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| Background |
Age: |
61 |
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| Marital Status: |
Married |
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| Religion: |
Catholic |
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| Education: |
Graduate of Yale University and Boston College law School |
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| Current Job: |
U.S. Senator |
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| Previous Job: |
District Attorney |
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| Previous Elected Office: |
MA Lt. Governor, 1982-84; US Senate, 1984-present |
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| Military Experience: |
USN, 1966-70 |
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| Financials (provided by Center for Responsive Politics) Last Updated on 2004-07-31 |
Money Raised: |
$304,028,394 |
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| Money Spent: |
$182,467,480 |
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| % Money from PACs: |
0% |
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| Position on Issues |
Stance on Iraq: |
Voted Yes to Iraq War Resolution |
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| Abortion: |
"John Kerry voted to restrict late-term abortions but only where there was a clear exception for life or health of women...When John Kerry is President he will appoint judges that are committed to upholding the Constitution not pursuing an ideological age |
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| Gun Control: |
I believe in the Second Amendment in this country.But I don't believe that assault weapons ought to be sold in the streets of America. Never believed it, don't believe it now |
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| Capital Punishment: |
I'm opposed to the death penalty in the criminal justice system because I think it's applied unfairly, as even Republican governors have determined, and because I'm for a worse punishment. I think it is worse to take somebody and put them in a small cell for the rest of their life, deprived of their freedom, never to be paroled. Now, I think that's tougher. |
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| Same Sex Marriage: |
He has supported legislation to provide domestic partners of federal employees the benefits available to spouses of federal employees. He was one of 14 Senators to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Kerry and Edwards were the only two Senators who abstained from voting on the Federal Marriage Amendment. |
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| Economy: |
On Taxes: Voted No to the Jobs and Growth Tax Act of 2003.
Voted Yes to the Overtime Compensation Amendment
Did Not Vote on the Amendment to Protect US workers to the Jumpstart our Business Strength Act
Voted No to the Permanent Repeal of the Estate Tax (also known as The Death Tax)
If you make less than $200,000, you'll get a tax cut under my plan. If you make more than $200,000 a year, you will go back to paying the same tax rates you did with President Clinton and our country will get health care and education. The top 2% will pay more than they do now. Everyone else will get a tax cut under a Kerry Administration.
On Cutting the Budget Deficit: In the months ahead, as I put forward new ideas for a stronger, better, more prosperous America, I will state, in specific terms, how to finance them without raising the deficit or middle class taxes. I have already shown how we can pay for my health care plan and education. But we can and will do more by reducing or eliminating government programs that don't work. For example, we'll freeze the federal travel budget, reduce oil royalty exemptions for drilling on federal lands, and cut 100,000 contractors now employed by the federal government. We'll streamline government agencies and commissions and reduce out-of-control administrative costs by five percent. And when we're done, the federal government will be smaller but smarter, more effective and less expensive. The strong spending caps in my plan will insure that spending doesn't grow faster than inflation. |
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| Employment: |
On Outsourcing: The Kerry-Edwards plan will allow companies to defer the income they earn when they locate production in a foreign country that serves that foreign country’s markets. This will ensure American companies can compete in international markets. For example, if you want to open a hotel in Bermuda, a bank branch in Shanghai to service the Chinese market, or a car factory in India to sell cars in India, you can still defer your foreign income. But if you open up a call center in India to answer calls from outside of India or re-locate abroad to sell cars back to the United States or Canada you must pay taxes just like call centers and auto manufacturers in the United States.
The Kerry-Edwards plan will encourage companies to bring their money back and invest it in the American economy. For a one-year period only, John Kerry will provide companies with a special low rate of 10 percent on any profits they reinvest in the United States for companies with a domestic reinvestment plan. |
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| Healthcare: |
On Cheaper Drugs: Voted Yes to the Greater Access to Affordable Pharmaceuticals Act, which would allow importation of cheaper drugs from Canada.
The Kerry-Edwards plan will cut prescription drugs costs by (1) requiring the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate better prices for prescription drugs, rather than paying the highest prices, (2) allowing reimportation of safe, FDA-approved drugs so that Americans can get the discounts on medications that are available in Canada and other countries, (3) requiring transparency rules for Pharmacy Benefit Managers that do business with the Federal government to reveal their profits from the drug industry and bulk purchasing, and (4) helping states provide discounts to other populations by giving them incentives to implement more efficient contracting to obtain better rates for prescription drugs.
On Healthcare coverage: As president, John Kerry will propose refundable tax credits for up to 50 percent of the cost of coverage to small businesses and their employees. He will also give small businesses access to the Congressional Health Plan to save them approximately 15 percent in health care costs on top of the tax credit - so health care will be two-thirds cheaper for small business employees than it is today.
On Medicare Bill: John Kerry did not vote on the bill but expressed his opposition to it saying that it will hurt seniors and is protecting the interests of the pharmaceutical industry. |
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| Stem Cell Research: |
John Kerry and John Edwards believe that stem cell research holds immense promise for curing or treating these diseases and medical conditions. They will lift the ideologically-driven restrictions on stem cell research that are impeding progress toward cures for millions of Americans suffering from debilitating diseases…John Kerry has joined members from both sides of the aisle to work toward overturning the ban on federal funding of research on new stem cell lines while providing strict ethical oversight as doctors and scientists explore their full potential.
According to John Kerry’s spokesman Phil Singer, the restrictions under the Bush policy apply to 99.9%of potential stem lines that could be examined. |
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| Environment: |
On Kyoto Protocol: John Kerry and John Edwards believe that the Kyoto Protocol is not the answer. The near-term emission reductions it would require of the United States are infeasible, while the long-term obligations imposed on all nations are too little to solve the problem. In the Kerry-Edwards Administration, the U.S. will equitably match the initial efforts of our industrial-country trading partners and competitors. … American workers and industries should not be forced to shoulder the costs of these reductions. The Kerry-Edwards Administration will work to provide
support and incentives for U.S. industries and work to ensure that these clean, efficient technologies are deployed in a cost-effective manner. China, India, and the other key developing countries must also join the effort by agreeing to reduce the growth of their greenhouse gas emissions.
Proponents of the Kyoto Protocol have argued that on a per capita basis emissions from India and China are far less than the ones produced by the US.
On alternative energy: John Kerry and John Edwards will create an “Energy Security and Conservation Trust Fund”, capitalized with over $20 billion from existing federal offshore oil and gas royalty revenues - to create a permanent funding stream to develop new clean fuels and technologies for our future… The Energy Trust Fund will also create a “Clean Fuels Partnership” that will bring together government, agriculture and industry to put America on a path to meeting 20 percent of its motor fuel demand with domestically-produced alternative transportation fuels by 2020.
On Clean Air Act: Upon taking office, John Kerry will immediately reverse the Bush-Cheney rollbacks of the Nation’s Clean Air Program. The new source review (NSR) program in the Clean Air Act was designed to assure that power plants, refineries and other industrial facilities install state-of-the-art emission controls when they are modernized to operate more efficiently. At the direction of industry lobbyists, the Bush-Cheney administration has adopted new rules that eliminate NSR for all but a few facilities, dismantling a cornerstone of the Clean Air Act since its adoption in 1970. These rules allow plants to invest millions of dollars in new equipment with the potential to increase pollution without notifying EPA or installing any additional emissions controls. |
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| Candidate Bio |
| John Kerry was born on December 11, 1943 at Fitzsimons Military Hospital in Denver, Colorado, where his father, Richard, who had volunteered to fly DC-3's in the Army Air Corps in World War II, was recovering from a bout with tuberculosis. Not long after Sen. Kerry's birth, his family returned home to Massachusetts. John Kerry was raised in the Catholic faith and continues to be an active member of the Catholic church.
A graduate of Yale University, John Kerry entered the Navy after graduation, becoming a Swift Boat officer, serving on a gunboat in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. He received a Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, and three awards of the Purple Heart for his service in combat.
By the time Senator Kerry returned home from Vietnam, he felt compelled to question decisions he believed were being made to protect those in positions of authority in Washington at the expense of the soldiers carrying on the fighting in Vietnam. Kerry was a co-founder of the Vietnam Veterans of America and became a spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- Morley Safer would describe him as "a veteran whose articulate call to reason rather than anarchy seemed to bridge the gap between Abbie Hoffman and Mr. Agnew's so-called 'Silent Majority.'" In April 1971, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he asked the question of his fellow citizens, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Sen. Claiborne Pell, (D-R.I.) thanked Kerry, then 27, for testifying before the committee, expressing his hope that Kerry "might one day be a colleague of ours in this body."
Fourteen years later, John Kerry would have the opportunity to fulfill those hopes - serving side by side with Sen. Pell as a Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But in the intervening years, Kerry graduated from Boston College Law School and found different ways to fight for those things in which he believed. Time and again, Kerry fought to hold the political system accountable and to do what he believed was right. As a top prosecutor in Middlesex County, Kerry took on organized crime and put the Number Two mob boss in New England behind bars. He modernized the District Attorney's office, creating an innovative rape crisis crime unit, and as a lawyer in private practice he worked long and hard to prove the innocence of a man wrongly given a life sentence for a murder he did not commit.
In 1984, after winning election as Lieutenant Governor in 1982, Kerry ran and was elected to serve in the United States Senate, running and winning a successful PAC-free Senate race and defeating a Republican opponent buoyed by Ronald Reagan's reelection coattails. Like his predecessor, the irreplaceable Paul Tsongas, Kerry came to the Senate with a reputation for independence -- and reinforced it by making tough choices on difficult issues: breaking with many in his own Party to support Gramm-Rudman Deficit Reduction; taking on corporate welfare and government waste; pushing for campaign finance reform; holding Oliver North accountable and exposing the fraud and abuse at the heart of the BCCI scandal; working with John McCain in the search for the truth about Vietnam veterans declared POW/MIA; and insisting on accountability, investment, and excellence in public education.
Sen. Kerry was re-elected in 1990, again in 1996, defeating the popular Republican Governor William Weld in the most closely watched Senate race in the country, and in 2002. Now serving his fourth term, Kerry has worked to reform public education, address children's issues, strengthen the economy and encourage the growth of the high tech New Economy, protect the environment, and advance America's foreign policy interests around the globe.
John Kerry is married to Teresa Heinz Kerry. He has two daughters, Alexandra and Vanessa. Teresa has three sons, John, Andre, and Christopher. Senator Kerry lives in Boston.
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| Vice President |
| Edwards - John Edwards was born in Seneca, South Carolina and raised in Robbins, North Carolina, a small town in the Piedmont. There John learned the values of hard work and perseverance from his father, Wallace, who worked in the textile mills for 36 years, and from his mother, Bobbie, who ran a shop and worked at the post office. Working alongside his father at the mill, John developed his strong belief that all Americans deserve an equal opportunity to succeed and be heard.
A proud product of public schools, John became the first person in his family to attend college. He worked his way through North Carolina State University where he graduated with high honors in 1974, and then earned a law degree with honors in 1977 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For the next 20 years, John dedicated his career to representing families and children hurt by the negligence of others. Standing up against the powerful insurance industry and their armies of lawyers, John helped these families through the darkest moments of their lives to overcome tremendous challenges. His passionate advocacy for people like the folks who worked in the mill with his father earned him respect and recognition across the country.
In 1998, John took this commitment into politics to give a voice in the United States Senate to the people he had represented throughout his career. He ran for the Senate and won, defeating an incumbent Senator.
In Congress, Senator Edwards quickly emerged as a champion for the issues that make a difference to American families: quality health care, better schools, protecting civil liberties, preserving the environment, saving Social Security and Medicare, and reforming the ways campaigns are financed.
As a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Edwards has worked tirelessly for a strong national defense and to strengthen the security of our homeland. He has authored key pieces of legislation on cyber, bio, and port security.
Senator Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, whom he met when both were law students at Chapel Hill, were married in 1977. They have had four children, including: their eldest daughter, Catharine, a student at Princeton University; five-year-old Emma Claire, and a three-year-old son, Jack. Their first child, Wade, died in 1996.
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© 2004
University of Illinois College of Communications |
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