Trump: "You don't have to have voter ID to now go in & vote and it's a little bit scary." Trump says without voter ID, "people are going to walk in, they are going to vote 10 times maybe. Who knows?"
Clinton called for universal and automatic voter registration and a 20-day (or more) period of early voting in every state, before every election. Clinton's speech identified the work of protecting and expanding voting rights as a critical part of her campaign. Clinton talked about the fact that African Americans consistently rank among the most deeply affected by the contours of Voter ID laws, must wait in the longest lines on Election Day and cast ballots at polling sites that very often house fewer machines and poll workers than other sites. That, Clinton told the crowd, "is no accident."
Clinton called for universal and automatic voter registration and a 20-day (or more) period of early voting in every state, before every election. Clinton's speech identified the work of protecting and expanding voting rights as a critical part of her campaign. Clinton talked about the fact that African Americans consistently rank among the most deeply affected by the contours of Voter ID laws, must wait in the longest lines on Election Day and cast ballots at polling sites that very often house fewer machines and poll workers than other sites. That, Clinton told the crowd, "is no accident."
Trump: "You don't have to have voter ID to now go in and vote and it's a little bit scary." Trump says without voter ID, "people are going to walk in, they are going to vote 10 times maybe. Who knows?"
Johnson: Agree.
Stein: "We call for a constitutional right to vote, which would make these voter ID laws obsolete and impossible. We would ensure that every voter has the right to vote." From the 2016 Green Party platform: "Enact a national 'right to vote' law or constitutional amendment to guarantee universal, automatic, permanent voter registration, along with fail-safe voting procedures, so that eligible voters whose names are not on the voter rolls or whose information is out-of-date can correct the rolls and vote on the same day."
Clinton called for universal and automatic voter registration and a 20-day (or more) period of early voting in every state, before every election. Clinton talked about the fact that African Americans consistently rank among the most deeply affected by the contours of Voter ID laws.
Evan McMullin's answer: Yes
Mike Pence has not answered this question yet.
Tim Kaine's answer: Yes, term limits will increase performance and prevent corruption
Q: Should political candidates be required to release their recent tax returns to the public?
Evan McMullin's answer: Yes
Tim Kaine has not answered this question yet.
Mike Pence has not answered this question yet.
Q: Should the presidential debates include candidates with less than 15% of support in national polls?
Evan McMullin's answer: YesMike Pence has not answered this question yet.
Tim Kaine has not answered this question yet.
Evan McMullin's answer: Yes
Mike Pence's answer: Yes
Donald Trump's answer: Yes, this will prevent voter fraud
Darrell Castle's answer (Constitution Party): Yes, this will prevent voter fraud
Tim Kaine's answer: No
Gary Johnson's answer: No
Tim Kaine's answer: Yes, term limits will increase performance and prevent corruption
Mike Pence has not answered this question yet.
Evan McMullin's answer: Yes
Q: Should political candidates be required to release their recent tax returns to the public?
Tim Kaine has not answered this question yet.
Mike Pence has not answered this question yet.
Evan McMullin's answer: Yes
Q: Should the presidential debates include candidates with less than 15% of support in national polls?
Tim Kaine has not answered this question yet.
Mike Pence has not answered this question yet.
Evan McMullin's answer: Yes
Tim Kaine's answer: No
Mike Pence's answer: Yes
Donald Trump's answer: Yes, this will prevent voter fraud
Gary Johnson's answer: No
Evan McMullin's answer: Yes
Darrell Castle's answer (Constitution Party): Yes, this will prevent voter fraud
Despite quickly abandoning the plan, Pence's project set the media world ablaze, and drew comparisons to government-backed news outlets in communist countries.
Darrell Castle's answer: Yes, this will prevent voter fraud
Gary Johnson's answer: No
Donald Trump's answer: Yes, this will prevent voter fraud
Q: Should convicted felons have the right to vote?
Darrell Castle's answer: Yes, but only after completing their sentences and parole/probation
Gary Johnson's answer: Yes
Donald Trump's answer: No
Baraka says that the Green Party is an ideal hub for him to continue to work towards his objective of a radical, racial democratic governance that responds to the needs of the people, rather than ignore them as the two major political parties have historically done. "One of the reasons why I joined this campaign is that Jill Stein sees that in order to build this new movement in the U.S., that a critical component of that has to be the revitalized Black liberation movement, grounded in the working class," he added.
"The future of the Republican party," McMullin claimed, lay in placing the power of the Fed back into the hands of the people and their relatively responsive state governments. McMullin noted in passing that this would not be accomplished by a program of free college for all, but would be better served by modernizing and refashioning the American education system so that it was more practical and less expensive.
FIORINA: The way to bridge difference, the way to negotiate a good deal--you start out by stating very clearly what your principles are, what you must have, what your walk away position is. And then you enter into an open-minded spirit of collaboration about everything else and try to find common ground. On the other hand, there are some issues about which there really is broad bipartisan agreement and yet nothing gets done. How long have we been talking about broad bipartisan reform for tax reform? It doesn't happen. Everyone says they want to secure the border. It doesn't happen. Everybody says our VA is a scandal. Nothing changes.
CHRISTIE: Well, I think that's why they're not working together. Because they want to burn Congress down because it doesn't do anything. I mean let's face it, I was out on the trails, you know, a lot in 2014, helping governors candidates and Senate candidates to get elected. What have these guys done, these Senate candidates, new senators, that they promised to do? We don't have tax reform on the President's desk. We don't have a repeal and a replacement of Obamacare on the desk. We don't have any of the things that they ran on, on the desk. Make the president veto them. This is why people can't stand Congress.
CHRISTIE: The same thing that I've been doing every day, both as US attorney and as governor for the last 13 years, hold myself to the highest standards, and if mistakes are made, to hold the people responsible who make those mistakes, and to discuss it with the public openly and transparently. And remember this; everything I said 18 months ago in a two hour press conference, after three investigations, not one thing has been contradicted that I said.
Q: So the long-term effect of BridgeGate?
CHRISTIE: People love to make a big deal about this stuff, but in the end it's how you react. And I wish Barack Obama might have reacted the right way to the IRS scandal and been more transparent. But he hasn't, and that's a failure of leadership. This President's allowed lawlessness. I'll enforce law and order in this country as president of the US.
So we need to reform these programs and we can do it and we can do it in a way that's not going to throw anybody off the cliff.
CHRISTIE: No. I don't think we should elect Supreme Court Justices. What we do in New Jersey, which I think is something that folks can consider is we appoint our justices for a seven-year term. And then after seven years, the governor has the opportunity to again consider whether to nominate them then for a lifetime tenure. I don't want to see judges raising money and running for election. I would, though, trust the executive after seven years, like we do in New Jersey, to decide whether or not to reappoint people. I'm the first governor in New Jersey's constitutional history to not reappoint two supreme court justices. I wanted to go in another direction. That can work. I've done it in New Jersey. But I don't believe we should be putting judges on the ballot. I just disagree with Senator Cruz.
HUCKABEE: Well, it depends on which level of government. If the state government of South Carolina wishes to address an issue in their state, that's fine. But if you can point me to an article and section of the Constitution in which a United States president ought to weigh in on what states use as symbols, then please refresh my memory on that. But for those of us running for president, everyone's being baited with this question as if somehow that has anything to do whatsoever with running for president. And my position is: It most certainly does not.
Carson suggested people would work harder if they suspected their coworkers of monitoring their work. "And we make it possible to fire government people!" he said to loud cheers. It's true that firing government employees who underperform can be notoriously complicated--so much so that most agencies don't even try to do it, a GAO report found earlier this year.
A spokesperson clarified Carson's comments: "Covert division? More like Secret Shopper, a quality control strategy used worldwide to improve customer service and customer care."
A: Judicial review is actually what we've operated under. We have not operated under judicial supremacy. The notion that the Supreme Court comes up with the ruling and that automatically subjects the two other branches to following it defies everything there is about the three equal branches of government.
Q: Are you saying that it's up in the air as to whether you're going to obey the Supreme Court?
A: Well, the president has to follow whatever the law is. It's a matter of balanc of power. If the Supreme Court could just make a ruling and everybody has to bow down and fall on their faces and worship that law, it isn't a law because it hasn't been yet passed.
CARSON: Well, what I said is the president doesn't have to agree with it.
Q: No, of course not. But does he have to enforce it?
CARSON: The way our Constitution is set up, the president or the executive branch is obligated to carry out the laws of the land. The laws of the land, according to our Constitution, are provided by the legislative branch.
Q: But, since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, we have lived under the principle of judicial review: if the Supreme Court says this is the law, this is constitutional, the executive has to observe that.
CARSON: This is an area we need to discuss, because it has changed from the original intent.
Q: So, you're saying this is an open question as far as you're concerned?
CARSON: It is an open question. It needs to be discussed.
So, if we want mainstream and the middle class going and growing again, we've got to get small and family-owned businesses growing again. Washington has become a vast unaccountable bureaucracy. It's been growing for 40 years. We have no idea how our money is spent.
There are two things that would help tremendously. One, zero base budgeting, so we know where the money is spent. We're talking about the whole budget and not just the rate of increase. And two, pay for performance in our civil service.
SANTORUM: What the president did was open up Pandora's box for every president in the future to say, "you know, Congress, if you're not going to work with me, then I'm not going to enforce the law, and beyond that, I'm going to actually create new law."
Q: So if it sets that terrible of a precedent and is unconstitutional, why not impeach?
SANTORUM: I believe that the Republicans--and I hope Democrats--would do something very strong in response.
Q: Like what?
SANTORUM: Well, they're suing the president. And they should go to the Supreme Court immediately.
Q: Court suits take a long time.
SANTORUM: Well, hopefully, you can get an expedited hearing on something of this significance. Secondly, I think they should try to defund this. They have the power in the Congress.
Q: But you're not talking impeachment?
SANTORUM: I know some people have talked about censure.
(VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: The actions I'm taking are not only lawful, they're the kinds of actions taking by every single Republican president and every single Democratic president for the past half century.
Q: Senator, Presidents Reagan and Bush 41 took executive action to grant legal status to about a million and a half people who are in this country illegally. What's the difference?
CRUZ: The difference between Reagan and Bush is both of them were working with Congress and implementing congressional statutes. Congress can change the immigration law and the president can put congressional will into effect. The difference here is this is not a president who wants to work with Congress. Rather, this is a president who is openly defying Congress. [This] stops having a constitutional system of checks & balances, and we move just to unilateral executive authority. It's the power of a monarch
MIKE ROUNDS: Washington's dysfunctional. It's got to be fixed. America is not broken, but Washington is. And part of it says is that South Dakota common sense can help. It means you work side by side with other people to get the job done. I think the Republican majority now has an opportunity to show that we can actually govern, we can put together an agenda, and we can execute on it. That means getting results. It means you go back in and you take up on ObamaCare. You pass the Keystone X
PAUL: I have mixed feelings. When I go in a government building, I have got to show my driver's license. So, I am not really opposed to it. I am opposed to it as a campaign theme. If you want to get the African-American vote, they think that this is suppression somehow and it's a terrible thing. I really think that we should restore the voting rights of those who had a previous conviction; that's where the real voting problem is. I'm not against early voting. I grew in Texas. We voted early for a month or two before elections for probably 20 years, and Texas is still a Republican state. But it's perception. The Republicans have to get beyond this perception that they don't want African-Americans to vote. Now, I don't think it's true. I'm not saying it's true. But by being for all these things, it reinforces a stereotype that we need to break down.
SANDERS: The Koch brothers and the other billionaires are going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. That is not a way you bring about change. We've got to mobilize the American people.
Q: If a billionaire agrees with you on issues are you okay with them participating in the process?
SANDERS: I think Citizens United will go down in history as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever. I think it is opening up the road to oligarchy, where the billionaires, like the Koch brothers--
Q: Left or right?
SANDERS: Left or right, but it's mostly right. It will always be. The Koch brothers are going to spend $400 million. Do you know what their agenda is? They want to end Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. More tax breaks for the rich and large corporations. Nobody in America wants that except the billionaire class. This is a real danger to American democracy.
SEN. WARREN. Yeah.
Q: So what is your solution?
WARREN: Washington works for anyone who can hire an army of lobbyists and lawyers. It just doesn't work for regular families. They've got the concentration of money and power that makes sure that every rule works for those who are rich. What we have on the other side, is we've only got two things. We've got our voices and we've got our votes. And we've got to make sure we get heard. That's the only way we ever get a level playing field.
Q: Is your fight with President Obama or is it with the Republicans?
WARREN: I have had very strong and frankly, pretty public, disagreements with both the Bush administration and with the current administration particularly during the financial bailout over the treatment of the biggest banks. My view was there was too much--and still is--too much of tilting the playing field in their favor.
Gingrich added, "The next step is the one Justice Clarence Thomas cited--candidates should be allowed to take unlimited amounts of money from anybody. And you would, overnight, equalize the middle class and the rich."
Q: Your predecessor Mayor Richard Daley was in office for 22 years. What was it like taking over a city when one man had so much control for so long?
EMANUEL: He was a great mayor. There are things he did that I would do differently. He acknowledged the public was ready for a change.
Q: Do you think someone should be able to be mayor for that long?
EMANUEL: I don't know. My position on term limits is called elections.
Q: Bill Clinton would still be president.
EMANUEL: Well, that is true.
One of the great tragedies that we face today politically is that most people have given up on the political process. They understand the political deck is stacked against them. They think there is no particular reason for them to come out and vote--and they don't.
RYAN: It's not the number of executive orders, it's the scope of the executive orders. It's the fact that he is actually contradicting law like in the health care case, or proposing new laws without going through congress.
Q: So you think he's violating the constitution?
RYAN: We have an increasingly lawless presidency where he is actually doing the job of congress, writing new policies & new laws without going through congress. Presidents don't write laws, congress does. That's not his job.
Q: But if you think he's lawless, circumventing the constitution, are you going to move to impeach?
RYAN: No, I'm not. You have some court challenges going to the court this spring. But I think these executive orders are creating a dangerous trend.
PAUL: It sounds vaguely like a threat and I think it also has a certain amount of arrogance in the sense that one of the fundamental principles of our country were the checks and balances that it wasn't supposed to be easy to pass legislation. You had to debate and convince people. So, there's a lot of things the president's not allowed to do. President's not allowed to write or amend legislation. He's not allowed to initiate war. And he's not allowed to tell us when we're in recess and when we're not. He says, "oh, well, it's hard to get Congress to do anything." Well, yes, welcome to the real world. It's hard to convince people to get legislation through. It takes consensus. But that's what he needs to be doing is building consensus and not taking his pen and creating law.
CRUZ: Of course we should do something. We shouldn't just write a blank check. Five years ago, the national debt was $10 trillion. Today, it's over $17 trillion. It's grown nearly 70% with one president in five years. Ask any American outside of Washington, "Should we just keep raising the debt ceiling while doing nothing to have fundamental structural control of spending?" In the past, the debt ceiling has been the most effective lever point for real structural reforms whether it was Graham-Rudman, which did great job of getting government spending under control, or whether it was the Budget Control Act. Both of those came through the debt ceiling. And what the president is saying is he just wants a blank credit card to keep growing and growing the dealt. And I think that's irresponsible. I think it's irresponsible to our kids and grandkids to stick that debt on them, because we can't live within our means.
This reminds me of our federal government, which was once agile and responsive, but now is so large and cumbersome that it has difficulty with the simplest of tasks.
We now have a federal debt of $17 trillion, which continues to grow. The current administration proudly points out that it is growing slower now than before. Such a claim makes it clear that they do not appreciate the seriousness of our spending problem. If a balloon is so full of air that is about to burst, it would be far better to begin deflating the balloon than to put just a little more air into it.
POWELL: I would have preferred that they did not reach such a conclusion, but they did. The concern I have now is that many states are putting in place procedures that make it a little bit harder to vote. You need a photo ID. Well, you didn't need a photo ID for decades before. Is it really necessary now? And they claim that there is widespread abuse and voter fraud. But nothing substantiates that. There isn't widespread abuse. These kinds of procedures being put in place to slow the process down and make it likely that fewer Hispanics & African-Americans might vote I think are going to backfire because these people are going to come out and do what they have to do in order to vote. And I encourage that
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| 2020 Presidential contenders on Government Reform: | |||
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Democrats running for President:
Sen.Michael Bennet (D-CO) V.P.Joe Biden (D-DE) Mayor Mike Bloomberg (I-NYC) Gov.Steve Bullock (D-MT) Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-IN) Sen.Cory Booker (D-NJ) Secy.Julian Castro (D-TX) Gov.Lincoln Chafee (L-RI) Rep.John Delaney (D-MD) Rep.Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) Sen.Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) Gov.Deval Patrick (D-MA) Sen.Bernie Sanders (I-VT) CEO Tom Steyer (D-CA) Sen.Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) Marianne Williamson (D-CA) CEO Andrew Yang (D-NY) 2020 Third Party Candidates: Rep.Justin Amash (L-MI) CEO Don Blankenship (C-WV) Gov.Lincoln Chafee (L-RI) Howie Hawkins (G-NY) Gov.Jesse Ventura (I-MN) |
Republicans running for President:
V.P.Mike Pence(R-IN) Pres.Donald Trump(R-NY) Rep.Joe Walsh (R-IL) Gov.Bill Weld(R-MA & L-NY) 2020 Withdrawn Democratic Candidates: Sen.Stacey Abrams (D-GA) Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-NYC) Sen.Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) Sen.Mike Gravel (D-AK) Sen.Kamala Harris (D-CA) Gov.John Hickenlooper (D-CO) Gov.Jay Inslee (D-WA) Mayor Wayne Messam (D-FL) Rep.Seth Moulton (D-MA) Rep.Beto O`Rourke (D-TX) Rep.Tim Ryan (D-CA) Adm.Joe Sestak (D-PA) Rep.Eric Swalwell (D-CA) | ||
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