Adam Schiff

Support for law enforcement that goes hand in hand with a greater investment in community violence prevention and substance abuse and mental health services is the most effective combination to keep our communities safe. I will continue my work to eliminate rape kit backlogs and support using DNA evidence to solve violent crime. We can crack down on organized crime like smash and grab robberies by expanding the use of federal, state and local task forces. I also support an increase in funding to combat the devastating fentanyl crisis, interdicting drugs at the border and going after drug smuggling organizations.

We must ban assault weapons and large capacity magazines, crack down on ghost guns, expand background check requirements and make them universal, raise the age to buy weapons of war, implement more gun buyback programs, and hold the gun lobby, manufacturers, and dealers accountable. My bill to repeal the gun industry’s immunity from liability is a top priority — which President Biden has said may be the most important effort to prevent gun deaths. Finally, we must ramp up mental health services to attack one of the top causes of gun deaths among young people — suicide.

First, we need comprehensive immigration reform. We should pass the U.S. Citizenship Act and create a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, including Dreamers, TPS holders, and farmworkers. Second, we need to surge resources to address the challenges at the border, and invest in more staff, judges, and interpreters to address the immigration and asylum case backlog so that cases can be adjudicated more quickly. And third, we must provide resources for communities along the border and elsewhere in the country so they can provide humanitarian support to asylum seekers while their petitions are resolved.

Yes. We must pass comprehensive immigration reform to keep families together and treat immigrants with fairness, dignity, and respect — not as political bargaining chips. Dreamers and frontline workers should have a clear path to citizenship. I support the U.S. Citizenship Act which would create a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, including Dreamers, TPS holders, and farmworkers. I also support the American Dream and Promise Act to create a permanent path for “dreamers.” In the Senate, I’ll fight tooth-and-nail to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

We absolutely need to increase the federal minimum wage to keep up with the realities of inflation and years of stagnant wage growth. I have been on the frontlines of the fight for $15 in Congress. Although each state does not have the same economic circumstances, I support a $20 minimum wage, indexed to inflation. I also support increasing the minimum wage for healthcare workers to $25 an hour. In order to accomplish this, we’ll need to abolish the filibuster and elect more Democrats to the Senate.

First, I’m going to fight to pass the PRO Act — the most pro-labor union legislation in a generation — so that unions are better able to collectively bargain, get a fair contract and enforce it. Second, I will work to ensure that as technology continues to transform the workplace, workers are not left behind, and change tax policies so that we bring good jobs back home. And third, I will insist that federal infrastructure dollars go to creating good paying union jobs with project labor agreements, prevailing wages, and local workers.

The twin crises of housing affordability and homelessness are inextricably tied together. A lack of supply of affordable housing is the single biggest driver of the homelessness crisis, even as it is also the single greatest challenge to working and middle-class families when they try to afford a place to live anywhere near where they work. We need to build significantly more housing and we need to do it expeditiously and more cost effectively.

First, we need to increase the supply of affordable housing by expanding the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and making a significant new federal direct investment in affordable housing. Second, we need to reduce the regulatory burden and the time it takes to build affordable housing by making sure local, state, or federal agencies respond promptly and prioritize applications to build new housing. And third, we need to strengthen protections for home buyers and remove barriers to homeownership for first-time buyers, as well as crack down on discriminatory practices that keep renters and home buyers out of the housing market.

I support humanitarian pauses in the fighting to allow aid into Gaza and to get hostages out, but cannot support a permanent ceasefire that would perpetuate Hamas terrorist control of Gaza while they are threatening to attack Israel again with the kind of barbarism we saw on Oct. 7, and while Hamas continues to hold hostages, including Americans. I also support the Biden administration’s efforts to urge Israel to make greater efforts to avoid civilian casualties and mourn the loss of innocent Palestinian civilians. The two-state solution will not be possible while a terrorist group continues to control Gaza.

Military involvement should be the last recourse and only when vital U.S. interests, and the security of our people, are implicated. Preventing fighting is far more important than intervening when war has broken out. Development assistance is also critical to reducing the conditions that give rise to conflict. The U.S. still plays an indispensable role in the world in promoting democracy and basic human rights, and we cannot retreat from the world, especially when a rising tide of autocracy threatens freedom everywhere. Our values must drive our decisions, and diplomacy and strategic engagement play the most important role.

I support efforts to right-size the Pentagon’s budget and ensure that the systems we invest in are ones the country truly needs — not ones that merely benefit the contractors who make or supply them. That’s why I have supported amendments to cut 10% of the Pentagon’s budget as well as the elimination of weapons systems the administration doesn’t need or want. At other times, I have opposed the defense bill altogether, because the spending was exorbitant, it depleted resources that might be devoted to other domestic priorities, or because it contained extreme partisan policy riders.

First, I’ll fight to dramatically increase incentives to develop renewable energy and new technologies that make America the unrivaled leader in the green economy, and that end incentives for the fossil fuel industry that is killing us and the planet. Second, I will fight to pass the Green New Deal by getting rid of the filibuster, which will help us secure hundreds of billions more in funding for renewable energy, create millions of green jobs, and end our reliance on fossil fuels. And third, I will fight to reform the partisan Supreme Court that is hell-bent on gutting environmental protections.

Absolutely. California has led the way, building our renewable energy sources quicker than expected, and creating a lot of new jobs in the process. We must move away from fossil fuels and transition to clean, renewable energy. The Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law made historic investments in clean energy infrastructure, but we must view these investments as just the first step. I will fight to invest in new green technologies, next generation batteries, more efficient solar systems, grid technology that incentivizes the transition to clean energy, and more.