Howie Hawkins (Grn)

Con
Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed?

"No."

Con
Should the Use of Private Prisons Continue?

"Most people care about right and wrong. The problem is that what most people want does not translate into public policy. We need system change that takes the profit-making and institutional racism out of the prison/industrial complex, including bail, private prisons, contracts for police equipment and public jails, and costly private lawyers. Bail bondsmen, private prison corporations, public contractors, and trial lawyers are among the biggest sources of private campaign financing, especially in local jurisdictions where the overwhelming majority of criminal prosecutions take place."

Con
Should the Government Regulate Social Media Sites to Prevent Fake News and Misinformation?

No. The state will then have the power to silence government critics. The ways to counter social media misinformation are the same ones we should employ in relation to any open, democratic news platforms such as print media and TV and radio broadcasters: teach critical thinking and news literacy in public schools, promote strong professional journalism, and expose misinformation in credible news sources.

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

"The income guarantee we will enact is often called the Negative Income Tax (NIT). We prefer it to the Universal Basic Income (UBI) because it targets the benefits to those who need it, provides a sufficient benefit to end poverty, and costs a fraction of a UBI."

Con
Should For-Profit Charter Schools Receive Federal Funding?

"I would end federal policies and incentives that support the privatization of public schools in the form of privately-managed charter schools. I would end high-stakes testing that is the leading edge of the privatization policy. The charter schools are undermining public school finances and increasing race and class segregation."

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

"But public campaign finance will still be overwhelmed by SuperPAC independent expenditures, Dark Money spent by nonprofits using undisclosed donors’ money, and super-rich people spending unlimited funds on their own campaigns. In order to establish that we, the people, through our elected representatives, can fully regulate election finances, we need to enact HJR 48, the We The People Amendment. HJR 48 will end corporate personhood by establishing that only natural persons have constitutional rights. It will end the judicial doctrine that money is speech in elections."

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

"America is currently in the midst of a new wave of disenfranchisement. Since 2000, the number of states requiring voter ID has increased from 14 to 33. A 2013 Supreme Court decision struck down provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that required pre-clearance by the federal government of changes to election laws in jurisdictions that had historically disenfranchised blacks and other people of color. In the wake of that decision, 17 states adopted laws requiring stricter voter ID requirements. Most of these laws require government-issued photo ID, which often requires a birth certificate to obtain. The time and cost of obtaining these documents discourages low-income people from registering to vote... Obviously, the fight against onerous voter ID laws must continue."

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

"On July 29, I signed the 350 Action’s Day One Pledge, which asks presidential candidates to take four steps their first day in office:

• Reject all new federally-approved coal, oil, gas, and other fossil fuel project permits.
• Phase out oil and gas drilling and fracking on public lands and off our coasts.
• Rejoin the Paris Climate Accord.
• Ask Congress to investigate the fossil fuel industry’s role in misleading the public and stalling climate action, and to prepare to hold the industry accountable.

I am still the only presidential candidate to have signed the pledge to date."

Con
Should Fracking Be Allowed?

"The watered-down Green New Deal non-binding resolution from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey falls short in many respects, including:

1. It fails to support the immediate frontline demand of the grassroots climate movement—a nationwide ban on fracking and new fossil fuel infrastructure. If we don’t win that demand, we will be locked into four more decades more of fracked gas and oil burning, which means a climate holocaust."

Con
Should the Keystone XL Pipeline Be Built?

"No."

Con
Should the US Expand Its Use of Nuclear Power?

"A rapid phaseout of nuclear power. Nukes are not clean energy. They are not cost-effective. They are subject to catastrophic accidents. No nukes."

Con
Should the Tariffs Imposed on China by President Trump Be Maintained?

"No."

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

"In addition to a more progressive tax system, we need to get our spending priorities straight. The U.S. military budget is greater than those of the next 10 largest military powers combined and eight of them are US allies. The military budget takes more than 60 percent of federal discretionary spending totaling $989 billion annually. $21 trillion of Pentagon financial transactions between 1998 and 2015 cannot be traced, documented, or explained.

The U.S. can cut its military budget by 75 percent and still spend more on the military than any other nation. We can invest the resulting peace dividend in a Global Green New Deal to meet basic needs like clean water and preventive health care around the world as well as help developing countries leap over the fossil fuel age into the solar age. By acting as the world’s humanitarian superpower instead of its global military occupation force we can make friends instead of enemies. A Global Green New Deal will build a sustainable peace where the world’s nations work cooperatively to solve our common problems of the climate and poverty."

Con
Should the US Have Withdrawn from the Open Skies Treaty?

"Even worse than Trump’s contemptible tweeting has been his pro-war policies and actions and his callous disregard for servicemembers. In the last two weeks alone, the Trump administration has... [w]ithdrawn the US from the Open Skies Treaty, which allows its remaining 33 signatories to conduct unarmed surveillance flights over each others’ territories to observe military forces and nuclear weapons installations in order to verify arms control and peace treaty obligations."

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

"Not then. Not because Turkey's President Erdogan told Trump to remove US troops so Turkey could invade and attack the Syrian Kurds. Trump then moved US troops south to take Syria’s oil fields. That was wrong. All US troops should now withdraw from Syria."

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

"No."

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

"The federal government should end its defense in court of Trump’s executive order attempting to end the DACA program. The federal government should start properly administering the program."

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

"The status of undocumented immigrants would be legalized and immigrants provided a timely path to citizenship."

Con
Should the Federal Government Limit the Number of Green Card Holders by which Immigrants Are Likely to Be Dependent on Government Resources (the Public Charge Rule)?

"No."

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

"The Religious Freedom Restoration Act has been used to justify discrimination outside of religious institutions, particularly against women and LGBTQIA people. The US rejected the claims of religious institutions that “religious freedom” gave them the right to practice racial discrimination. We need to extend these civil rights to protect women and LGBTQIA people against discrimination by religious institutions.

Church and state should be separated. Freedom of religious belief and practice in religious institutions should be protected. However, if a religious institution, including hospitals and clinics controlled by a religious institution, receives public money, it is now a public accommodations and the government has the right to and should enforce civil rights laws, including reproductive freedom and abortion rights and laws against discrimination. The same rule should apply to private businesses engaged in commerce with the public—the government has the right and duty to prosecute violations of civil rights, reproductive freedom, and anti-discrimination laws by private businesses.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act should be amended by the Do No Harm Act (H.R. 1450; S. 593), which would ensure that federal law protects religious liberty but does not let religion be misused to harm others, including the RFRA to discriminate, to ignore wage and labor protections, to avoid compliance with laws protecting against child abuse, or to thwart access to health care guaranteed by law."