Deep local roots and a proven leader

Whether it’s ending reckless tariffs driving up the price of groceries, using antitrust laws to break up the corporate consolidation that is squeezing consumers at every turn, or expanding access to capital for small and minority-owned businesses that have been locked out of economic opportunity for too long — James is laser focused on the cost of living crisis hitting working families, small businesses, and retirees on fixed incomes across the Treasure Coast and Northern Palm Beaches.

James’ path to public service in the U.S. Coast Guard started with a deep love of wild Florida — particularly its water. In Congress, he will relentlessly seek to end the Treasure Coast’s clean water crisis. That means completing Everglades restoration, cleaning up Lake Okeechobee, stopping toxic discharges to the St. Lucie Estuary and Indian River Lagoon, and never compromising or curtailing bedrock environmental laws. Florida’s fishermen, farmers, families, and tourism economy can’t afford half-measures anymore.

James is committed to getting big money out of politics, banning members of Congress from trading stocks and making bets on insider information, and closing the revolving door between Capitol Hill and the K Street lobbying corridor. James is dedicated to returning government to the people it’s meant to serve. James is also committed to quarterly town halls with constituents, bi-annual round tables with local elected officials and business leaders across the Treasure Coast, and he will make his schedule publicly available. Public office is a public trust, and James will treat it that way.

James believes healthcare is a human right — but he also believes that if you like the coverage your union or your employer provides, you should keep it. That’s why he supports a public option: a pathway to quality, affordable healthcare for every American who wants it, without taking away what’s already working for millions of families. He’ll also take on the pharmaceutical middlemen and pharmacy benefit managers that drive up costs while delivering nothing but profit to themselves.

James knows better than most what it takes to secure America’s borders — he spent years in the U.S. Coast Guard protecting America’s maritime border. Like most Americans, he believes we need to overhaul the immigration system: one that is safe, fair, transparent, and humane. That means investing in immigration judges to clear asylum backlogs, ending the use of immigration enforcement as a political weapon, creating a workable path to legal status for long-term residents who’ve built their lives here, and fixing a broken visa system that leaves families waiting decades. Smart border security isn’t just theater, and James has spent his career doing the real thing.

James’ mother taught in Florida’s public schools for over thirty years. His neighbors are retirees who built this country and veterans who defended it. He will never vote to cut Social Security, Medicare, or veterans’ benefits. That means opposing any effort to raise the retirement age, privatize Social Security, or gut the Department of Veteran’s Affairs under the guise of reform. The promises this country made to its seniors and its veterans are not line items to be balanced on the backs of the people who earned them.