Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar speaks during a Summerlin Early Vote Kick Off Rally at the Desert Vista Community Center Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020.
Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Editor's note: In advance of the Nevada caucuses, the Las Vegas Sun editorial board invited the top Democratic candidates for interviews about how their policies would shape America and Nevada. This is the third in a series of stories based on our conversations.
Meet the candidates
Amy Klobuchar presents herself as a get-things-done pragmatist who will pursue politically feasible policies, not the more progressive proposals coming from opponents to her left. It’s telling that she’s labeled Medicare for All a “pipe dream.”
The Minnesota senator’s policies largely reflect that image of a practical and centrist candidate, positioning her as a moderate alternative to more left-leaning candidates like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. That’s not to say she doesn’t have bold initiatives — her platform includes comprehensive immigration reform and a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, for example.
But Klobuchar wants Americans to see her as a down-to-earth Midwesterner whose combination of experience as a county district attorney followed by 14 years in the Senate gives her an understanding of both kitchen-table issues and the workings of Washington. She projects a folksy image, quick to talk about her grandfather the miner or, in relation to her moderate gun policies, how she doesn’t want to do anything that will “hurt my Uncle Dick in his deer stand.”
She lists her top three priorities as building a strong ladder for the working and middle classes, addressing climate change and reforming immigration both to restore American values toward newcomers and to strengthen the workforce.
Immigration
In a detailed plan for her first 100 days in office, Klobuchar promises to undo President Donald Trump’s attempts to deport “Dreamers” and immigrants who have received temporary protected status. She further says she would “jump-start” a discussion on comprehensive immigration reform toward approving a plan in her first year in office — regardless of whether Republicans remain in control of the Senate. Klobuchar said she worked with GOP colleagues in passing an immigration reform bill in 2013, which dead-ended in the House, and she can do so again. She said Republicans were ready to move on “Dreamers” and temporary workers before getting “completely gut-punched by Trump.” Among the elements of the comprehensive reform Klobuchar favors: providing due-process protections for immigrants, increasing availability of non-immigrant workers to supplement the workforce, relaxing limitations on family and employment-based visas to meet workforce needs in understaffed industries, and providing legal status to 11 million long-term undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.
“My pitch (on comprehensive reform) is it brings the deficit down by $158 billion in 10 years,” she said, adding that she would steer at least a portion of those savings into aid for the Central America’s Northern Triangle countries and to help Mexico fight cartel violence and boost its economy.
“All of this would be so much better than this Trump policy right now, which is just pure chaos and using immigrants as pawns,” she said.
Klobuchar describes herself as one of the only candidates who discusses comprehensive reform consistently on the campaign trail.
“People get it, because it’s an economic need,” she said. “And I think that when you talk about it that way, you bring the issue out from where Trump wants it. Trump wants the whole issue to be about his wall and security. And obviously that’s part of it, but you bring the issue out to this economic imperative.
“And you’re going to start getting a whole lot of support when people start worrying that there’s no one who’s going to be in the nursing home to take care of their mom, and that this would be a way to get workers. “
Gun safety
Like her Democratic opponents, Klobuchar calls for such measures as an assault weapons ban, universal background checks, a ban on high-capacity magazines and a red flag law that would allow weapons to be seized from individuals who are legally deemed a danger to themselves or others.
She believes that in the aftermath of so many mass shootings in recent years, including Las Vegas, Parkland, Fla., and Sandy Hook, the NRA’s grip on Congress has been weakened by public support for the kind of measures she’s proposing.
“If we put someone who heads up the ticket who has the ability to bring the states with her — and I’m talking about the Senate races just like you did in Nevada (with the election of two moderate Democrats in recent years) along with what could happen in Arizona and Colorado and Maine and elsewhere — I think this will be one of the top five or 10 issues that will bring people out to vote and will get people elected who can change this.”
Klobuchar also believes she can show a combination of leadership and empathy on the issue that will help her build consensus. She describes meeting with gun violence survivors and family members, including a Sandy Hook parent whose story of her child’s bond with a school aide who helped with his autism stuck with Klobuchar.
“She was sitting in the fire station, and one by one the kids came in, and the parents who were left in that fire station in Connecticut knew they’d never see their kids again,” she said. “This parent was sobbing in the fire station and knows she’s lost her son, and she had this momentary thought of that school aide because she knew that she’d never leave his side. And when they found them, she had her arms around that little boy.
“I had to tell those parents that we didn’t have the votes (for reforms). And what I’ve found different since that moment, which I still thought was the least courageous Senate I’d ever seen when those parents had the courage to come in to try to pass that bill, is that a lot of younger people and hunting families and others started to think about this differently.”
But unlike some of her opponents, she does not call for any type of gun registration or a licensing requirement for gun ownership. She believes that by sticking with background checks, an assault weapons ban, etc., she can forge progress.
“I look at all of these things and say, does it hurt my Uncle Dick in his deer stand?” she said. “I think you have to have that approach if you’re going to bring people with you to get it passed. So do you look at those things in the future? Yeah, but I’m looking at the fact that we have not yet passed one bill federally — not even a red flag law,” she said. Her point: Registration and licensing aren’t politically feasible for now but may become so as public opinion continues shifting on gun violence.
Education
Klobuchar calls for free community college and trade schools, and not just for young people but for individuals of all ages. It’s an intriguing idea that ties into her economy and jobs plans, designed to help retrain the workforce for 21st century jobs.
“For me, this comes from the heart: My dad went to a two-year community college,” she said. “My grandfather, who was a miner, saved money in a coffee can in the basement to send him there. And then from there, my dad went to the University of Minnesota and got a journalism degree and ended up being a newspaperman his whole life. My sister didn’t graduate from high school and ended up getting her GED and working in manufacturing for a while, then got a two-year degree and went on to get a four-year degree in accounting.
“So during the last debate, I told my colleagues they weren’t thinking big enough because I know they have this bumper sticker solution, free college for all, but I just don’t think that’s the answer for our economy. “
She wouldn’t make four-year schools free, however, but rather would expand Pell grants for college students from lower- and middle-income families. “I acknowledge there will be many openings for four-year jobs. We’re going to have over a million openings for home health care workers, over 100,000 openings for nursing assistants and over 75,000 openings for electricians. We’re not going to have a shortage of MBAs or sports marketing degrees, we’re going to have a shortage of plumbers,” she said. “So that’s what’s led me to the emphasis on one- and two-year degrees.”
Economy
In addition to free community college and vocational education, Klobuchar’s plan includes investment on green energy infrastructure, tax credits for retraining workers displaced by automation and similar support for out-of-work Americans from the fossil fuels industry.
She also offers plans to offer tax incentives to spark manufacturing in rural areas, as well as indexed income caps on commodity payments to benefit small farmers.
In her first 100 days, she said she would work to raise the federal minimum wage (to $15 an hour) and roll back some of the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy.
Climate change
Klobuchar’s plan includes returning the U.S. to the Paris climate accords, restoring clean power standards, undoing Trump’s rollbacks of fuel mileage standards and introducing legislation to put a price on carbon. She also calls for the sale of clean energy bonds to raise up to $150 billion for green power initiatives.
It’s part of a $1 trillion investment over 10 years to curb climate change, which ties into her infrastructure plan by providing funding for solar generation, battery storage, charging stations, etc.
Klobuchar also supports a national renewable portfolio standard of 100% by 2050, meaning all of the nation’s energy would come from renewable sources by that year.
Health care
Klobuchar would retain private insurance while allowing individuals to buy into a public option to participate in Medicare or Medicaid.
In explaining why she supports private plans, she cites concerns like those raised by the Culinary Union, whose members fought for good coverage and don’t want to give it up.
“That was one thing their employees really value,” she said. “And it’s not just a union issue, because 149 million Americans under Medicare for All would be kicked off their current health insurance.”
Klobuchar also calls for expanding ACA, including increasing subsidies and tax breaks for small businesses to allow them to provide plans for their employees. She would fund the expansion partly by restoring the Obama-level tax rates on the top two income brackets.
“It’s politically doable, and is not a pipe dream,” she said, adding that polling shows support for the ACA while she and two-thirds of her congressional Democratic colleagues oppose Medicare for All.
Further, she offers detailed plans on addressing shortages of health care providers in low-income urban areas and rural areas, including support of congressional legislation that would establish employment protections and a streamlined pathway to a green card for foreign students who obtain their medical degrees in the U.S.
Infrastructure
Klobuchar proposes spending $1 trillion on a combination of federal funds, tax subsidies and loan guarantees for state and local governments on a variety of needs — roads and bridges, water systems, internet access, public transit, schools and more. She touts her experience in getting bipartisan support to obtain $250 million in emergency funding to rebuild the Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis after it collapsed in 2007. She brags that it took just 13 months to get the bridge rebuilt. The spending package would be largely funded by an increase in corporate taxes.
In conclusion
Under a Klobuchar administration, the nation would be served by a president determined to forge breakthroughs on issues that have polarized Americans, such as immigration and gun safety, by pushing for solutions that she believes have bipartisan support but have been scuttled amid Trump extremism. She is a capable, experienced legislator who knows Washington and has worked across the aisle.
