Laura Rodriguez-Carbone

Laura Rodriguez-Carbone's career experience includes working as a public servant.[1] She has worked at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.[2]

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I'm Laura Rodriguez-Carbone, a public servant, strategic communications professional, and small-business owner who has spent more than two decades helping public institutions serve people better. My family lost its farm to corporate agriculture, and later, even while working hard, we lost our home. Those experiences shaped how I see public service: government should protect working people, not powerful interests. I have spent 23 years working across federal departments and agencies helping to run programs everyday people depend on, and I have served my community through local civic leadership, including being elected three times to the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Central Committee. I'm running for Congress because this district needs someone who understands what families are up against and what it takes to make government actually deliver.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

I'm Experienced. I have spent 23 years in public service working inside the systems people rely on, across multiple federal departments and agencies that affect everyday lives. I have worked to ensure people in underserved and rural communities could access life-saving care and services, fought corporate healthcare providers so patients could receive the treatment they needed, and helped enforce civil rights protections for children with disabilities in our public schools.

This district does not need another candidate learning on the job. It needs someone who understands how government works, what happens when services are stripped away, and how to make public institutions deliver for the people they are meant to serve.Tested in Real Fights and Ready for this Moment. My family lost its farm to corporate agriculture, and even after we moved for factory work, we still became homeless. I come to this race shaped by the consequences of an economy and a political system that have failed working people for far too long. What happened to my family 30 years ago is still happening to more and more people today.

Costs keep rising, rights keep getting chipped away, and job-killing technologies like AI threaten to push even more working people aside. This is not a moment for politics as usual or wishful thinking. It is a moment to put the struggles of working people on the floor of the House and fight for them with urgency, clarity, and force.Not for Sale: I do not take corporate PAC money, because the people of this district deserve to know exactly who their representative answers to. I am running to serve working families, seniors, veterans, farmers, and communities that have been treated like an afterthought, not wealthy donors, corporate interests, or political insiders. I am not running to join the system as it is. I am running to fight for the people it has ignored.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

I am especially passionate about economic dignity for working families, healthcare and public services people can actually rely on, and protecting democracy and civil rights. My family's experience losing its farm and our home is why I care so deeply about wages, housing affordability, labor rights, family farms, and the cost of living. My years inside public systems seeing them stripped of funding is why I care so deeply about healthcare access, protecting Medicaid, Medicare, and veterans' services, and making government function the way it is supposed to. Because we are living through a period of cruelty, corruption, and democratic erosion, I am passionate about voting rights, due process, and holding power accountable.

What organizations or individuals have endorsed your campaign?

My campaign is continuing to build support across the district, and I'm proud of the grassroots backing we are earning from working people, community members, and local leaders who want a representative focused on results, not politics as usual.

Campaign websiteRodriguez-Carbone's campaign website stated the following:Affordability and wagesIf you work hard, you should be able to afford a decent life. I will fight for a living wage, lower taxes for working families by closing loopholes that let the ultra-wealthy dodge their fair share, take on price gouging, and support federal investments to make housing more affordable. I also support limits on corporate capture of housing stock, because housing should be a place to live, not just a vehicle for profit. When corporations and private equity buy up homes, families pay the price through higher costs, fewer options, and less stability. I will also fight for universal free child care, so parents can invest that money in their families and their future. HealthcareNo one should go broke because they got sick. I will fight to cap prescription drug prices, protect Medicaid and Medicare, and fight for Medicare for All: Everyone deserves to live with dignity in the richest country on earth. I will also fight to lower the age of eligibility for Medicare to expand healthcare coverage for more older Americans.Expand Social SecurityWe made people a promise: you pay into social security, it will be there when you retire. I will oppose efforts to cut, cap, or privatize Social Security, and increase benefits to align with the real cost of living. I will work lift the cap on social security taxes and will work to lower the age requirement for Medicare so more older adults have access to the care they need. Jobs and the economyOhio needs good-paying jobs that cannot be shipped away or erased without accountability. I will fight for worker protections, move to regulate AI to stop worker displacement, and clear an easier pathway to join and start unions. Our economic future rests in investments in people, not just stock prices. Investments in green energy technology production is the best opportunity to create more good-paying jobs across District 7. Regulating AI is the best way to keep jobs here.Farmers and rural communitiesI am the only candidate in this race who comes from farming. I know family farms are not just businesses. They are a way of life, and they are under enormous strain. Family farmers are being squeezed by consolidation, volatile markets, rising costs, and policies that too often favor giant corporations over the people working the land. At the same time, rural communities have lived through decades of disinvestment in schools, hospitals, broadband, and infrastructure. I will fight for fairer markets and an end to retaliatory tariffs that harm family farms. I will work to bring stronger antitrust enforcement of to break up Big AG monopolies, seek immediate relief for family farms, as well as serious investments in rural Ohio so these communities finally have the resources they need to thrive and grow.Ban AI data centersI support banning AI data centers in Ohio. Ohio’s water, farmland, and electric grid should serve people, not be drained to power private AI empires. These facilities consume enormous amounts of energy and water, will increase utility costs, create relatively few permanent jobs, make it harder to farmers to water their crops and feed their livestock, and are already triggering community backlash across the state. Rural Ohio should not be turned into a sacrifice zone for tech companies. We need to protect our natural resources, defend local control, and stop projects that threaten farms, neighborhoods, and public infrastructure for the benefit of a handful of corporations.Equal rights for womenWomen have never been guaranteed equal rights under the U.S. Constitution. That needs to change. I will work to FINALLY enshrine the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA, our ratified 28th Amendment) in the Constitution so that sex-based discrimination is explicitly prohibited under federal law.The ERA is not symbolic. It is the legal foundation for equal pay protections, reproductive autonomy, and freedom from discrimination in housing, credit, and employment. Women in Ohio and across the country deserve full constitutional standing, not rights that depend on which party holds power or which court hears the case.I will also vehemently oppose the Save Act and will fight to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. I will also actively seek to restore full reproductive rights.VeteransRight now, the current administration is attacking veterans’ care, veterans’ benefits, and the workforce that delivers both from all directions. When you weaken the VA, cut staff, disrupt claims processing, and undermine the people who provide care, veterans pay the price. Veterans should not have to pay the price for political games, and ideological attacks on the people who care for them. I will fight to protect VA care, defend earned benefits, strengthen mental health and housing support, and make sure this country finally lives up to its obligations to the people who served.Restore human rightsThe federal government is being used as a weapon against people in our district. Latino families are being detained without due process. Trans and LGBTQIA+ Ohioans are watching their healthcare, their legal identity, and their safety stripped away. Laura spent 23 years making government work for people. She will not stand by while it works against them.In Congress, Laura will restore due process for every person in immigration detention, including bond hearings and access to counsel, and push for a federal ban on ICE arrests at courthouses, hospitals, schools, and churches. She will co-sponsor the Transgender Bill of Rights and the No Place for LGBTQ+ Hate Act to repeal the executive orders targeting LGBTQI+ Americans, protect gender-affirming care under Medicaid, and end federal conversion therapy policies in the Bureau of Prisons.The Fifth Amendment says no person shall be deprived of liberty without due process. Not no citizen. No person. Laura will hold that line for every Ohioan.Immigration and enforcement reformWe can have safe communities and enforce our laws without cruelty or violations of constitutional rights. Human rights abuses happening in relation to immigration enforcement is beneath us as a country.Immigration court proceedings are civil administrative matters, not criminal, and the backlog is now nearing four million cases because the system has been allowed to fail. No one should have to wait 20 years for a decision on their status. I support replacing ICE as we know it and redistributing its functions to the agencies where they belong: The State Department and DOJ. We need a humane immigration system that restores due process, expands court capacity, treats immigration as the civil legal matter it is, focuses enforcement on real public-safety threats instead of terrorizing families and neighborhoods, and builds a modern guest worker program with a real pathway to citizenship for people who work, serve in our military, contribute, and want to fully be part of this country.End corruption & political bribery, restore democracyEither we have a Constitution or we don’t.Right now, the executive branch is testing that every single day: Orders that defy court rulings; Agencies gutted to eliminate oversight; Public servants purged for doing their jobs; money being spent and re-appropriated without consent of Congress; Starting wars without consent of Congress; Our laws ignored when its inconvenient. This is not governance. This is corruption, and it has to stop. Our Constitution is not a suggestion. Government should belong to the people, not corporations, insiders, or the highest bidder. I will fight to overturn Citizens United and push for legislative reforms to break the grip of big money on our politics. I will also utilize the tools our forefathers gave us to hold public officials accountable when they abuse power.No president, or public official, is above the law. No administration gets to decide which court orders to follow. No political appointee gets to dismantle the agencies that protect your health, your safety, and your rights.Public office is a public trust. I will treat it that way.I also believe we need to end the corruption of corporate money for influence in politics. Every candidate should be willing to reject corporate PAC money and foreign-influenced political money. I do. I do not accept money from AIPAC or affiliated PACs, or any corporate PACs.Gun saftey reformEvery person in this country deserves to feel safe at school, at work, at church, and in their own neighborhood. That is not the reality we live in.I am a gun owner. I support universal background checks, red flag laws, and a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines. These are not radical positions. They are supported by the majority of Americans, including responsible gun owners.The Second Amendment and common-sense gun safety laws are not in conflict. We regulate cars, medicine, and food safety because we value human life. Firearms should be no different.I will never take money from the gun lobby. I will listen to families, law enforcement, doctors, and teachers who see the consequences of gun violence firsthand. And I will vote for every measure that keeps deadly weapons out of the hands of people who should not have them.Thoughts and prayers are not a policy. Action is.— Laura Rodriguez-Carbone's campaign website (April 24, 2026)Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.