Delaware should be a place where families can afford to stay, businesses can grow, children can build a future, and everyone can live with dignity and security.

Jose A. Lopez brings the perspective of a parent, small business owner, nonprofit leader, and community advocate. He understands how decisions made in Dover affect people at the kitchen table, in the workplace, and throughout our neighborhoods.

These are the priorities he will bring to the State Senate.

Privacy, Security and Individual Freedom

Privacy should belong to every Delawarean. That includes your medical information, reproductive decisions, digital data, location history, and the right to live without unnecessary surveillance or government intrusion.

Public safety works best when communities trust the people and institutions meant to protect them. Delaware can keep people safe while defending privacy, dignity, and individual freedom.

Jose will work to:

• Protect medical and reproductive information from being collected, sold, or used against Delawareans.

• Strengthen enforcement of Delaware’s consumer privacy laws and give residents greater control over their personal data.

• Place strict limits on automated license-plate readers, facial recognition, mass tracking, and other surveillance technologies.

• Require clear rules governing how long surveillance data can be stored, who can access it, and when it can be shared with outside agencies.

• Stop companies from selling sensitive personal information without clear and informed consent.

• Strengthen protections against scams, identity theft, financial exploitation, and data breaches, especially for seniors.

• Defend LGBTQ+ Delawareans, immigrants, seniors, people with disabilities, and others who are too often targeted, exploited, or left vulnerable.

• Demand transparency and accountability from law enforcement at every level.

Privacy, dignity, security, and individual freedom are not special privileges. They are rights every Delawarean deserves.

Small Businesses and Local Jobs

Small businesses create jobs, support families, and invest directly in our communities. But too many business owners lose time and money navigating permits, renewals, inspections, fees, and agencies that do not always communicate with one another.

Jose knows these challenges firsthand as a restaurant owner. He also knows that a 20-employee business cannot absorb new costs and paperwork the same way a large corporation can.

Jose will work to:

• Create one clear online portal where businesses can apply, track permits, renew licenses, understand deadlines, and know which agency is responsible.

• Establish reasonable response deadlines so applications do not sit for months without an answer.

• Reduce duplicative paperwork and stop requiring businesses to submit the same information to multiple agencies.

• Review how proposed laws and regulations will affect small employers before they take effect.

• Replace confusing rules and regulatory “speed traps” with clear expectations and practical guidance.

• Use education and corrective action for first-time paperwork violations that do not threaten public health or safety.

• Review excessive permit, licensing, inspection, and variance fees that make it harder to start or expand a business.

• Provide navigators, technical assistance, and multilingual support, especially for new and minority-owned businesses.

• Make sure government contracts and economic-development programs are accessible to locally owned businesses, not just large corporations.

Government should protect workers and consumers while making it easier—not harder—to do business in Delaware.

Lower Costs for Working Families

Too many Delawareans are working hard and still falling behind. Housing, property taxes, childcare, groceries, transportation, healthcare, and energy bills are rising faster than many families can keep up.

Delaware needs a long-term affordability strategy instead of one temporary fix after another.

Jose will work to:

• Establish income-based property-tax relief for households whose tax burden grows beyond what they can reasonably afford.

• Expand property-tax protections for seniors, people with disabilities, and long-term homeowners.

• Require transparent reassessment contracts, independent auditing, accessible appeals, and stronger accountability when outside vendors make mistakes.

• Build more housing across a range of prices, including affordable homes for sale and for rent.

• Preserve existing affordable housing and use targeted protections to prevent renters, seniors, and working families from being displaced.

• Expand pathways to homeownership, including support for first-time buyers.

• Raise wages in a responsible and predictable way so workers can move forward while small employers have time to plan.

• Take on corporate consolidation, price manipulation, and unfair practices that drive up the cost of basic necessities.

• Strengthen childcare, transportation, and family supports that make it possible for parents to work and remain in Delaware.

A family that works hard in Delaware should be able to afford to build a life here.

Lower Healthcare and Prescription Drug Costs

Delaware families should not have to choose between filling a prescription, paying the electric bill, or buying groceries. Healthcare costs continue to rise while patients are often left with little information about where their money is going.

Jose believes Delaware should use its purchasing and regulatory power to demand better prices, greater transparency, and more value for patients.

Jose will work to:

• Require greater transparency from pharmacy benefit managers, including disclosure of rebates, pricing spreads, administrative fees, and other sources of revenue.

• Push for transparent, pass-through pharmacy contracts so negotiated savings reach patients and health plans.

• Use Delaware’s purchasing power to negotiate better prescription prices for state employees, retirees, and other publicly funded health plans.

• Allow patients to access a lower cash price for a prescription when it costs less than using insurance.

• Protect independent and community pharmacies from unfair reimbursement and contracting practices.

• Strengthen oversight of healthcare consolidation and other practices that reduce competition and raise prices.

• Invest in primary care, preventive care, maternal health, mental health, and other services that help people receive treatment before a condition becomes more serious and expensive.

• Give consumers clearer information about healthcare prices, insurance decisions, and their right to appeal.

Healthcare should be organized around patients—not hidden fees, confusing contracts, and corporate middlemen.

Strong Schools, Child Care and Career Pathways

Every child in Delaware deserves a strong start and a clear path to a successful future. That begins with affordable childcare and continues through public schools, career training, college, apprenticeships, and the skilled trades.

As a parent, a public school graduate, and a leader at the Latin American Community Center, Jose has seen what quality early education can do for a child—and how difficult it has become for working families to afford it.

Jose will work to:

• Expand Purchase of Care so more working families can afford quality childcare.

• Move Delaware toward universal access to pre-K.

• Pay early childhood educators fairly and strengthen the pipeline of qualified teachers.

• Increase state funding for low-income students, English learners, students with disabilities, and schools facing the greatest challenges.

• Make sure funding decisions are transparent and that resources reach classrooms and students.

• Strengthen reading, mathematics, mental health, special education, and language-support programs.

• Expand career and technical education, apprenticeships, vocational training, and partnerships with local employers.

• Give students who do not pursue a traditional four-year degree respected pathways into skilled trades and good-paying careers.

• Reduce administrative duplication through shared services and explore responsible district consolidation when it improves outcomes and moves more resources into classrooms.

• Hold districts, charter schools, and state education officials accountable for how public money is spent and whether programs are producing results.

A child’s opportunities should not depend on a ZIP code, family income, disability, or first language.

Affordable, Reliable Energy

Delaware families and small businesses are paying more for electricity while still dealing with outages, aging equipment, and uncertainty about future energy costs.

Jose supports a balanced energy strategy that lowers bills, improves reliability, and prepares Delaware for growing demand without shifting the cost onto working families.

Jose will work to:

• Create incentives for residential and small-business battery storage.

• Support voluntary programs that allow batteries to charge during lower-cost, off-peak hours and provide power during peak demand.

• Ensure customers receive fair compensation when stored solar or renewable energy is returned to the grid.

• Expand access to community solar for renters and households that cannot install solar panels.

• Require utilities to plan ahead, replace aging equipment, and provide better information and accountability during repeated outages.

• Protect families from shutoffs during dangerous weather and improve targeted assistance for households struggling with energy bills.

• Require data centers and other large energy users to pay the infrastructure, generation, transmission, and capacity costs they create.

• Prevent utilities from shifting the financial risks of large energy projects onto residential customers and small businesses.

• Invest in energy efficiency, weatherization, and other improvements that permanently reduce monthly bills.

Delaware should move toward cleaner and more reliable energy in a way that families and small businesses can afford.

Safe and Welcoming Communities

Public safety means being able to live without fear—whether that fear comes from crime, exploitation, violence, discrimination, or government overreach.

Local law enforcement is most effective when officers know the community and residents trust them enough to report crimes, serve as witnesses, and ask for help.

Jose will work to:

• Strengthen accountability and transparency for law enforcement at every level.

• Require state and local officers—and outside agencies operating through state or local cooperation—to be clearly identifiable, with appropriate exceptions for legitimate safety concerns.

• Protect the ability of local police to build trust with immigrant communities by drawing a clear line between local public safety responsibilities and federal civil immigration enforcement.

• Require greater disclosure when state or local resources are used to assist outside enforcement agencies.

• Invest in youth programs, neighborhood organizations, mental health response, violence prevention, and family supports that address problems before they become emergencies.

• Support responsible gun-safety measures, including safe storage and efforts to keep firearms away from people who pose a serious danger to themselves or others.

• Protect victims of domestic violence, hate crimes, trafficking, fraud, and exploitation.

• Improve language access so residents can report crimes, understand their rights, and receive help regardless of the language they speak.

Real public safety is built on trust, accountability, prevention, and respect for the people being served.

Representation and Opportunity for Every Community

Delaware’s Hispanic community is one of the fastest-growing populations in the state and remains deeply underrepresented in government. Other communities also face language barriers, discrimination, and difficulty accessing public programs.

Jose has spent years helping residents, small business owners, families, and community organizations make their voices heard. He will bring that work to Dover.

Jose will work to:

• Expand language access across state agencies, schools, healthcare programs, emergency services, and public information.

• Strengthen civic education and voter registration efforts in communities that have historically been overlooked.

• Improve access to state boards, commissions, contracts, and leadership opportunities.

• Support immigrant Delawareans who are our neighbors, classmates, coworkers, business owners, and family members.

• Hold agencies accountable when language barriers prevent residents from receiving services or exercising their rights.

• Build stronger partnerships between state government and trusted community-based organizations.

• Make sure legislation is developed with the people most affected by it—not simply presented to them after decisions have already been made.

Government works better when the people making decisions reflect and understand the communities they serve.

Clean Water and Resilient Communities

Delaware’s waterways, wetlands, forests, coastlines, and drinking water are part of what makes our state home. Protecting them is a public health responsibility and an investment in the next generation.

Environmental policy must also be fair. Communities that have carried a disproportionate share of pollution should not be asked to carry the cost of solving it.

Jose will work to:

• Protect drinking water from PFAS, lead, industrial contamination, and other dangerous pollutants.

• Strengthen testing, public disclosure, cleanup, and accountability when contamination is found.

• Protect wetlands, forests, waterways, and open spaces that reduce flooding and improve water quality.

• Invest in stormwater systems, drainage, flood prevention, and climate-resilient infrastructure.

• Require major developments to account for their demands on water, electricity, roads, emergency services, and surrounding communities.

• Prioritize environmental improvements in communities that have experienced disproportionate pollution and health risks.

• Hold corporate polluters accountable for the harm they cause instead of leaving taxpayers to pay for cleanup.

• Support a practical transition to cleaner energy that creates jobs, improves reliability, and protects families from sudden cost increases.

Every Delawarean deserves clean air, safe water, and a healthy community.

Government That Works—and Answers to You

Delawareans should not have to fight through confusing agencies, unanswered calls, broken websites, or layers of bureaucracy to get basic information and services.

Government should be transparent about what it is doing, what it costs, who is responsible, and whether it is working.

Jose will work to:

• Require competitive and transparent bidding for major public contracts.

• Establish clear performance standards and consequences when contractors fail to deliver.

• Strengthen oversight of reassessment vendors, consultants, technology contractors, and other companies paid with public money.

• Make project costs, deadlines, contract changes, and performance information easier for the public to find.

• Reduce administrative duplication and improve coordination between state agencies.

• Modernize public-facing systems so residents and businesses can track applications, permits, benefits, appeals, and requests.

• Make public records and government data more accessible.

• Require agencies to measure whether programs are producing results—not simply whether money was spent.

• Listen to residents, workers, businesses, and community organizations before making decisions that affect them.

Jose is not running to protect the way things have always been done. He is running to make government more responsive, more accountable, and more connected to the people it serves.