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Pete Buttigieg

Mayor of South Bend, Indiana

Website

 

Opportunity
Justice
Democracy

Opportunity

Racial Wealth Gap

Pete Buttigieg addresses the racial wealth gap in “The Douglass Plan”. The plan will:

  • “Create the federal Walker-Lewis Entrepreneurship Fund to invest in entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds” with a federal investment of $10 Billion in five years.

  • Introduce the Walker-Lewis Debt-for-Jobs Plan which allows students eligible for Pell Grants while in school to have his or her college loans deferred and forgiven over a five-year period if they start and maintain a business employing at least three people within five years of leaving school.

  • Increase the amount of federal contracts to minorities and women to 25% of all federal contracts.

In his “Economic Agenda for Working Families” plan, he will: 

  • “Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit.”

  • “Raise the minimum wage to at least $15.”

Affordable Housing

Pete Buttigieg addresses affordable housing in “The Douglass Plan”. The plan:

  • “Proposes a 21st Century Community Homestead Act to launch a public trust that would purchase abandoned properties and provide them to eligible residents in pilot cities while simultaneously investing in the revitalization of surrounding communities.”

In his “Economic Agenda for Working Families” plan, he will:

  • “Invest $430 billion to unlock access to affordable housing for over 7 million families.” 

  • “Increase the supply of affordable housing by building or restoring over 2 million units for the lowest-income Americans.”

  • “Reform local zoning laws to make it easier to build housing for working and middle-class families.”

  • “Invest $170 billion to ensure that all eligible families with children have access to housing choice vouchers, mobility counseling, and wrap-around services.”

Access to High Quality Education

Pete Buttigieg addresses affordable housing in “The Douglass Plan”. His plan will:

  • “Invest in an equitable public education system by massively increasing federal resources for students at Title I schools.”

  • “Issue new regulations to diversify the teaching profession.”

  • “Increase federal investments and incentivize state and local investments in middle school, high school, and college programs, make public college tuition free for lower-income students.”

  • “Invest in college students’ futures by making public college tuition free for lower-income students and ensuring the lowest-income students can cover living costs without taking on student debt through increased investments in the Pell Grant program.”

  • “Cancel the debts of borrowers in low-quality, overwhelmingly for-profit programs.”

  • “Increase dedicated resources by $50 billion for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs).”

In his “Keeping the Promise for America’s Children” plan, Buttigieg will:

  • “Provide affordable, universal full-day child care and pre-K for all children, from infancy to age 5, serving more than 20 million children, with a landmark $700 billion investment.”

  • “Invest in transportation and program navigation resources to reduce barriers to accessing high-quality care.”

  • “Combat racial and socioeconomic segregation and bias through investments in equity, mixed-subsidy classrooms, transportation, and ending preschool suspension and expulsion.”

  • “Create a $10 billion equity fund that will support, test, and scale new practices and innovative policies to bridge the opportunity gaps that hold back children from historically marginalized communities.”

  • “Create a $500 million fund to incentivize and support community-led racial and economic school integration, which is proven to improve student outcomes.”

Environmental Equity

Pete Buttigieg addresses environmental equity in “The Douglass Plan”. The plan will:

  • Require the EPA to consider environmental justice in all its regulatory decisions.

  • Have “a coordinated effort among the EPA, HUD, and CDC to be undertaken to address lead-based paint in aging housing stock. Current federal investments will be increased and consolidated in a Lead Paint Mitigation Fund to ensure all communities in need have the resources required to address this health threat.”

  • “Create a 21st-century public health data system that expands on existing environmental health tracking networks.” 

In his climate plan white paper, Buttigieg says he will:

  • “Add $1 billion to the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program, which helps to offset bills during times of crisis—like a polar vortex or a heat wave.”

  • “Directs agencies to guarantee that any post-emergency recovery improves equity for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities, people with disabilities, low-income fami
    lies, seniors, immigrants, and others through such features as universal access for people with disabilities, affordable homes for low-income families, and quality transportation systems.”

  • “Target [clean energy technology] investments to communities most in need, including low-income communities, communities of color, and deindustrialized communities”

Health Equity

Pete Buttigieg addresses health equity in “The Douglass Plan”. His plan will:

  • “launch an interagency National Health Equity Strategy. This strategy will prioritize anti-racism and is undergirded by the belief that quality health outcomes should be the norm for every American, regardless of race, place, income, or even access to health care.”

  • Designate and fund Health Equity Zones to address communities’ that will support the identification, development, implementation, and monitoring of plans tailored to address local health inequities.

  • “Address the underrepresentation of Black Americans in the health workforce and train our current health workforce to combat bias–especially racial bias–when treating patients.”

  • “Revitalize the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that frameworks are in place to address health inequities, promote equal access, and prohibit discrimination.”

In his “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan, Buttigieg says he will “[achieve] universal coverage, which disproportionately benefits people with low incomes, people of color, and those living in rural communities.”

In His “Women’s Agenda for the 21st Century”, Buttigieg says he will “end the maternal mortality crisis—which primarily affects Black, Native, and rural women.”

In his plan for LGBTQ+ Americans Buttigieg will “end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030, which disproportionately affects gay and bisexual Black and Latino men, and transgender women.”

Transportation Access

Pete Buttigieg addresses transportation access in “The Douglass Plan”. His plan will:

  • “Double funding for federal grants for states that commit to criminal justice reform… These grants will allow states to reduce their incarcerated populations while investing in programs that make communities safer, including drug rehabilitation, affordable housing, and subsidized transportation.

In his “Building for the 21st Century”, Buttigieg will:

  • “Mitigate past injustices in transportation planning. Pete will use innovative solutions like complete urban streets to mitigate the negative effects of highway expansion projects on Black and Latino neighborhoods.”

In his infrastructure white paper, Buttigieg states he will:

  • “Ensure that federal transportation projects improve access to opportunity.”

  • “Empower local communities with flexible funding and increased access to expertise.”

In his climate plan white paper, he will:

  • “Invest $100 billion over 10 years in surface transportation for cities, which will include modernizing subways and other transit systems, deploying electric commuter buses and school buses, installing bike and scooter lanes, and implementing low-cost ridesharing to make getting around easier.”

Justice

Bail/Prison Reform 

Pete Buttigieg addresses bail/prison reform in his “Securing Justice” plan. His plan will:

  • “Double funding for federal grants for states that commit to meaningful reform and prioritize funding for programs aimed at pretrial reforms, decarceration, and expansion of alternative to incarceration (ATI) programs.”

  • “Eliminate incarceration for drug possession, reduce sentences for other drug offenses, and apply these reductions retroactively on a federal level.” 

  • “Legalize marijuana and automatically expunge past convictions.”

  • “Eliminate mandatory minimums.”

  • “Direct the U.S. Sentencing Commission to explore sentencing caps for all crimes.”

  • “Commute the sentences of people who are incarcerated in the federal system beyond what justice warrants by establishing an independent clemency commission that sits outside the Department of Justice.”

  • “Abolish private federal prisons.”

  • “Support states that are eliminating the for-profit bail industry.”

  • “Incentivize states to provide free phone calls to people who are incarcerated.” 

  • “Establish a commission to study how consumer protection and credit reporting standards can be used to protect the records of people with convictions.”

  • “Create a federal matching fund to establish and support immigration specialists within public defender offices.”

  • “Incentivize prosecutors to increase transparency and accountability in their offices.”

  • “Remove youths from adult courts, jails, and prisons.”

  • “Prioritize enforcement of the ban on juvenile mandatory life without parole sentences.”

  • “Restore Pell Grant access to people who are incarcerated.”

Re-Entry Services

Pete Buttigieg addresses re-entry services in the “Douglass Plan”. His plan will: 

  • “Significantly reduce the use of supervised release on the federal level by limiting it to two years, cutting burdensome requirements and technical constraints, and making it harder to be sent back to prison for small violations of the terms of release.”

  • “Ensure that people with convictions have the freedom to access education, jobs, housing, and health care.” 

  • “Ban the box.”

  • “Increase the availability of tax credits and bond insurance for employers who hire people with criminal convictions.”

  • “Lift barriers that prevent formerly incarcerated people from accessing public benefits.”

  • “Incentivize states to abolish practices that restrict people with criminal records from access to professional licenses.”

  • “Restore the right to vote for all formerly incarcerated people immediately upon release from confinement as part of the 21st Century Voting Rights Act.”

  • “Amend the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.”

  • “Ensure that people with criminal convictions are eligible to serve on juries.”

  • “Encourage people with criminal convictions to apply for Small Business Administration and the Department of Labor loans.”

  • “Encourage automatic expungement and the elimination of extensive waiting periods.”

Ending Capital Punishment

Pete Buttigieg addresses ending capital punishment in the “Douglass Plan”. His plan will:

  • “Support a constitutional amendment to abolish the death penalty.”

Expanding Gun Safety Measures

Pete Buttigieg addresses expanding gun safety measures in his “Preventing Gun Violence” plan. His plan will:

  • “Expand background checks to apply to all gun sales, including sales from unlicensed sellers at gun shows or online.”

  • “Establish a nationwide permit-to-purchase licensing system to be implemented at the state level.”

  • “Close the “Charleston loophole,” also known as the “default proceed” provision, which allows gun sales to proceed by default after three business days even if a background check is not yet complete.” 

  • “Require law enforcement to be notified when guns are lost or stolen.”

  • “Promote safe storage practices to disrupt access to firearms.”

  • “Close the “boyfriend loophole” in federal law to help prevent domestic abuse, including within the LGBTQ community.” 

  • “Require domestic abusers to turn over any firearms they already own.”

  •  ‘Close the hate loophole, a dangerous gap that allows some people convicted of hate crimes to legally buy and possess guns.”

  • “Restore critical funding for gun violence research.” 

  • “Repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to stop shielding the gun industry from liability for negligent practices that lead to gun violence.”

  • “Ban the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”

  • “Prohibit ghost guns and at-home 3D firearms printing.”

  • “Enact federal Extreme Risk laws, sometimes referred to as “Red Flag” laws, to empower people to intervene and temporarily prevent someone in crisis from accessing firearms.”

  • “Support common sense and responsible gun safety for veterans.”

  • “Support efforts to keep guns off college or university campuses and educate college communities about intervention.” 

  • “Incentivize states and districts to prioritize school climate through a new School Climate Innovation Fund.”

Improving Police-Community Relations 

Pete Buttigieg addresses improving police-community relations in his “Securing Justice” plan. His plan will:

  • “Promote legislation that raises the legal standard under which officers are justified to use lethal force, and offer incentives for states and localities to adopt more restrictive policies.” 

  • “Support departments that actively strengthen community relationships and implement community policing.”

  • “Invest in community-based health care, especially mental health services, and other front end social supports that will minimize the need for police officers to serve as de facto social workers and allow them to resume their primary role as guardians of public safety.”

  • “Bolster funding to increase the number of police departments that use body-worn cameras.”

  • “Encourage departments to hold police officers accountable for bias, discrimination, or falsifying information.”

  • “Invest in rigorous training on implicit bias, crisis intervention, conflict resolution, and de-escalation.”

  • “Develop incentives to encourage states to standardize and make public data related to the use of force, line-of-duty deaths, policing activities (including traffic stops), officer safety and wellness, officer misconduct, crime, and racial impact.”

Democracy

Voting Rights

Pete Buttigieg addresses voting rights in “Voting Rights” policy. His policy will:

  • “Allow early voting and vote-by-mail.”

  • “Make Election Day a holiday.”

  • “Provide access for people with disabilities.”

  • “Protect voting rights on tribal lands.”

  • “Neutralize the effects of restrictive voter ID bills.”

  • “Increase and enforce criminal penalties for people who try to interfere with a person’s right to vote.”

  • “Protect birthright citizenship.”

  • “Develop policies that limit the spread of false information online.”

Buttigieg also discussed voting rights in the “Douglass Plan”. The plan will:

  • “Propose a 21st Century Voting Rights Act”

  • “Give full political representation to the people of D.C.” 

  • “Replace the Electoral College with a National Popular Vote.”

  • “Restore voting rights for the formerly incarcerated.”

  • “Authorize a new preclearance procedure under the Voting Rights Act to enable the federal government to block racist voting laws before they take effect.”

  • “Create and enforce standards for voter roll maintenance to stop discriminatory voter purges, neutralize the effects of restrictive voter ID bills by allowing people to vote with a sworn written statement of identity.”

Access to Voter Registration

Pete Buttigieg addresses access to voter registration in his “Voting Rights” policy. His policy will:

  • “Introduce automatic voter registration.”

  • “Allow online and same-day registration.”

Gerrymandering

Pete Buttigieg addresses gerrymandering in his “Gerrymandering“ policy. His policy will “establish independent, statewide redistricting commissions.”

Census 2020

Pete Buttigieg addresses the 2020 Census in his “Douglass Plan”. His plan will “examine the conduct of the 2020 Census to determine whether Black voters were undercounted, and will work with federal agencies and Congress to address the effects of any undercount on federal funding.”