Background

Summer Lynn Lee was born on November 26, 1987, and grew up in North Braddock, Pennsylvania. After earning a B.A. in Journalism from Pennsylvania State University in 2009 and a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law in 2015, she returned to North Braddock and became an activist. Much of her time and energy there was focused on advocating in favor of minimum-wage hikes and against racial profiling. Among Lee’s earliest work experiences were stints as a summer intern with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the District of Columbia’s Office of the Attorney General.

DSA Member

Lee is a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Elected to Political Offices

In the 2018 Democratic primary for the 34th district seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Lee defeated incumbent Representative Paul Costa by a margin of 67.8% to 32.2%, and then ran unopposed in the November general election. She was reelected in 2020 when she again ran unopposed in the general election.

In the 2022 race for Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Lee defeated Republican Mike Doyle by a margin of 56.2% to 43.8%. She continues to hold this seat and is also a member of both the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus.

Among the leftwing organizations that have supported and endorsed Lee’s political campaigns are: J Street PAC, the Working Families Party, the Collective PAC, EMGAGE, Justice Democrats, and Progressive Democrats of America.

Lee on the Issues

Following is an overview of Lee’s positions on a wide array of key political and social issues:

Abortion

“Trump’s right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court have gutted our constitutional right to abortion care,” said Lee after the Dobbs Supreme Court decision of 2022, which struck down Roe v. Wade and declared abortion rights to be the province of the various states. “And Congress must do everything in its power to restore and expand our fundamental freedom to control our bodies and our futures.”

Lee contends that “abortion bans and attempts to chip away our reproductive rights are attacks that fall hardest on the most marginalized Black and brown communities that already lack necessary access to care.”

Affirmative Action

In response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which held that race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions processes violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Lee stated: “As a Black woman who had the audacity to attend college, I am disgusted that our country just enshrined racial inequity in higher education and economic immobility into law. Make no mistake — this decision by this corrupt and illegitimate Supreme Court was *designed* to keep a generation of brilliant Black young people out of higher education and positions of power. The people whose great grandparents were enslaved are the young people who will be shackled by this decision. The cruelty is the point. And let’s not forget – The Supreme Court justices who sold us [out] today are unelected, shamelessly corrupt, and hold lifetime appointments with no code of ethics. We must hold them accountable.”

Criminal-Justice Reform

Lee has made the following statements about criminal-justice-related matters:

• “We know the best way to improve community safety is to invest in poverty-prevention, mental health, and wraparound services in communities.”
• “Mass incarceration and police brutality perpetuate this cycle of harm…. The existing criminal and juvenile justice systems are among the biggest barriers to community safety, social justice and upward mobility.”
• “Our country spends more on prisons than education. This spending comes at the expense of investments that could actually address the root causes of violence and that Pennsylvanians rely on — from food assistance to affordable housing, mental health and Medicaid.”
• “I am committed to ending the school to-prison pipeline…. Our current model of referring children to armed law enforcement on campus and prosecuting them for schoolyard infractions feeds children into the prison industrial complex and limits their future prospects. Instead of defaulting to suspension, expulsion, and incarceration, we must implement more restorative and effective practices — from fair funding formulas, to investments in mental and behavioral health, social work, services for students with disabilities, free school meals, vocational training, wraparound services and more.”
• “I am opposed to mandatory minimum sentencing laws…. Mandatory minimums disproportionately affect poor and Black communities, and hinder efforts to combat the opioid crisis in our communities today. Our family members, friends, and neighbors who suffer from addiction don’t need harsh prison sentences; they need affordable and accessible medical care.”
• “We must also end the numerous inhumane practices across our justice system. That means eliminating cash bail because our current system, which imprisons people based on their ability to pay, is a barbaric relic that punishes the poor for their poverty.”
• “[W]e must abolish the death penalty and life [in prison] without parole — the state should not have the power to end someone’s life or sentence them to death by incarceration.”

Economic Justice

According to Lee: “Right now, our economy works for the wealthy few and corporations at the expense of the working poor. Corporate tax breaks, unregulated Wall Street and Big Tech companies, and handouts to corporate polluters — as social services continue to be underfunded — have only reinforced the deep systemic inequalities that we continue to face as a nation. Economic growth has left behind marginalized communities …”

To address the foregoing concerns, Lee advocates for “legislation that supports a livable wage and aims to close the unnecessary gap between skyrocketing corporate profits and working people’s poverty wages.” She co-sponsored the Raise the Wage Act of 2023 to “raise the minimum wage to $17 by 2028 for nearly 28 million Americans.”

Education: Free Tuition

Lee calls for “universal free pre-kindergarten, including early childcare, [and] free school meals for every child.”

She also believes that “public colleges and universities and vocational programs should be tuition-free and ALL existing student loan debt should be canceled — period.”

Education: Book Bans

Asserting that “we must … rotect our public school curricula from right-wing attacks,” Lee claims: “Rather than honoring the brilliance and diversity of our country’s authors, illustrators, and educators, Republicans are focused on banning books and banning history – from Black and Indigenous history to holocaust education. These book bans and history bans are not only an attack on our freedoms, but they marginalize people who already face systemic discrimination in our society – including people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, religious minorities, and people with disabilities.”

The so-called “book bans” that Lee attributes to racism or anti-LGBT intolerance, are in fact merely parent-led efforts to keep pornographic and sexually explicit materials out of school libraries and classrooms. As The Heritage Foundation explains:

“All 10 of the books we found that were actually removed [from school libraries] most often contained disturbingly explicit passages about sex. Take, for example, the most-banned Gender Queer. That graphic novel features a picture of oral sex being performed on a sex toy. It also contains an X-rated passage. Lest you think we’re cherry-picking, consider the other top 10 most-removed books.

“This Book Is Gay provides a how-to guide to find strangers for sex on gay sex apps. Out of Darkness contains a rape. l8r g8r contains discussions of oral sex. All Boys Aren’t Blue contains underage incest. It’s Perfectly Normal contains drawings of children masturbating. Lawn Boy contains a passage about 10-year-old boys performing oral sex on each other. Jack of Hearts talks about a condom that is ‘covered in s—-.’  Crank details a meth-fueled rape. Lucky also details a rape. And A Court of Mist and Fury, tame by comparison, contains an extremely explicit sexual passage.

“The true significance of so-called book bans is not some resurgent racist or fascist impulse exhibited by a faction of American parents. It’s the profound moral disconnect between the 90% of Americans who believe that sexually obscene material does not belong in school libraries and an education establishment broadly convinced that it’s good, necessary and ‘inclusive’ to show children explicit images of sexual acts.”

The reference to “history bans” rests on the false notion that conservatives aim to whitewash U.S. history and ignore unsavory realities like slavery, segregation, and mistreatment of Native Americans.

Environmental Justice

Lee supports “the Green New Deal,” a plan calling for the elimination of all fossil fuels from the U.S. electric grid by 2030. The Green New Deal is also replete with redistributionist measures that have prompted scholar Tim Huelskamp to describe the plan as “the most radical socialist proposal in modern congressional history.” “Significant provisions of the Green New Deal reveal its true purpose of imposing socialism on an unprecedented scale,” adds Huelskamp. “The plan would create a ‘basic income program’ and federal jobs guarantee providing a ‘living wage’ to everybody who says they want one. It would impose a federal-government-run, single-payer health care system with bureaucrats and liberal politicians in Washington, D.C. in charge of every American’s health care…. None of these proposals has anything at all to do with climate change.”

Filibuster

When Democrats controlled the U.S. Senate in 2023-2024, Lee was in favor of suspending the filibuster rule – i.e., the requirement that any proposed legislation must garner 60 Senate votes as a prerequisite to ending unlimited debate and bringing the bill to a simple majority vote. Such a move would have enabled the Democrats to pass all manner of radical measures, even with the razor-thin majority that they held. “End the filibuster,” said Lee, “a tool championed by segregationist Senators to oppose civil rights legislation, that continues to stand in the way of progress today.”

Fracking

Lee favors the banning of hydraulic fracturing — commonly known as fracking — a horizontal-drilling technology that allows oil and gas to be extracted in an environmentally safe manner from shale rock thousands of feet below ground. Fracking helped make America an energy-independent, net exporter of oil and refined fuels during the first Donald Trump administration of 2017-2021.

Gun Violence

Condemning “white supremacist” gun violence as a major concern nationwide, Lee boasts that she has “helped lead the fight to pass an assault weapons ban” and to “end protections for corporate gun manufacturers.” The latter item refers to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which shields firearms manufacturers from being sued if their products are used in the commission of a crime.

Health Care

Maintaining that “healthcare is a fundamental human right,” Lee says that “no one in this country should fear losing coverage because of … their immigration status.”

She believes in Medicare for All— a single-payer, government-run, national health insurance program to provide universal comprehensive health care coverage, free at the point of service.

Lamenting “the inequities in our healthcare system,” Lee states that: “Black, brown, and indigenous adults are more likely to be uninsured than the national average. At the same time, Black people have higher maternal mortality, infant mortality, asthma rates among kids, and are more likely to die from cancer than anyone else.”

Immigration

According to Lee:

• “No human being is illegal. Our immigration system is a broken web of xenophobic policies that seek to punish brown and Black people and treat them as political pawns instead of building pathways to citizenship.”
• “We need to restore humanity in our immigration system by ending the separation of families.”
• “Millions of undocumented immigrants … deserve a pathway to citizenship because their home is here.”
• “[O]our immigration system is … is punitive, relies on private prisons for detention, has built up an over-militarized border, and has turned ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] into a violent policing agency.”

Israel, Jews, & Islamists

When Israel launched a military campaign in response to a massive wave of deadly rockets that Hamas terrorists in Gaza were firing indiscriminately into the Jewish state in May 2021, Lee tweeted: “When I hear American pols use the refrain ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ in response to undeniable atrocities on a marginalized pop, I can’t help but think of how the west has always justified indiscriminate & disproportionate force & power on weakened & marginalized ppl.” She also tweeted: “The US has nvr shown leadership in safeguarding human rights of folks its othered[.] But as we fight against injustice here in the mvmnt for Blk lives, we must stand against injustice everywhere. Inhumanities against the Palestinian ppl cannot be tolerated or justified.”

In April 2022, Lee appeared at a Pittsburgh Jewish Federation event where she characterized the Iran Nuclear Deal of 2015 as a vital component of “the diplomatic approach” to enhancing “the safety and security of that region.” She also accused Israel of committing “undeniable atrocities on a marginalized [Palestinian] population”; declined to dismiss the notion that Israel was a nation that practiced apartheid; and advocated in favor of placing explicit conditions on future U.S. financial and military aid to Israel. “[W]e have to insure,” she said, “that we protect against illegal annexation of Palestinia[n] lands, demolition of Palestinian homes, expansions into settlements. It means we have to insure against the detention of children. I think that those are all very reasonable things that we should be holding our partners, our allies [like Israel], accountable to.”

On April 25, 2023, Lee was one of 19 Representatives (18 Democrats and 1 Republican) to vote against House Resolution 311, a measure honoring America’s “close and robust bilateral relationship” with Israel as the latter prepared to celebrate the 75th anniversary of its independence. The Resolution encouraged the two nations “to continue deepening and expanding cooperation on economic, security, and civilian issues.”

On May 5, 2023, Lee co-sponsored the “Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act,” which sought to prohibit Israel’s government “from using U.S. taxpayer dollars in the Occupied West Bank for the military detention, abuse, or ill treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention; the seizure and destruction of Palestinian property and homes in violation of international humanitarian law; or any assistance or support for unilateral annexation of Palestinian lands in violation of international humanitarian law,”

On July 18, 2023, Lee was one of nine Democrats who voted against a Republican House Resolution – which passed by a margin of 412-9 – affirming that “Israel is not a racist or apartheid state,” and that “the United States will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel.” The other eight representatives who opposed it were Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Andre Carson, and Delia Ramirez.

At daybreak on October 7, 2023, the Islamic terror group Hamas carried out a massive, multi-front, surprise attack against Israel, firing thousands of rockets from Gaza into the Jewish state, while dozens of Hamas fighters simultaneously infiltrated the Israeli border in a number of locations by air, land and sea. The attack, which killed more than 1,200 people and injured at least 4,500 others, prompted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to launch an invasion of the Gaza Strip with the explicit aim of destroying Hamas and its leadership once and for all. While Lee condemned the Hamas terror attacks, she also accused Israel of committing “war crimes” and “human rights violations” in its Gaza operations; demanded the termination of U.S. military aid to Israel; demanded “an end to the [Israeli] occupation”; called for a “deescalation and end to this tragic cycle of violence”; posted a series of tweets expressing sympathy for the Palestinians of Gaza; and called for a cease-fire just a few days after Israel had begun its assault on Hamas — rather than allow the Jewish state to eradicate the terrorists.  Moreover, Lee’s office released a prepared statement that read as follows:

“The violence that continues to escalate in Israel and Palestine is devastating to watch. I once again strongly condemn the violence, terrorism, and hostage taking by Hamas that tore away the lives of over a thousand Israeli civilians. But we cannot allow innocent civilians in Gaza — including children — to continue to be collectively and inhumanely punished for Hamas’ horrific actions, as we’ve already seen Israeli airstrikes kill thousands of civilians against international human rights law, and force hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes. Continued retaliation against civilians will do nothing to end this tragic cycle of violence.”

On October 17, 2023, Lee used her X account to help disseminate an erroneous Al Jazeera English news report claiming that the Israeli military had just killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an airstrike against the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in the Gaza Strip. While the congresswoman solemnly declared that there was absolutely “no moral ambiguity” about the “reprehensible” nature of the Israeli action, a trove of video, audio, and radar evidence soon began to emerge showing that: (a) the air strike in question had actually resulted from a misfired rocket launched by the Gaza-based terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and (b) the actual death toll was in the neighborhood of 50, rather than the multiple hundreds claimed in the initial news stories. As the Washington Examiner reported on October 18:

“Despite many of her followers pleading with her to double-check the story and even responding that she would do so, Lee left the [X] post up for nearly 20 hours, claiming Israelis were responsible for the strike, even after evidence began to emerge that it was Islamic Jihad who had misfired and not Israel.

“Evidence also shows that the hit was in the parking lot, not the hospital itself, making the initial posting one of the more significant media mistakes in modern history.

“Her reckless decision was a damning move and took nearly a day for her to walk back, saying in another post that ‘we all have a responsibility to work to share factual information and have the humility to correct when we learn more,’ yet still failing to remove the original misleading post.”

On October 25, 2023, the House of Representatives voted 412-10 in favor of H.R. 771, a resolution titled “Standing with Israel as It Defends Itself against the Barbaric War Launched by Hamas and Other Terrorists.” The resolution stated, among other things, that the U.S. House “reaffirms Israel’s right to self-defense”; “calls on all countries to unequivocally condemn Hamas’ brutal war against Israel”; “reaffirms the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security”; “condemns Iran’s support for terrorist groups and proxies, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad”; and “urges full enforcement of United States sanctions against Iran to prevent Iran’s funding of terrorist groups.” Lee was one of the 10 House members who voted against H.R. 771, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, André Carson, Al Green, Delia Ramirez, and Thomas Massie. There were also 6 Democrats who voted “Present” on the resolution: Greg Casar, Ayanna Pressley, Joaquin Castro, Nydia Velázquez, Jesús “Chuy” Garcia, and Pramila Jayapal.

In her 2024 re-election campaign, Lee accepted four donations from leaders of two Hamas-linked entities: American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). One of the donors was the head of CAIR’s San Francisco Bay Area office, Zahra Billoo, who in 2021 gave a speech warning about the deceptions of “polite Zionists.” Another CAIR-aligned donor to Lee was the organization’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, who in November 2023 said the following about the October 7th Hamas attacks: “The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on October 7. Yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their own land that they were not allowed to walk in. And yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves. And yes, Israel as an occupying power does not have that right to self-defense.”

In March 2024, Jewish Insider reported that ever since the Hamas atrocities of October 7th, the then-popular Instagram page “Dear White Staffers” (DWS), which was operated by an employee in Summer Lee’s congressional office, had morphed “into a prominent and vocal anti-Israel platform that some fellow Hill staffers describe as borderline or openly antisemitic.” In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, for instance, DWS had shared a post that featured a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine vintage poster from 1973 bearing a caption that read, in part: “The resistance continues.” Also after October 7th, DWS had not only accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, but also had condemned the U.S. government for continuing to “fun[d] and facilitate[e] genocides” by providing aid to Israel.

In March 2024 as well, more than 40 rabbis and cantors in the Pittsburgh area signed on to an open letter expressing their unhappiness with Lee’s repeated criticism of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas targets in Gaza. The letter read, in part:

“Last fall, we wrote to you with concerns about your rhetoric and votes in relation to the events of October 7 in Israel, the subsequent war, and the rise in antisemitism in America. You graciously agreed to meet with us, and in that meeting, you promised us that you would call out antisemitism and temper your own language. Sadly, three months later, you have not followed through on those commitments.

“Since that meeting, you have continued to use divisive rhetoric, which, at times, we have perceived as openly antisemitic. You have continued to oppose measures before the House of Representatives that condemned antisemitism, and you have continued to call for an unconditional cease-fire from one side of the conflict, a position that devalues the lives and beliefs of one group.

“Furthermore, you have accepted campaign contributions from people who have voiced virulently antisemitic sentiments, and while you eventually withdrew from speaking at the CAIR conference, you have … so far been unwilling to denounce the hatred and ugly language coming from the keynote speakers of that conference and the leadership of CAIR.”

During an April 28, 2024 appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, Lee spoke out in support of the student protesters who, in recent weeks, had been demonstrating against Israel’s ongoing military response to the Hamas terror attacks of October 7th. Among her remarks were the following: “I think that the number one goal for them [the students] right now … is that they want to see a ceasefire in Gaza, they want to see the indiscriminate [Israeli] bombings and killings [end] … [T]hat is the central thing they are fighting for and they believe and they feel like our government can do more….”  CBS interviewer Margaret Brennan then said to Lee: “The Prime Minister of Israel [Benjamin Netanyahu] said that what’s happening on America’s college campuses is horrific. He said the protesters are antisemitic mobs, and he compared it to what’s happening in German universities back in the 1930s. How do you respond to that or the perception of that, perhaps among some of your constituents?” Lee replied:

“Certainly, you know, his language is intentional and it’s always been. But the one thing that I know is that Benjamin Netanyahu has not been on the college campus in the United States. He has not talked to these students. He has not seen their encampments, he has not seen or heard the message that they’re delivering and he doesn’t want to hear it…. I’m not shocked that he would want to cast them as evil, cast them as in the wrong. That’s been his M.O.”

After Israel launched airstrikes that targeted Iranian military and nuclear facilities as well as prominent Iranian military leaders, nuclear scientists, and politicians on June 13, 2025, Lee wrote in a post on X: “Israel’s strikes on Iran risk broader regional violence. Innocent civilians will be caught in the crossfire. We cannot allow a war criminal [Netanyahu] to drag American troops and resources into another endless war. Diplomacy is the only way forward.”

Iran

On June 21-22, 2025, the Trump administration carried out “Operation Midnight Hammer,” a series of precision airstrikes targeting three major Iranian nuclear weaponry sites—Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. The attacks utilized more than 125 U.S. aircraft, including seven B‑2 bombers carrying 14 Bunker-Buster bombs, as well as Tomahawk missiles and precision-guided munitions. After the strikes had been completed, President Trump issued a statement wherein he said: “Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.”

But Lee was unimpressed by Operation Midnight Hammer. Accusing President Trump of “acting fully outside of his authority” and “once again trampling on the Constitution,” she said of the airstrikes: “This is an illegal and terrifying escalation. Dropping bombs on Iran brings us closer to war, not peace, and he is putting millions of lives at stake. Congress must immediately pass our War Powers Resolution to rein him in.” She also derided Trump as a “hypocritical ‘anti-war’ president who just illegally struck Iran and is putting countless lives at risk.”

LGBTQ+ Rights

Lee asserts that “Congress must pass the Equality Act to provide long overdue federal protections for LGBTQ+ people and their families.” Specifically, the Equality Act:

• “expands Title II and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit public accommodations and federally funded programs, respectively, from discriminating based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity”;
• “expands Title IV (desegregation of public schools) and Title VII (employment discrimination) to specifically include sexual orientation and gender identity”;
• “expands the Fair Housing Act (discrimination in public and private housing) to include sexual orientation and gender identity”; and
• “prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity by creditors and with respect to jury selection.”

Reparations for Slavery

In May 2025, Lee introduced a House Resolution that called for the United States government to spend an estimated $14 trillion on reparations for the nation’s black residents. The American people, she argued, had a “moral and legal obligation to provide reparations for the crime of enslavement of Africans and its lasting harm on the lives of millions of Black people in the United States” – particularly in light of the executive orders by which President Trump had recently called for an end to many Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) measures with the “stroke of a pen.”

At a May 2025 press conference where she formally reintroduced the “Reparations Now” Resolution which had been first introduced by former Rep. Cori Bush in 2023, Lee said: “Black folks are owed more than thoughts and prayers. We’re owed repair, we’re owed restitution, and we’re owed justice. We’re here to say that there’s no more waiting, no more watering down, no more putting justice on layaway.” Below are some noteworthy excerpts from that Resolution, demanding that blacks be compensated not only for the injustices and horrors of slavery itself, but also for post-slavery – and even present-day – inequalities that allegedly are legacies of slavery:

• “Black people are, and have always been, human beings, yet the Federal Government has historically failed to recognize our dignity and humanity.”
• “[T]he Federal Government must compensate descendants of enslaved Black people and people of African descent in the United States to account for the crimes and harms of chattel slavery, the cumulative damages of enslavement, and the epochs of legal and de facto segregation.”
• “[R]eparations must be administered by the Federal Government to descendants of enslaved Black people and people of African descent for sanctioning the kidnapping and trafficking of human beings, creating and maintaining a violent racial hierarchy, embedding slavery and other methods of economic exploitation into the fabric of society, and emboldening White supremacy with legal, social, and economic tools of control.”
• “[I]nfant mortality rates on plantations were incredibly high, and in the South, 50 percent of enslaved infants were stillborn or died within the first year of life in the early 1800s.”
• “[T]he enslavement of Black people became an indispensable economic driver in the United States, allowing White Americans in both the South and the North to enjoy the profit of unpaid and dehumanizing labor.”
• “[T]he economy of the United States, in both the North and South, flourished as a result of Black trafficking, torture, and exploitation.”
• “Black students [today] are suspended from school at a rate 4 times greater than White students, and Black girls, despite being only 15 percent of students in public schools, make up 45 percent of out-of-school suspensions … and 43 percent of expulsions, effectively funneling Black children into the school- to-prison pipeline.”
• “[T]he legacy of racialized barriers to education is still so prevalent today, that Black women graduate from a 4- year degree with 60 percent more debt than their White male peers.”
• “Black homeowners [today] face inequities within the taxation system and housing market, taking on unfair tax burdens and biased appraisals thwarting Black wealth and Black homeownership.”
• “[S]cholars have estimated that the United States benefited from 222,505,049 hours of forced labor between 1619 and the end of slavery in 1865, which would be valued at $97,000,000,000,000 today.”

In May 2025 as well, Lee said that under the terms of “Reparations Now” Resolution, even affluent, highly successful blacks would be eligible to receive reparations payments because of the enormous amount of discrimination that allegedly continues to afflict them on a daily basis:

“So, to be very clear, whether or not a black American, a black descendant of American chattel slavery, were able to break into the middle class, they are still, and they were able to do that despite the harms, despite the past injustices done to them. So they are not excluded from the reparation and the remedies therein….

“If they are black and they are a descendant of slaves, then they were directly in the lineage of harm. If they are a descendant of Jim Crow policies in this country, they are direct descendants, and current living recipients, of that harm.

“If they are living today, then we are still harmed by inequitable funding schemes of public schools. We’re still harmed by being black or brown or poor and living nearer to environmental hazards all over this country. If you are black in this country right now, you are still less likely to be able to acquire a loan. The interest rates are still higher for black folks who are attempting to buy homes or go to school. We are still discriminated [against] because of our hair, because of our names, when we go to get jobs.”

Socialism

In January 2023, Lee was one of 86 Democrats who voted “NO” on a Republican House Resolution titled “Denouncing the horrors of socialism,” whose text read, in part, as follows:

“Whereas socialist ideology necessitates a concentration of power that has time and time again collapsed into Communist regimes, totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships;

“Whereas socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide;

“Whereas many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialist ideologues, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Nicolás Maduro; […]

“Whereas the United States of America was founded on the belief in the sanctity of the individual, to which the collectivistic system of socialism in all of its forms is fundamentally and necessarily opposed: Now, therefore, be it

“Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America.”

Supreme Court

Lee is in favor of packing the Supreme Court – i.e., increasing the number of Justices from 9 to perhaps 13 or 15 — with all the additions being activists who could be counted upon to rule in favor of Democrat agenda items. “Expand the Supreme Court and federal courts so that right-wing extremists cannot sell our fundamental rights and freedoms to the highest bidder,” she says.

Voting Rights

“Throughout our nation’s history, we have never delivered on the promises of democracy,” says Lee. “The legacies of slavery and Jim Crow have carried on through voter disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and voter suppression making the ballot box inaccessible, especially for poor, Black and brown people across the country.” Specifically, Lee aims to “make it easier to vote, not harder,” by “working to end racist voter ID and suppression laws,” enacting “federal automatic voter registration, nationwide early and mail voting,… and same day voter registration.”