Political positions and votes
Agriculture
In 2007, Lautenberg voted for an amendment to the 2007 farm bill which would have limited the amount of subsidies that a married couple could receive to $250,000; the amendment failed.[28] However, he voted against eliminating farm price supports and eventually voted for the 2007 farm bill as well. He supported increasing the minimum wage.[citation needed]
Civil liberties
Lautenberg was not in the Senate at the time of the original Patriot Act in 2001; when the 2005 reauthorization came to the Senate floor, Lautenberg voted against cloture, but voted in favor of accepting the conference report. In March 2011, he stated to an assembled group of constituents that Republicans “don’t deserve the freedoms that are in the Constitution … but we’ll give them to them anyway.”[29][30]
Environment and energy
Senator Lautenberg, who had a pro-environment voting record, wrote a bill in 1986 that established the Toxics Release Inventory, which required companies to disclose the chemicals they released into the environment.[6] He also co-sponsored the Consumer First Energy Act of 2008, which would have repealed $17 billion in tax breaks for oil companies and reinvested the $17 billion in renewable energy development and energy efficiency technology.[31] However, the Senate rejected a cloture motion on the bill in June 2008.[32] One of his main priorities in his final term was a bill he authored with Republican Senator David Vitter that would overhaul chemical safety laws.[16] Lautenberg favored alternative energy sources and voted in favor of giving tax incentives to those who use them.[citation needed]
Foreign policy
In 1996, Lautenberg voted against a bill that eliminated the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the United States Information Agency, the Agency for International Development, and the International Development Cooperation Agency and allowed the President to withhold 20% of funds appropriated to the United Nations if any agency of the organization does not implement consensus-based decision-making procedures on budgetary matters that assure that significant attention is given to the specific interests of the United States. He opposed capping foreign aid and voted to give billions of dollars to the International Monetary Fund. He voted against implementing both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreement. He called for action to be taken at the World Trade Organization against members of the OPEC cartel which sets production quotas that raise prices for crude oil, and consequentially America’s gasoline.[33] Lautenberg was an opponent of the Iraq War, though he was not in office when it was voted on.[34]
Gun control
Lautenberg was a consistent supporter of gun control. He sponsored the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban, more commonly known as the “Lautenberg Amendment.” This piece of legislation prohibits individuals (including law enforcement officers and military service members), accused of a crime of domestic violence, from possessing a firearm. One of his last speeches on the Senate floor was in support of a failed bipartisan measure for increased gun control.[6]
Homeland security
Lautenberg was a proponent of the Container Security Initiative which would screen cargo containers bound for the United States for radiological contents.[35] This policy is intended to identify threats before they arrive at U.S. ports. The Bush administration argued that the policy would be too expensive to implement, as U.S. inspection teams, with equipment, would need to be installed in 700 foreign ports.[citation needed]
Public health
In 1984, Lautenberg wrote the National Minimum Drinking Age Act that set the national drinking age at 21.[16] In 2000, his legislation set 0.08 as the blood alcohol level threshold for drunk driving.[16] He also wrote legislation that banned smoking on airplanes, in federal buildings and federally funded buildings that serviced children.[36]
Social issues
Lautenberg was pro-choice and had voted against banning partial-birth abortions in 1999.[37] He had voted in favor of expanding embryonic stem cell research.[38] The NAACP gave him a 100% rating, indicating his strong support for affirmative action.[39]
Lautenberg was a strong supporter of same-sex marriage, and also voted to prohibit job discrimination based on sexual orientation and to expand the federal definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation. He voted against a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and expressed his support for equal marriage rights for LGBT couples in later years. Lautenberg did, however, vote in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. The Human Rights Campaign gave him a 100% rating, indicating his strong support for LGBT rights.[40]
Tax policy
Lautenberg voted against repealing and restricting the Alternative Minimum Tax and estate tax. Lautenberg voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which contained $280 billion in tax breaks by expanding the earned income tax credit, child tax credit, home energy credit, and college credit, introducing a homebuyer credit and a credit for workers earning less than $75,000, along with an increased ceiling for the AMT and extended tax credits to companies for renewable energy production, along with a new policy making more companies eligible for a certain tax refund. In 2008 he voted to raise taxes on those earning more than $1 million per year. In 2006 he voted in favor of repealing the Bush-era tax cut on capital gains. He was a proponent of progressive taxation.[citation needed]
Transportation
Lautenberg supported federal funding of public transportation, such as Amtrak and New Jersey Transit. Lautenberg was primary sponsor of the S.294 [110th] “Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2007” (Full Text), which would fund Amtrak for the next five years and provide opportunity for expansion. With the dramatic rise of gasoline prices from 2007 to 2008, Amtrak ridership has reached record levels.[41] The bill passed the House, but Senate and House differences were never resolved. He was also a strong supporter of the commuter rail project Access to the Region’s Core. When New Jersey Governor Chris Christie cancelled the project, Lautenberg called his move “one of the biggest public-policy blunders in New Jersey history” and said that “all he knows how to do is blow hot air.”[6] The railroad terminal in Secaucus, New Jersey is named for him, because he helped allocate federal funds to build it.[42]
Miscellaneous
Since the advent of the late 2000s recession, Lautenberg supported a number of Democratic bills designed to deal with the resulting problems plaguing Americans. In 2009, he voted in favor of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, popularly dubbed the stimulus bill. He later voted for the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights and the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009.[citation needed]