Bernie Sanders (D)

Con
Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed?

"I've always opposed the death penalty... Part of the need for real criminal justice reform is for the United States to do what virtually every other major country on earth is doing, and that is not to participate in murder itself. The state should not be involved in murdering. You have people who have committed horrific crimes, people who are dangerous, people should spend the rest of their lives behind bars. But I do not believe in capital punishment."

Con
Should the Use of Private Prisons Continue?

"[W]e will never be able to end mass incarceration until we ban private prisons and make it clear that our justice system exists to rehabilitate people, not to make money for corporations...

There are many ways we must go forward to fix our criminal justice system: abolishing cash bail and civil asset forfeiture, ending the school-to-prison pipeline, and making it easier for formerly incarcerated people to reintegrate into society, for starters. But we absolutely must end the existence of the private for-profit prison industry."

Con
Should the US Implement a Universal Basic Income (UBI)?

"Audience member: I know you've expressed support for Universal Basic Income in the past in your interviews. There's this guy Andrew Yang that wants to give everyone a thousand bucks a month.

Sanders: Nah. I got a better idea...

You’ve got an infrastructure which is crumbling. We can put millions of people to work doing that. Transforming our energy system in terms of weatherizing homes all over this country, building a more efficient transportation system. Putting more money into wind and solar and other sustainable technologies. We can create millions of jobs doing that.

We need more doctors in rural areas and in urban areas. We need more nurses. We have a dental crisis all over this country. We need to train dentists and get them out there. We need more social workers...

There is an enormous amount of work to be done. And what we believe in is guaranteeing a job in this country to anybody who is prepared to work. I think that's the better approach."

Con
Should For-Profit Charter Schools Receive Federal Funding?

"Charter schools are led by unaccountable, private bodies, and their growth has drained funding from the public school system.

Moreover, the proliferation of charter schools has disproportionately affected communities of color – 17 percent of charter schools are 99 percent minority, compared to 4 percent of traditional public schools...

As president, Bernie Sanders will fight to:

Ban for-profit charter schools and support the NAACP's moratorium on public funds for charter school expansion until a national audit has been completed to determine the impact of charter growth in each state. That means halting the use of public funds to underwrite new charter schools."

Con
Should 2020 Presidential Election Candidates Accept Support from Super PACs?

"As president, Bernie will fight to:

Pass a Constitutional Amendment that makes clear that money is not speech and corporations are not people...

Pass legislation to end super PACs, political spending by 501c4s and other organizations who accept unlimited contributions or do not disclose donors."

Con
Should Voters Be Required to Show Photo Identification in Order to Vote?

"Every American, regardless of income and race, must have the freedom to exercise their constitutional right to vote. To make sure every voter counts, we must: Abolish burdensome voter ID laws."

Con
Should the US Expand Fossil Fuel Extraction on Public Land?

"Keep fossil fuels on public lands in the ground. Scientists have been clear that in order to solve the climate crisis, we must leave fossil fuels in the ground. We will immediately end all new and existing fossil fuel extraction on federal public lands."

Con
Should Fracking Be Allowed?

"Fracking pollutes water, degrades air quality and worsens climate change. When we are in the White House we are going to ban fracking nationwide and rapidly move to renewable energy."

Con
Should the US Expand Its Use of Nuclear Power?

"[W]e got a heck of a lot of nuclear waste, which as you know is going to stay around this planet for many, many, many thousands of years. And you know what? We don't know how to get rid of it right now. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to add more dangerous waste to this country and to the world when we don't know how to get rid of what we have right now.

Number two, in terms of cost, the truth is that it costs a lot more to build a new nuclear power plant today than it does to go to solar or to go to wind. So I think that it is safer and more cost effective to move to sustainable energies like wind, solar, and geothermal, and not nuclear...

And I think if you talk to the people in Japan in terms of what happened at Fukushima, talk to the people in Russia what happened in Chernobyl, you know what, they may not feel so comfortable with nuclear power."

Con
Does the US Need to Increase the Military Budget to Improve National Security?

"The United States fields the most powerful military in the world, with unmatched power projection capability. Senator Sanders rejects the idea that U.S. national security suffered under President Obama as a result of the Budget Control Act's spending constraints... The United States can and should make prudent reductions to its military budget in order to support the needs of young, working, and elderly Americans. America's greatness stems from more than just its military budget."

Con
Should the US Have Withdrawn Troops from Northern Syria in Oct. 2019?

"The crisis here... is when you begin to betray people, in terms of the Kurds, 11,000 of them died fighting ISIS, 20,000 were wounded. And the United States said, 'We're with you, we're standing with you.' And then suddenly, one day after a phone call with Erdogan, announced by tweet, Trump reverses that policy.

Now, you tell me what country in the world will trust the word of the president of the United States. In other words, what he has done is wreck our ability to do foreign policy, to do military policy, because nobody in the world will believe this pathological liar."

Con
Should the US Continue to Build a Border Wall at the US/Mexico Border?

"I think the [border] wall is an absurd idea. I think it's a waste of money. It just fans Trump's illusions. No, I am not going to support $5 billion or money for a wall... Everybody is concerned about border security, but if you want to do border security intelligently and cost-effectively, you don't do it with a wall. There are much better approaches than that... We have a lot of needs in this country and spending $5 billion on a wall is not, to me, one of our priorities."

Con
Should the US End the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Policy?

"Bernie supported President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA). He will expand and fully implement these programs to provide security and stability to these families, using his full executive authority to provide relief for parents and caregivers of citizens and lawful permanent residents. He will go further, ensuring that the 85 percent of those undocumented immigrants who have lived, worked, and contributed in America for five or more years can live their life without fear of deportation. Bernie will use every executive tool available to remove barriers to legal permanent residence and naturalization for as many as possible, even if he has to sign every form by hand.

As president, Bernie will:

Immediately extend legal status to the 1.8 million young people currently eligible for the DACA program, and provide administrative relief to their parents, those with Temporary Protected Status, and parents of legal permanent residents.

• Expand to all those who came to the United States under the age of 18 and remove arbitrary cut off dates."

Con
Should Immigrants Who Entered the US Illegally Be Denied a Path to Citizenship?

"Our undocumented friends and neighbors have always been part of the fabric of this nation. They are in our communities, in our schools, working in our stores, homes, and fields, and striving to make a better life for themselves and their families. The American people overwhelmingly support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented individuals living in the United States. They believe that immigrants make this country stronger and contribute to the economy. Bernie believes that it is not a radical idea to enact the will of the people when in office. He will push Congress, immediately, to provide a legislative path to citizenship to bring 11 million people out of the shadows to make our communities safer, our economy stronger, and live up to the ideals of our nation."

Con
Should the Government Allow Businesses to Deny Services to LGBTQ+ Customers Using Religious Freedom Laws?

Human Rights Campaign Questionaire: "[S]ome federal and state lawmakers are seeking to pass legislation, like the First Amendment Defense Act, that would create loopholes that could be used to deny equal treatment to LGBTQ people based on so-called 'religious freedom' claims. Would you oppose efforts that allow individuals to use their religious beliefs as a justification to discriminate against LGBTQ people in the public sphere?"

Bernie Sanders: "Yes"