On the Issues

Congress can and must revoke the “emergency” authority Trump has used to impose a massive tariff tax on American consumers and companies, and reclaim its authority to regulate tariffs under the U.S. Constitution.

To lower the price of electricity, we must generate more of it. And virtually all recent additions to the supply of electricity have come from renewables — including solar, wind, and nuclear power — spurred by incentives created by the Inflation Reduction Act, which I helped pass in 2022. Yet Republicans have repealed parts of this law, driving the cost of electricity up. Congress must restore them while passing reasonable permitting reform. This will lower costs, slow climate change, and ensure that America leads the world to clean energy.

Most of the increased demand driving electricity prices up is coming from big AI data centers (with crypto “mining” also contributing). They should either generate their own power, or pay a price that mitigates the higher rates they’ve caused ordinary Americans to pay. Any subsidies for the AI industry should be tied to such steps, and Congress should prohibit states from engaging in a race-to-the-bottom contest to subsidize these industries.

Congress must restore Affordable Care Act tax credits that keep health insurance premiums down for everyone, reverse the Republicans’ cruel cuts to Medicaid, and crack down on insurance company practices that wrongly deny claims or coverage or make care unaffordable.

Health care is a human right, and access must be guaranteed. But simply subsidizing a health care system that costs us two or three times more than in any other advanced country will bankrupt America. To spur competition, Congress should give all Americans the freedom to buy into a public health care plan like Medicare. It should lower prescription drug costs by expanding the number of drugs subject to Medicare negotiation, and cut out middlemen that drive up costs without improving health. It should require the digitization of health records — all Americans should have a portable record of all their interactions with the health care system. And it should incentivize new ways of paying for treatments based on outcomes not volume.

Truly free markets keep costs down. But monopolies make everything more expensive. And today, a corrupt Trump administration is gutting anti-trust enforcement on behalf of its billionaire friends. For example, corporations like Union Pacific (which wants to monopolize freight rail supply chains in the U.S.) are seeking approval for mergers while contributing millions to Trump’s White House ballroom. Congress must strengthen pro-competition laws and conduct vigorous oversight of enforcement.

Congress should create incentives to reward state and local governments that enact reforms to increase supply, and decrease the cost, of housing, such as scaling back single family zoning, up-zoning near transit, ending minimum parking requirements, and legalizing accessory dwelling units, eliminate unnecessary red tape, stop private equity firms from buying up apartments, and protect renters from predatory fees and algorithmic pricing.

Congress should prohibit companies from using our personal data to set different prices for different people, or to offer different salaries to employees seeking the same job based on factors like personal debt.

The Trump administration has revoked President Biden’s rules capping bank overdraft and credit card late fees and making it easier for customers to cancel unwanted subscriptions. Congress should codify them into law.

Big companies are making it harder for customers and independent repair shops to get the tools, parts, and manuals needed to fix products people legally own — forcing them to buy new ones or to use expensive services controlled by the original manufacturer. Comprehensive legislation is needed to change this.

During my first stint in Congress, I was a leading champion of non-partisan redistricting, reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act, disclosing contributions to all groups trying to influence our elections, and repealing the Supreme Court decision that allows billionaires like Elon Musk to buy elections. I’ll continue to champion these reforms.

The Constitution grants Congress the power of the purse,  to set tariffs, and to oversee the use of our military. Congress must fight to preserve these powers, and give courts greater authority to police presidential overreach. We must also  elect representatives to Congress with the experience to use these powers effectively, including in foreign policy and national security.

We need more effective legal prohibitions against a president wielding the powers of the federal government to punish speech by private individuals and institutions, whether by threatening to sue journalists, deny federal funding to universities, or regulatory approvals to corporations, or visas to students or visitors to the United States. And we must limit corporate consolidation of the news media.

No laws against abuse of power or corruption can function if the president can order the Justice Department to prosecute his political enemies while ignoring criminality by his administration and its friends. Congress must codify the longstanding but unwritten rules prohibiting presidents from trying to influence prosecutorial and investigative decisions at the Justice Department. It should also fund and protect the entities in the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies charged with investigating corruption, domestic terrorism, and foreign interference in our democracy.

Congress should limit the president’s pardon powers to the extent possible under the Constitution, by increasing reporting requirements, creating a non-partisan pardon commission, enacting mandatory minimum sentences for anyone convicted and then pardoned for serious crimes if that person commits a federal crime again, and prohibiting such pardon recipients from obtaining federal employment. Congress should also strengthen criminal laws against seeking to buy pardons with campaign contributions or with payments to a president’s businesses.

Congress should prohibit federal agents from wearing masks, restrict overbearing military tactics and equipment in routine law enforcement operations, and defund any agency that defies court orders or allows politicization of its ranks. It should require the Pentagon to respect the laws of war, restore the functions of its Judge Advocates General, and stay away from domestic law enforcement and immigration operations.

When Democrats regain our majority, we should investigate everything from the administration’s shakedowns of foreign actors to buy Trump bitcoin, to its special favors to donors seeking relief from export controls, tariffs, and anti-trust rules, to the purchase of pardons. Investigative committees should prepare a list of the administration’s corrupt foreign enablers to be sanctioned by a future administration. House Democrats should warn the enablers of these schemes now of what is to come, to deter further corruption.

Congress should pass Rep. Jamie Raskin’s bill codifying the Constitution’s provision prohibiting presidents from accepting payments from foreign governments while in office and for two years after. It should impose a 100% tax on emoluments currently being received by the president.

Congress should seek to reinstate and strengthen the independence of the inspectors general charged with rooting out corruption and waste at executive branch agencies, as well as of the Office of Government Ethics.

Congress should earmark funds for and protect the independence of the Justice Department’s public corruption unit, and compel renewed enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Congress should pass Senator Whitehouse’s legislation establishing a binding ethics code for the Supreme Court.

Members of Congress and senior executive branch officials should be prohibited from trading stocks, or required to place any stock investments in a blind trust.

Congress should enact bipartisan legislation that I got through the House in 2022 that would make it harder for foreign kleptocrats to hide their money in the United States and to influence our political system.

Congress should turn the ballroom Trump is building with money extorted from corporations seeking his favor into a museum exploring the meaning and history of the American Constitution and its checks on abuse of power. Future visitors would see it as part of any White House tour and be reminded that America’s founding ideals and laws are larger than the presidency.

Thanks to a law Congress passed in the 1990s, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Big Tech platforms cannot be sued for the harm they do, even when there is evidence that their products have driven teens to commit suicide, or helped terrorist groups recruit members. Congress should repeal Section 230 for all online content that is amplified by social media algorithms.

The U.S. Surgeon General has said social media can be as harmful to young people as smoking or alcohol. Congress should require social media companies to turn off addictive features for users under 18, without exception.

Congress should give people the power to control how social media companies use and store their personal data, and to delete whatever information about us that is held and traded by data brokers.

America should lead the world to safe AI, instead of engaging in a race for dominance at any cost. Congress should:

• Require all AI systems to undergo thorough safety testing before they are released.

• Require all content generated by AI and released on public platforms to be labeled as AI, so that we are not deceived by fakes.

• Require AI companies to compensate the human beings — artists, writers, journalists, and researchers — who create the content AI systems train on to generate their outputs.

• Ensure that critical decisions that affect our lives, from what health care treatments are covered by insurance, to hiring, firing, and how we are treated in the workplace, are made with an accountable human being in the loop.

• Tax AI companies to create a fund to retrain people displaced by AI.

• Ensure that democracies lead in the development of AI through strict controls on the export of advanced chips to dictatorships like China and the Persian Gulf states.

• Require AI data centers to generate their own power or pay a price for the utilities they use that protects consumers from rate increases.

• Until the federal government enacts adequate national AI safeguards, there should be no restrictions on regulation by state governments.