- Amy
Klobuchar
« Reform
Our
Democracy
Amy for America
For Immediate Release
September 14, 2019
Senator Klobuchar Releases Plan to Reform Our Democracy
MINNEAPOLIS,
MN – The right to vote has been hard-fought
and hard-won. Right now, insidious forces are working to take that
right away. There are those who suppress the vote with intimidation,
repress our voices with dark money, and refuse to address foreign
attacks on our elections.
Not
Senator Klobuchar.
Senator
Klobuchar believes it’s time to take back our democracy. She’s leading
the effort in Congress to automatically register every American to vote
when they turn 18, and she has fought for the passage of legislation
that would restore the Voting Rights Act to take on discrimination at
the polls. She’s also worked to get dark money out of politics and in
her first month as a Senator, she helped lead the successful push for
meaningful ethics reform in Congress.
At the same time, Senator Klobuchar is working to make it harder for
foreign adversaries to interfere in our elections. In 2018, she secured
$380 million in election security funds so states could improve their
election infrastructure and protect their elections from attacks by
foreign adversaries. And she’s leading legislation in the Senate to
protect our elections with backup paper ballots, election audits, and
accountability for political ads on the internet.
Senator
Klobuchar has pledged that the For the People Act -- legislation that
has thirteen of Senator Klobuchar’s legislative provisions -- will be
the first bill she sends to Congress as President.
She
will
also champion a voting rights and democracy reform package that:
Eliminates
obstacles to voting and makes it easier to vote by
-
Spearheading automatic voter registration for all eligible citizens on their eighteenth birthday by passing and signing into law Senator Klobuchar’s Register America to Vote Act
-
Restoring the Voting Rights Act protections for voters in states with a recent history of discrimination
-
Breaking down institutional barriers to voting, promoting early voting, and prohibiting states from purging voters from rolls for not voting in recent elections by passing and signing into law Senator Klobuchar’s SAVE VOTERS Act
-
Establishing minimum notification requirements for voters affected by polling place changes
-
Designating election day as a federal holiday
-
Working with states to assist voters with disabilities
-
Passing Same Day Registration to require states to allow people to register to vote on the same day as the election by passing and signing into law Senator Klobuchar’s Same Day Registration Act
Ensures elections are free and fair by
-
Restoring citizens’ right to vote after being released from incarceration.
-
Ending partisan gerrymandering
-
Requiring backup paper ballots and providing election security grants to states for cyber improvements and audits as part of the Election Security Act -- an effort Senator Klobuchar has led and continues to lead in the Senate
-
Ensuring accountability for political ads on the internet by passing and signing into law Senator Klobuchar’s bipartisan Honest Ads Act
-
Ensuring ballots are counted from Americans serving in the military and their family members
-
Combating foreign interference campaigns by improving media literacy education that teaches students skills to identify misinformation online
Overhauls our campaign finance system by
-
Supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United
-
Establishing a campaign finance system to increase the power of small donors through a multiple matching system for small donations
In
addition, Senator Klobuchar has laid out a plan for her first 100 days
that includes executive action she can take to strengthen our democracy
immediately:
Revive
the
aggressive protection of voting rights. Senator
Klobuchar will restore the federal government’s longstanding position
of challenging intentionally racially discriminatory voting laws. And
while Congress works to restore the Voting Rights Act (VRA),
Senator Klobuchar will direct the Department of Justice to use Section
3 of the VRA to “bail-in” jurisdictions to its preclearance
requirements, allowing federal courts to place jurisdictions under the
oversight requirement of the VRA.
Prioritize
cybersecurity
and protect our elections and other American
infrastructure from cyber attack. As President, Senator
Klobuchar will make cybersecurity an immediate priority. She will issue
an Executive Order launching government-wide cybersecurity initiatives,
fast-tracking and streamlining procurement of modern information
technology across agencies. She will also launch a cabinet-level
taskforce on election cybersecurity to coordinate across agencies,
including the intelligence community, on how the federal government can
work with state and local governments to address cyber threats to our
democracy and infrastructure. She will also introduce legislation that
provides election security funding, requires backup paper ballots, and
requires campaigns to report contacts from foreign nationals seeking to
interfere in an election to federal authorities.
Impose
full
sanctions on Russia for hostile act against the United States and
its allies. In 2017, Congress passed legislation
providing additional authorities for the President to impose sanctions
on Russia in response to its election interference and other aggressive
actions. The Trump Administration has resisted full implementation of
these sanctions. Senator Klobuchar will use these authorities to the
fullest extent possible to impose serious costs on the Putin regime and
its enablers for hostile acts against the United States and our allies.
Shine
a
light on the corporate dark money spending. Senator
Klobuchar will shine a light on the dark money by requiring publicly
traded companies to disclose all political spending over $10,000 to
their shareholders.
Bring
transparency
to dark money issue advocacy. Senator
Klobuchar will direct the IRS to institute the requirement that
tax-exempt organizations that engage in issue advocacy disclose to the
IRS the names of individual donors who contribute more than $5,000 per
year.
Restore
protections
for journalists and protect the First Amendment. Senator
Klobuchar
will
restore
former Attorney General Eric Holder’s guidance
on protections for journalists so that they are not jailed for doing
their jobs.
Overhaul
ethics
rules for White House employees and other senior officials. Senator
Klobuchar
will
make
clear that the President and Vice President must
follow our conflict of interest laws, do more to investigate foreign
agents who lobby in the United States, give the Office of Government
Ethics more enforcement power, and provide additional protections for
all Special Counsels.
Ensure
that
the President is not above the law. Senator
Klobuchar will instruct the Justice Department to withdraw the Office
of Legal Counsel’s opinions prohibiting the indictment of a sitting
president.
Fill
judicial
vacancies by nominating well-qualified judges on day one. Senator
Klobuchar
will
waste
no time in working with the Senate and the
American Bar Association to nominate a full slate of well-qualified
judges who will follow the law to fill judicial vacancies on federal
courts on day one of her presidency.
###