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Amy Klobuchar

U.S. Senator, minnesota

Website

 

Opportunity
Justice
Democracy

Opportunity

Racial Wealth Gap

Amy Klobuchar addresses the racial wealth gap in her “Plan for the Future of Work and a Changing Economy”. Her plan will:

  • “Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.”

  • Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Child Care Tax Credit

  • “Empower agencies to aggressively fight modern-day redlining.”

  • “Protect the Community Reinvestment Act and instruct financial regulators to conduct greater outreach to assess the true credit needs of their communities.”

  • “Create a portable personal retirement accounts called UP-Savings Accounts.”

Affordable Housing

Amy Klobuchar addresses affordable housing in her “Housing Plan”. Her plan will:

  • Create a new federal grant program that would give people who are dealing with evictions access to counsel.

  • “Ban all landlords from discriminating against people based on their income, including housing vouchers or disability benefits.”

  • “Suspend the Trump Administration’s proposals to weaken fair housing rules.”

  • “Restore all enforcement and oversight powers to the Office of Fair Lending and Opportunity to monitor fair lending practices and coordinate with the Department of Justice to prevent lending discrimination before it happens.” 

  • Make investments to ensure housing choice vouchers are available to all qualifying households with children, prioritizing areas that have updated their zoning rules when awarding federal housing and infrastructure grants.

  • “Expand the pilot for mobility housing vouchers that allows families to use their vouchers in higher opportunity neighborhoods.” 

  • “Expand the current allocations of The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to support the construction of additional affordable units.”

  • “Advocate for a new federal tax credit, similar to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, to encourage investment in family-owned homes in distressed neighborhoods.”

Access to High Quality Education

Amy Klobuchar addresses access to high quality education in her “Senator Klobuchar’s Plan for the Future of Work and a Changing Economy” plan. Her plan will:

  • “Provide tuition-free one- and two-year community college degrees and technical certifications.”

  • “Expand apprenticeship opportunities, as well as making it easier for Americans who need help to afford four year degrees by doubling the maximum Pell Grant and expand eligibility to families making up to $100,000 per year.”

  • Work with states to establish microgrant programs to help students with necessary expenses.”

  • “Increase STEM education including for women and underrepresented minorities.” 

  • “Expand and fully support TRIO and GEAR UP

  • “Expand the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) Program, which provides on-campus child care services. 

In her first 100 days in office she will:

  • Reissue guidance directing schools to reduce racial disparities in how they discipline students.

Environmental Equity

Amy Klobuchar addresses environmental equity in her “Senator Klobuchar’s Plan to Tackle the Climate Crisis”. Her plan will:

  • “Ensure vulnerable communities are a key part of all decision making.”

  • “Creating tax incentives and increasing federal funding to communities that are most directly experiencing the effects of climate change.”

  • “Invest in the EPA’s Environmental Justice Grants, Funding and Technical Assistance and Office of Civil Rights.”

  • Strengthening the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps with home energy costs, and SNAP, which provides nutrition assistance.

In “Amy’s Plan to Build America’s Infrastructure”, Klobuchar will:

  • “Make a historic commitment to addressing our drinking and wastewater infrastructure so that all Americans — including those in low-income communities, communities of color, and rural communities — have reliable access to safe and clean water.”

Health Equity

Amy Klobuchar addresses health equity in her “Senator Klobuchar on Health Care and Prescription Drugs” plan. Her plan will:

  • “Propose legislation that gets us to universal health care, which includes creating a public health care option by expanding either Medicare or Medicaid, as well as improving the Affordable Care Act to help bring down costs to consumers through reinsurance, providing cost-sharing reductions, expanding premium subsidies, and continuing delivery system reform.“

  • “Develop best models of care to address disparities in maternal and infant mortality and address the shortage of maternity care health professionals in underserved rural and urban areas.”

Transportation Access

Amy Klobuchar addresses transportation access in “Amy’s Plan to Build America’s Infrastructure”. Her plan will:

  • “Increase investments in public transit with a focus on decreasing barriers to opportunity and reducing our energy consumption, overhaul our rail infrastructure when it comes to freight and passenger rail, and bring high-speed rail to more communities.”

Justice

Bail/Prison Reform 

Amy Klobuchar addresses bail/prison reform in her “Criminal Justice Reform” plan. The plan will:

  • “Establish a diverse, bipartisan clemency advisory board; also create a White House Criminal Justice advisor to the President (outside the DOJ).”

  • “Create federal incentives so that states can restore discretion from mandatory sentencing for non-violent offenders.” 

  • “Expand funding for public defenders.”

  • “Reform the current cash bail system.”

Re-Entry Services

Amy Klobuchar addresses re-entry services in her “A Strong Democracy” plan. Her plan will:

  • “Eliminate obstacles to re-entering and participating fully in society”

In the Senate, she sponsored:

  • The First Step Act bill in 2016, which aims to reduce federal recidivism and crime, prepare inmates to successfully re-enter society, and enhance prison security and officer safety.

Ending Capital Punishment

Amy Klobuchar is against reinstituting capital punishment. Klobuchar expressed her views during an interview with the New York Times: 

“I oppose the death penalty, and I have long held that view. I held that view when I was the chief prosecutor for Minnesota’s largest county.”

Expanding Gun Safety Measures

Amy Klobuchar focuses on expanding gun safety measures in her “Plan for Gun Safety”. The plan will:

  • “Institute universal background checks by closing the gun show loophole.”

  • “Ban bump stocks that can increase a semi-automatic rifle’s rate of fire to 700 rounds per minute.”

  • “Ban high capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.”

  • “Raise the age to buy military-style assault weapons from 18 to 21; fight to ban the sale of assault weapons.”

  • “Provide grants to states to implement extreme risk provisions to empower families and law enforcement to keep guns away from people who show signs of threatening behavior.”

  • “Close the “Charleston loophole” by giving law enforcement additional time to complete background checks.”

  • “Close the “boyfriend loophole” by preventing people who have abused dating partners from buying or owning firearms.”

  • “Establish a waiting period for sales of handguns and assault rifles, which law enforcement can waive in the case of an emergency.”

  • “Prohibit the online publication of code for 3D printing firearms.”

  • “Hold manufacturers and distributors of gun kits to the same standards as those of completed firearms.”

  • “Provide funding for the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention to conduct research on firearm safety and gun violence prevention.”

Improving Police-Community Relations 

Amy Klobuchar’s campaign platform does not include a plan for improving police-community relations. However, in the Senate she’s working on a bill to:

  • Increase funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program

Democracy

Voting Rights

Amy Klobuchar addresses voting rights in her “A Strong Democracy” plan. Her plan will:

  • “Restore the Voting Rights Act.”

  • “Prohibit voter purges and remove exact-match requirements.”

  • “Promote early voting and no-excuse absentee voting.”

  • “Designate election day as a federal holiday.”

  • “Strengthen requirements for increased accessibility at polling places and expand resources by providing grants for states to make it easier for people with disabilities to vote.”

  • “Require states to ensure that all overseas voters receive their ballots at least 45 days before an election; improve the availability and transmission of absentee ballots abroad; and ensure that those ballots are counted by hand in any recount or audit.”

  • “Require states to establish uniform and nondiscriminatory standards for issuing, handling, and counting provisional ballots.”

  • “Restore Americans’ right to vote after being released from incarceration.” 

Access to Voter Registration

Amy Klobuchar addresses access to voter registration in her “A Strong Democracy” plan. Her plan will:

  • “Automatically register every American when they turn 18.”

  • “Establish Same Day Registration.”

Gerrymandering

Amy Klobuchar addresses gerrymandering in her “A Strong Democracy” plan. Her plan will:

  • “Require states to establish independent, bipartisan redistricting commissions that will develop fair statewide district maps following each decennial census.”

Census 2020

Amy Klobuchar’s campaign platform does not address the 2020 census. However, she addresses the topic on Twitter:

  • “The Census is part of our country’s constitutional obligation to count everyone. It matters for everything from redistricting to resources for communities. Non-partisan experts agree that adding a citizenship question – removed 68 yrs ago – will undermine an accurate Census.” — 2:58 PM · Mar 28, 2018