocuses on the needs of the small to medium American farmer, to help create a new agricultural revolution in America, where regular people can return to a quality life on their own land.

An End to Gerrymandering

In an effort to heal the deep divisions growing ever wider in our culture, it is imperative that we take the redistricting process out of the hands of the very elected officials that stand to gain, whether democrat or republican, and form new non-partisan technocratic civic institutions to draw fair contiguous districts that promote centrism and competitiveness in our democratic process. 

Prison Reform

In a state that locks up more of its own citizens than any other in the union, it is beyond time that we make pragmatic changes to the way we handle criminal justice in this state, from a more public health driven approach to non-violent drug offenses, an elimination of the unethical cash bail system, to a hard and fast limit on how long someone can be held in jail without trail before a case is outright dismissed.  The constitution sets a higher bar for stripping rights away from our fellow citizens and every time we unnecessarily lock someone up for a non-violent offence we are splitting up a family from our own Louisiana community, further cementing the age old cycle of crime and poverty.  

Net Neutrality

Jessee supports every effort to keep the internet a free and open platform without the corrupting influence of multinational corporations making sweetheart deals with one another to the great detriment of the American consumer.  The internet should be kept safe and free.

Campaign
Finance Reform

It is essential that we do a better job electing representatives that are reflective of the districts they purport to represent.  Well over half of current US congressional representatives are millionaires, a statistic that is particularly painful to stomach in Louisiana, where the overwhelming majority of individuals live on less than $20,000 / year.   There should be no millionaires in congress, until the districts they represent are made up primarily of other millionaires.  Changing the way we finance campaigns in this country would go a long way towards helping the regular American, with regular concerns, take a more active role in public life, without spending all of their time groveling to the wealthy donor class or worse, continually electing the same corrupt few with enough money to finance their own campaigns.