Rep. Sharice Davids talks student loans and gun control with theSkimm

One issue top of mind for Representative Sharice Davids is student loans. It’s something she has some personal experience with: she still paying her loans off from law school.

“Although I had some scholarship money come in. I still had quite a bit of student loan debt that I took on,” the freshman representative from Kansas’ 3rd district told theSkimm about her time at Cornell Law School.

And because of the path she chose, it will take her longer to pay them off, Davids said. It’s something she doesn’t want other Americans to continue to face.

“How much in student loans you have should not be the first thing you think about when you're trying to decide how you're going to live your best life and contribute the most you can to our country.”

Another issue important to Davids? Gun control - or gun safety as she prefers to call it.

“I think of gun safety as a public health crisis because we have seen a lot of folks who have addressed this just as a one-part issue,” Davids said.

Davids wants politicians to approach gun safety from three points: restricting access to firearms to certain groups, allow more meaningful study around the issue of gun safety, and addressing hardware.

“Certainly, these are things that we can start to address immediately, but we can't only look at one piece of it,” she said.

As one of the first Native American women elected to Congress (along with Rep Deb Haaland from New Mexico), Davids is hoping to open the doors for others like herself.

“It just means that we're opening the doors and get to be part of the next generation of women, native women, that come into Congress, " she said. "And not just Congress but other decision-making positions."