Priorities

All Minnesotans deserve quality, affordable health care. As a practicing physician, Kelly has seen firsthand the out-of-control health care costs that rise every year. That’s why she has worked to lower health care costs during her time in the Minnesota legislature. She took on Big Pharma and passed legislation to lower prescription drug prices, including capping the price of insulin from $600/month to $35/month.

Kelly has also led the fight to improve maternal health care in Minnesota and address racial disparities, and she successfully extended health insurance for new moms on Medicaid from just 60 days to 12 months. Kelly is ready to take on these fights in Congress.

As an OB-GYN, Kelly has dedicated her career to making sure women are able to make their own health care decisions without interference from the government. In the state legislature, Kelly helped lead the effort to pass a comprehensive legislative package protecting reproductive rights in Minnesota.

When Kelly is elected, she will be the only pro-choice OB-GYN in Congress, and will be a strong voice for protecting reproductive rights across the country.

We need a robust economy that supports families, workers and businesses. Kelly is committed to lowering costs and building an economy that works for everyone. This means lowering the cost of everyday needs such as health care, housing and child care, while investing in innovation, infrastructure and entrepreneurship.

A skilled workforce is the foundation of the economy, so we must train our workforce for the jobs of tomorrow, and ensure our unions are strong. Kelly also believes that we need a tax system that ensures opportunity for all.

By 2040, there will be 80 million seniors in America, more than double the number of seniors in 2000. Kelly is a champion for policies that support seniors and their caregivers, including protecting seniors’ ability to live independently in their homes, ensuring access to safe, convenient, and reliable transportation, addressing workforce shortages in our long-term care facilities, and making sure our family caregivers have the resources and support they need.

Kelly is strongly committed to protecting Medicare and Social Security to ensure that people can live in dignity in their senior years.

Every Minnesotan deserves access to an excellent education. As a physician, Kelly understands that the majority of brain development occurs before age 3, so she knows how important it is for kids to get off to a strong, healthy start. Kelly believes we need to prioritize education funding so that all students can get a world-class education, and during her time in the Minnesota legislature, she helped pass a historic education budget that will provide much-needed funding to our state’s schools.

Kelly also believes that providing students with a variety of higher education options, and not just a one-size-fits-all four-year college approach, will help ensure that students find their best fit. This will help us build a skilled and diverse workforce to fill quality jobs across the state.

As a 6th-generation Minnesotan, Kelly is proud of our state’s history of protecting our lakes, rivers, and wetlands, and believes we need to continue that legacy for generations to come. Kelly has been a leader in the effort to protect Minnesota’s water – she has championed legislation to protect our lakes from invasive species and to protect the Boundary Waters from copper sulfide mining.

Kelly also believes that as we see more wildfires, floods and other extreme weather wreak havoc on our homes, our businesses, and our farms, we need to take swift action to tackle climate change and plan mitigation strategies. This will not only help avert catastrophic warming and protect our environment – it will also create good, clean energy jobs.

We need to improve our mental health services for both children and adults. Kelly was named the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)’s Legislator of the Year for 2023, and has been a champion for improving access to mental health care.

Kelly worked to expand mental health resources in our schools and provide funding for children’s residential mental health facilities. She passed bipartisan legislation to ensure that psychologists can practice across state lines, which has increased access to virtual mental health appointments for college students, seniors, veterans, and those living in areas with fewer practitioners.

Everyone deserves to feel safe in their communities. We also need to make sure our law enforcement officers have the resources they need to do their jobs well – that’s why Kelly supported legislation providing $300 million in aid to local law enforcement, including police, fire and 911 departments, and she also co-authored legislation to crack down on violent carjackings.

We also need to invest in crime prevention so that young people can live up to their potential and lead satisfying and productive lives.

As a physician and a mother, Kelly is appalled that the number one killer of children in America is now gun violence, and she is ready to work to end that preventable tragedy.

Kelly supported the passage of universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders in Minnesota and supports reinstating the ban on the sale of assault weapons. Kelly understands the urgency of curtailing gun violence and will continue to take this issue on in Congress.

Kelly believes we must curb the opioid crisis that continues to devastate families in our community and across the country. She worked with a mother in her district who tragically lost her son to an accidental overdose to pass legislation requiring that naloxone (or Narcan) be available in all school buildings so that no one dies from an overdose on school grounds.

She also serves on the Opioid Epidemic Response Advisory Council in the Minnesota legislature, and is committed to preventing overdose deaths and ensuring access to treatment and medication assisted treatment (MAT) for those struggling with substance use disorder.

Our veterans deserve our respect, gratitude, and support. Kelly’s husband, John Willoughby, is a combat veteran and former Army Ranger. Her father-in-law was an Airborne Ranger who received a Purple Heart and Silver Star for his brave service, and both her father and grandfathers are veterans. Kelly also spent the beginning of her career caring for veterans at a VA hospital.

Because of these experiences, Kelly is committed to ensuring that our veterans have the resources and support they need. She was proud to co-author and pass legislation that provides 9/11 veterans and their families with service bonuses, and she will continue to advocate on behalf of veterans in Congress.

Kelly believes it’s time to put the voters back at the center of the decision-making process. One of the most important issues facing our state is protecting democracy and ensuring that all eligible voters are able to exercise their right to vote and to have their vote counted. Kelly favors reforms including instituting a popular vote, protecting against political gerrymandering, and ranked choice voting. She also passed legislation to allow automatic voter registration and put in place other key voting rights reforms in Minnesota.

Kelly is proud to not take any contributions from corporate PACs or lobbyists, and is committed to getting dark money out of politics.