Hope to see you at my town hall this week! 

This is a reminder that I will be hosting my first two town halls of 2025 this week.

The Braddock Hills town hall will take place Wednesday, April 30 from 6-8 p.m. at the Borough Building, 1300 Brinton Rd., and the Rankin town hall will take place Thursday, May 1 from 6-8 p.m. at Rankin Christian Center, 230 3rd Ave.

Stop by to share your priorities for our community, network with neighbors, and enjoy some light refreshments! Questions? Call the office at (412) 273-3400.

Please stay tuned for details about additional town halls I will be hosting in the future.

During a recent news conference, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that autism “destroys families” and that children with autism will never pay taxes, hold a job, play sports, write a poem, or go on a date.

As an autistic person, I found it surprising and disappointing to hear statements like this coming from our nation’s highest health executive.

Ultimately, however, it does not matter whether RFK Jr. sees value in people with autism. People have inherent value simply because they are people – regardless of what diagnosis they have or what contributions they make. Click on the image above to hear more.

Just after the autism event, I attended a Capitol news conference marking Holocaust Remembrance Day. During this beautiful and solemn event, we heard from a survivor and listened to uplifting remarks from her great-granddaughter.

Also at the state Capitol last week, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Gov. Milton Shapp’s historic 1975 executive order – the first of its kind in the nation – banning discrimination against state employees based on sexual orientation.

Despite that historic landmark, the commonwealth now lags behind more than 20 other states that already enacted a comprehensive anti-discrimination law. Although my House colleagues and I passed The Fairness Act – which would prohibit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression – the bill is still stuck in the state Senate. You can help by urging Senate Republicans to act on it.