Hi! I’m Paul Morris! When I can’t sleep, I write, I type, I talk, and I tell people I can’t work because I can’t sleep.
The time I most clearly lost all track of my sleep began with walking home alone from my psychiatrist’s office, when I had been expecting my dad to pick me up. I expected him to pick me up at my parents’ tenant’s duplex just half a mile away, but he unexpectedly left town to look at a Tiny House he was hoping to buy. While I was walking home, I was thinking about looking for a job. Every step in my walk home was anxious about my new medication and ambitious for opportunities. Each step reminded me of a conversation I once had with Derek Theurer from the Committee on Ways and Means, and I began to imagine how I could one day help others, like individuals with disabilities in group homes or Section 8 housing, to learn ambition through incentives like a federal ban on tax for tips and overtime. For me, that meant advocating for them to get on a bike, ride to work, and asking members of congress to sign a bill that would exempt people from paying federal taxes on tips or overtime hours at work.
Years earlier in my advocacy efforts, I worked on local projects, from asking for a bicycle pedestrian signal after my brother’s collision to passing an ordinance expanding the allowable square footage for accessory dwelling units.
Through years of lobbying, I learned a lesson that taught me resilience through difficult courses in college: when our compassion for others fails, God’s never does. My proposal for a federal ban on taxing tips and overtime pay made to national tax policy organization leaders in Washington D.C. after taking third place in a Social Security Case Competition, later shaped a “big beautiful bill” during the Trump Administration that began in 2024.
Today, I continue to champion causes that matter to me: teaching bicycle safety and self-reliance to K–12 students, supporting small business owners with strengthening social media guidelines to remind their customers that they get what they pay for, and promoting community partnerships between ministries and bicycle collectives and sleep experts that provide bikes to people who can’t afford one and help people get up early enough to get to work.
In moments when I lose all track of time and feel like a small fish in a big pond, I remember that God’s compassion makes my humble efforts count.
Paul's Policies 