The Issues

Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law: The United States has long been a living symbol of civil liberties. In our 232 years as a nation, we have cherished and built upon the legacy of due process and the rule of law that we inherited from the English Common Law tradition. We rose up and became a new nation in 1776 as much to preserve our existing liberties as to bring to life the new concepts of equality and human rights developed by the thinkers of the Enlightenment. Together with our allies in Europe and throughout the world, we have pioneered the concept of international law, which holds the promise of a world in which international differences can be settled without war. In the course of our history, our nation has committed a number of deep moral wrongs including slavery and segregation. However, the ideal of America has always been that of "a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Much of the story of American history is the story of the struggle for progress towards that ideal and preservation of liberties gained in that struggle.

Regrettably, over the last seven years, the course of American liberty and justice has gotten dangerously off track. Cynical politicians in Washington have exploited the sorrow, anger and fear created by the terrorist attacks of 9-11 to increase their own power. The executive branch in particular has claimed and exercised powers that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. The President now claims the power to take anyone, anywhere in the world, including U.S. citizens, into custody without charges and hold them indefinitely without trial. At least one U.S. citizen, arrested on U.S. soil, unarmed and without the immediate means of committing any crime, was held in a military prison for over three years without charges. That citizen, Jose Padilla, was later transferred to the custody of a civilian court on unrelated charges, but the Government had never withdrawn its claim that any citizen can be subjected to the same treatment at the discretion of the President or his designee without recourse to the protection of the law. This government has claimed the right and exercised the power to use torture and evidence obtained by torture, to conduct secret trials, to maintain secret prisons to which people can be "disappeared" , to violate or redefine the Geneva Conventions regarding prisoners of war, and to spy upon and lie to the American people regarding its many illegal activities.

In these grave times, we need the leadership of Senators and Representatives who will stand up and defend the Constitution and the People against this horrifying expansion of executive power. Yet, rather than acting as a check on our power hungry President, our Legislators have acted as his accomplices. With the active support of my opponent, Mark Pryor, Congress has passed and the President has signed a number of intolerable and unconstitutional acts to curtail our liberties and give the President powers that even kings have not claimed for centuries.

The worst example of this Un-American legislation is the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Mark Pryor voted for this act, which unconstitutionally suspends the writ of Habeas Corpus, allows the use of torture and creates a scheme by which ordinary POWs and anyone else the President deems an "enemy alien" can be subjected to a secret trial, a show trial using evidence they are not allowed to see, or lifelong imprisonment without trial. The Act contains no standard for determining who is an enemy, no procedure for verifying who is an alien and no meaningful review mechanism to prevent errors or abuses of this tremendous power. America has always prided itself on being a nation ruled by laws, not by men. Yet, without the Writ of Habeas Corpus, all of our laws mean nothing. Any one of us can lose our liberty or our lives for any reason or no reason, with no opportunity to defend ourselves. As your U.S. Senator I will fight to repeal the Military Commissions Act and restore Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law. I will also fight to end warrentless domestic spying by repealing legislation Mark Pryor helped to enact, including the Patriot Act, the Protect America Act and recent changes to FISA.

Ending the Iraq War: The War in Iraq is a disaster that never should have happened. Every day our troops stay in Iraq costs American and Iraqi lives without any benefit to the American or Iraqi people. As your U.S. Senator, I will do everything in my power to bring our troops home and to make sure we fulfill our obligations to our returning veterans and their families. America has had enough of Politicians who say they support the troops, then turn a deaf ear to the need of our wounded service members and to the families still waiting for their loved-ones to come home. As your U.S. Senator, I will never vote to give another dime to the President to fight the Iraq war and I will never vote to cut another dime from Veterans Healthcare or any other service essential to our troops and their families.

Protecting Our Environment: Global Climate Change is the defining crisis of our times. It is a challenge the world must meet together and on which the most powerful nations of the world must take the lead. Yet the United States has taken no serious steps to avert this crisis and has hindered efforts by the United Nations and other international groups to begin addressing the problem in a coordinated way. The United States should begin immediately taking an active role in designing global efforts to fight climate change through reducing carbon emissions. More importantly, we should lead by example, setting rigorous new emissions standards at the national level regardless of the behavior of other nations such as China and India. As a leading center of science and technology, the United States is already in the forefront of research into technologies that could actually take carbon out of the air and reduce the deadly link between energy use and carbon emissions. As a nation we must give these research and development efforts the support they deserve. America has a history of technological triumphs such as the Apollo program which made the idea of landing on the moon a reality in less than ten years. We need to apply that same level of dedication to removing the causes of the climate crisis. At the same time, it is important to remain aware of other environmental problems that require attention. We must protect our land, air and water from all sources of pollution. Industries that profit from processes that produce pollution must share the burden of keeping our environment clean. Only through rigorous enforcement of high environmental quality standards can we leave our children a better world than the world in which we grew up.

Alterative Energy : How will the world run without gas, oil and coal to fuel industrial production, transportation and agriculture? This is the central question of the twenty-first century. Regardless of the strategies we use to prevent the global environmental effects of these fossil fuels, the fact remains that supplies of these fuels are finite. If we continue to burn fossil fuels at the present rate, we will significantly reduce our supplies this century. If we increase consumption at the present rate of increase, we will run out completely. Yet, the reality is, if the world continues on its present course of economic and technological development, the rate at which we increase our fuel consumption will continue to climb. Indeed, using less energy is more easily said that done. The ever increasing demands of a growing population dictate that agriculture alone will require more energy that can be produced by any known non-fossil fuel source. Ultimately, the long-term solutions to this set of problems will have to come from new technologies. As your U.S. Senator, I will work to implement practical first steps to help the nation prepare for and delay the coming energy crunch. These steps include higher fuel efficiency standards for all classes of motor vehicles, greater investment in public transportation and increased use of available alternative sources of energy. I will also work to increase support for research and development of new energy technologies. Developing new sources of energy will have the additional benefit of reducing the importance of oil rich countries to American foreign policy and improving America's trade balance with the rest of the world.

Real Universal Healthcare: Healthcare in the United States, for the ordinary citizen, is the worst and most expensive care available in any industrialized nation. This remains true even though the United States is a leader in developing cutting edge medical treatments. The lack of preventive care and early intervention typical of American healthcare places a great burden on taxpayers and providers for acute and emergency care that could have been prevented. This backward approach to healthcare costs lives and quality of life for thousands of Americans every year. The private system of health insurance and providers has utterly failed America. It does not need to be reworked or reformed, it needs to be replaced with a National Health Insurance program that works for all Americans. Such a solution would have the additional benefit of removing healthcare costs from the overhead of employers, including small businesses for whom healthcare is sometimes an overwhelming expense. Relief of this magnitude would allow employers to raise wages and hire more workers. Increased productivity due to a healthier workforce and less business overhead would help to offset the costs to taxpayers.

Educational Opportunity for All: Education is a fundamental need for citizens in a democracy and for workers in a global marketplace. Until it is treated as a fundamental right, our democracy and our economy will suffer as a result. Educational programs, from Head Start programs for pre-schoolers to Pel Grants for College students, are a profitable investment in America's future. As your U.S. Senator, I will support equal and adequate educational opportunities for students of all ages.

Equal Marriage & Family Rights for All: The freedom to marry is a fundamental right of all human beings. It is not a right that the state grants, rather it is a right that state and federal governments have a duty to recognize and protect. The marriages of same sex partners should be legally recognized and treated with the same dignity and respect accorded to heterosexual marriages. Their families should be protected by allowing both parents to assume legal rights and responsibilities towards their children. Rather than debating constitutional amendments designed to punish and degrade these families, the federal government should show leadership in according them the equal protection of the law as required by the fourteenth amendment.

Abolition of the Death Penalty: I support the total abolition of the death penalty throughout the United States. The death penalty is cruel and unnecessary. It is also irreversible. In the last two decades, dozens of death row inmates have been exonerated due to new testing of DNA evidence. Yet, it is important to remember that most murders leave no DNA from the killer at the crime scene. Therefore, new DNA techniques do not end the threat of wrongful convictions, they only cast light on a problem that remains very real. Until we have perfect justice, we should not allow the state to impose infinite punishment! Most death penalty policy is made at the state level, but there is still plenty of work for a United States Senator on this issue. Nowhere is the unjust application of the death penalty more stark than in its effect on American Indians under the major crimes act. In some cases Indian offenders are subject to the Federal death penalty for acts that would not be capital crimes if committed by a white person at the same time and place!

Prison & Jail Reform: Citizens and Residents of the United States are more likely to be incarcerated than people anywhere else in the world, including China, Russia and the Middle East. American prisons and jails are notoriously unsafe, overcrowded and underfunded. This leads to conditions that are inhumane and unacceptable. When the government takes away someone's ability to protect themselves and meet their own needs, even for the purpose of well deserved punishment, the government must take responsibility for protecting and caring for that person's basic needs. This includes adequately addressing needs for medical care, mental health, education and job training. It also includes protecting prisoners from exploitation for slave labor and medical experiments by for-profit corporations. If the government sees fit to punish a man through forced labor, the fruits of that labor should go to the prisoner, his victims, his family or the state, not to GAP Jeans. As your United States Senator, I will introduce legislation to prevent the exploitation of federal prisoners by corporations, and encourage the federal government to work with states to improve prison conditions, illuminate prison profiteering, and reduce overall incarceration rates.