Chris Dodd in The Contenders
On Abortion:
Partial birth abortion ban needs maternal health exception
Dodd has a progressive voting record on abortion & reproductive rights.
He opposed the ban on so-called partial birth abortions because it does not include an exception to protect a woman’s health.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p.173
Nov 11, 2007
On Corporations:
Reliable vote for banking & insurance industries
Dodd’s [Senate vote] reliably corporate-friendly when it comes to the industries that matter most to him. The banking, investment, and insurance industries can count
Dodd among their best friends on the left side of the aisle--and he, in turn, can count them among his leading campaign contributors. In the 2008 primary field, he stands out as the candidate of Wall Street.In his election to Congress in 1974,
Dodd represented Connecticut’s fairly conservative (and often Republican) second district, of the state’s eastern end. In 1980, he moved on to the
Senate, thus expanding his constituency to include the bankers and brokers of the wealthy New York suburbs, and the insurance industry long based around Hartford.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p.171-172
Nov 11, 2007
On Corporations:
Co-sponsored bill to make suing corporations harder
Dodd has grown closer to Wall Street financial interests, doing the grunt work on Capitol Hill for legislation that reduces government oversight. He was an important player in the transformations of the 1990s, when banks and securities firms merged, and
when the credit card became a principal means of debt financing the United States.Dodd was an original co-sponsor of 1995 legislation making it more difficult for people to sue corporations, allowing judges to decide which plaintiffs were worthy, and
limiting judgments in cases where the companies could successfully claim they didn’t know they were committing fraud. His defining moment came when Bill Clinton vetoed the bill. As the Journal of Accountancy noted, “perhaps the bill’s strongest supporter
in Congress, Senator Christopher J. Dodd urged both House and Senate Democrats to override Clinton’s veto, even if it amounted to a defeat of the intent of his own party’s president.”
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p.174
Nov 11, 2007
On Corporations:
Advocated against extreme predatory lending practices
Dodd’s [pro-corporate] record is not entirely one-sided. He has taken positions against extreme predatory lending practices, for example, and he voted against the 2005 bankruptcy bill, which was considered a gift to the credit card lenders at the expense
of consumers.But his close ties to the financial sector remain troubling, all the more so in view of his recent ascendancy to the chair of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, giving him oversight of the banking, financial services, and insurance
industries. On the eve of the Democratic takeover of Congress (and of Dodd’s announcement of his candidacy), a government watchdog group said, “It’s a tightrope walk when you’re the chairman of a committee that regulates the industry that gives the most
money to politics, in general. It has to be tempting to take a lot of money from the industry, because they want to give it so much.” Dodd, clearly, has long given in to temptation.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p.175
Nov 11, 2007
On Foreign Policy:
Accommodating with Cuba, Sandanistas, & Hugo Chavez
On foreign policy, Dodd has been known for his keen interest in Latin America, first developed during his Peace Corps tears in the Dominican Republic. He has advocated a path of more accommodation with Cuba, opposed support for the military junta in
El Salvador and the Contras in Nicaragua, and argued that Sandanistas were a legitimate democratic government. He met with Hugo Chavez in 2005 and called for an easing of tensions between the US and Venezuela.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p.172
Nov 11, 2007
On Health Care:
Focus on government support for private insurance
Dodd’s healthcare plan depends on expanding government support for health insurance coverage--in effect, corporate welfare for the insurance industry. Dodd has taken liberal positions on the funding of the welfare state, and he seeks to depict himself as
a champion of ordinary low- and middle-income Americans. But Dodd is tightly bound to Wall Street. Connecticut long served as home to insurance companies, and like all politicians from that state, he pays them obeisance.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p.173
Nov 11, 2007
On Homeland Security:
Co-sponsored “Restoring the Constitution Act” to ban torture
On civil liberties, Dodd co-sponsored the “Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007,” which restores Habeas Corpus rights, bars evidence gained through torture of coercion, and reinstates US adherence to the
Geneva Conventions in order to protect the nation’s military personnel abroad.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p.173
Nov 11, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Father, Thomas Dodd, was Senator too
Like George W. Bush, Dodd was born into a well-known Connecticut political family, though one of considerably more modest means.
Dodd’s father, Thomas J. Dodd, served two terms in the Senate between 1954 and 1970 (interrupted by a loss to George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush).
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p.171
Nov 11, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Served as DNC chair from 1995 to 1997
Christopher Dodd has sought to position himself as a “fresh face with experience,” turning his relative anonymity into a virtue and suggesting that he represents some sort of alternative to the leading candidates.
But the senior senator from Connecticut is in fact a consummate Democratic political insider. An ebullient Irish American politician somewhat in the mold of Ted Kennedy and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he has become a powerful force in the Senate.
Now in his fifth Senate term (following three terms in the House), Dodd has occupied important committee seats and is considered a formidable dealmaker.
He chaired the Democratic National Committee during the heart of the Clinton years, from 1995 to 1997.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p.171
Nov 11, 2007