Summary

News

Mark Warner

Current Position: US Senator since 2009
Affiliation: Democrat
Former Position(s): Governor from 2002 – 2006

Senator Warner was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2008 and reelected to a second term in November 2014. He serves on the Senate Finance, Banking, Budget, and Rules Committees as well as the Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is the Vice Chairman.

During his time in the Senate, Senator Warner has established himself as a bipartisan leader who has worked with Republicans and Democrats alike to cut red tape, increase government performance and accountability, and promote private sector innovation and job creation. Senator Warner has been recognized as a national leader in fighting for our military men and women and veterans, and in working to find bipartisan, balanced solutions to address our country’s debt and deficit.

For more information, go to the Mark Warner post.

Daniel Gade

Current Position: Professor, American University
Affiliation: Republican
Candidate: 2020 US Senator

Dr. Daniel Gade is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, professor, and public policy leader running to serve the Commonwealth of Virginia in the U.S. Senate. During more than 20 years of military service, he was awarded the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts. Daniel graduated from West Point in 1997 and served in multiple locations in the United States and Korea.

Gade has served in President George W. Bush’s administration, working on veteran issues and military healthcare, and has since served on several national-level policy councils, including the National Council on Disability and the VA Advisory Committee on Disability Compensation.

For more information, go to the Daniel Glade post.

ISSUES

Civil Rights

DANIEL GADE

Our civil rights include the right to live in accordance with our religious principles, the right to unrestricted free speech and exchange of ideas, and the right to protect ourselves by keeping and bearing arms. This is the only way to ensure equal protection and justice for all, regardless of race, class, or creed.

MARK WARNER 

Sen. Warner believes that everyone deserves equal rights under the law: the right to marry who they choose and to live free of discrimination at school and at work. A long time supporter of election security, Sen. Warner has also been a leader in shining a light on online voter suppression tactics designed to spread false information about our elections in communities of color. He is dedicated to ensuring that everyone has equal access to participate in the electoral process.

Voting Rights
In 2019, Sen. Warner joined Sen. Tim Kaine and 44 of his other colleagues in the Senate to introduce the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019 to build on the landmark Voting Rights Act. This important legislation aims to address barriers to participating in our elections, especially for systematically disenfranchised communities and communities of color, and to provide the federal government with adequate tools to address discriminatory changes to state voting law and procedure.

A longtime supporter of election security measures, Sen. Warner has also brought to light Russian interference in our elections, including Russia’s efforts to specifically target African-American communities to suppress voter turnout. Sen. Warner continues to work tirelessly to ensure that every American has accurate information about elections and the access needed to cast their ballot.

No Hate Act
Sen. Warner introduced the Khalid Jabara-Heather Heyer NO HATE Act with several of his Senate colleagues, including Sen. Tim Kaine, in 2019. This act aimed to address the recent surge in hate crimes by improving reporting of these crimes, increasing law enforcement prevention and training on hate crimes, establishing hate crime hotlines to help victims get the assistance they need, and allowing for judges to require community service or education for those who commit hate crimes. When Heather Heyer was killed protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017, Sen. Warner also pushed President Trump to sign a resolution condemning white supremacy.

Ending Workplace Discrimination
Mark Warner was the first Governor of Virginia to ban sexual orientation discrimination for state employees. He understands that in order to meet our potential, we must draw upon the talents and experiences of everyone. He also led the effort to end the discriminatory “family rule” that prevented same-sex couples from receiving home buying assistance from the state government.

Ending Discrimination at School
In 2017, Sen. Warner joined colleagues from the Senate and House of Representatives to file a U.S. Supreme Court brief explaining that transgender and gender non-conforming students are protected from discrimination under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex,” which should include prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Sen. Warner will always stand up for the protection of every Virginian.

Repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
As Senator, Warner voted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and is a strong supporter of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Equality Act. He knows that prohibiting discrimination is both the right thing to do and vital to economic competitiveness. For Virginia to continue to be a leader in business and innovation, we must do everything we can to ensure the rights of all Virginians are protected.

Marriage Equality
As Governor, Sen. Warner opposed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Virginia. As Senator, he supported the effort at the Supreme Court to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act. Sen. Warner supports the Equality Act and recognizes the need for strong protections to secure full equality for all under the law.

Democracy

DANIEL GADE

Term Limits

MARK WARNER 

Campaign Finance

In June 2019, Warner and Amy Klobuchar introduced the Preventing Adversaries Internationally from Disbursing Advertising Dollars (PAID AD) Act, a bill that would modify U.S. federal campaign finance laws to outlaw the purchasing of ads that name a political candidate and appear on platforms by foreign nationals in the midst of an election year.

Economy

DANIEL GADE

Promote Free Market Systems

Markets that are free of government interference or crony capitalism are engines of economic growth and prosperity for all. Low individual and business taxes, decreased regulation, and free and unfettered trade is the key to further improvement in the standard of living for all Americans.

Stop Insider Trading 

MARK WARNER  

Minimum Wage

In April 2014, the United States Senate debated the Minimum Wage Fairness Act (S. 1737; 113th Congress). The bill would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938(FLSA) to increase the federal minimum wage for employees to $10.10 per hour over the course of a two-year period. The bill was strongly supported by President Barack Obama and many Democratic Senators, but strongly opposed by Republicans in the Senate and House. Warner expressed a willingness to negotiate with Republicans about some of the provisions of the bill, such as the timeline for the phase-in. Warner said that any increase needs to be done “in a responsible way.”

Finance

From the start of his Senate term, Warner attempted to replicate in Washington, D.C. the bipartisan partnerships that he used effectively during his tenure as Virginia governor. In 2010, Warner worked with a Republican colleague on the Banking Committee, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), to write a key portion of the Dodd-Frank Act that seeks to end taxpayer bailouts of failing Wall Street financial firms by requiring “advance funeral plans” for large financial firms.

In 2013, the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress gave Sens. Warner and Corker its Publius Award for their bipartisan work on financial reform legislation.

In 2018, Warner became one of the few Democrats in the Senate supporting a bill that would relax “key banking regulations”. As part of at least 11 other Democrats, Warner argued that the bill would “right-size post-crisis rules imposed on small and regional lenders and help make it easier for them to provide credit”. Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren have stated their opposition to the legislation.

Environment

DANIEL GADE

On The Environment

MARK WARNER 

Climate Change
Climate change is one of the largest threats to our health, economy, and national security. Sen. Warner has worked in the Senate to address this growing danger, supporting legislation like the Clean Economy Act, which sets a 2050 goal for net-zero carbon emissions, and has broad support from labor, environmental, and public health groups.

Investments in Renewable Energy
Sen. Warner supports investing in clean, renewable sources of energy, including wind and solar. During his time in the Senate, he pushed for investment in offshore wind projects along Virginia’s coasts, some of which were approved by the Department of Energy (DOE) in 2014. Virginia is ripe with opportunities for offshore wind — not only because of its ideal geography, but because the Commonwealth houses the capability and technical expertise to supply the parts needed to push these projects forward. Clean energy not only benefits our environment, it provides good jobs for hardworking Virginians.

National Parks & Public Lands 
Last year, Sen. Warner introduced the Restore Our Parks Act (ROPA), to address deferred maintenance in our National Parks. Nationwide, there’s a nearly $12 billion maintenance backlog in our parks, and more than $1 billion is in Virginia alone. ROPA would address that backlog and provide 10,000 jobs in Virginia and 100,000 jobs across the country.

Sen. Warner is also working with a bi-partisan group of Senators to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). This fund was established in 1964 to protect our country’s natural beauty, water resources, and preserve cultural heritage sites like Virginia’s Richmond National Battlefield Park.

Offshore Drilling
Communities up and down Virginia’s coast have made clear that offshore drilling poses a threat to their communities. When the Trump administration announced their offshore drilling plan, Sen. Warner rushed to bring together his colleagues from both sides of the aisle to oppose any new drilling. Drilling off Virginia’s eastern shore would be disruptive to the fragile natural ecosystem, threaten important Naval operations, stymy the work of NASA at Wallops Island, and cause outdoor recreation and aquaculture to suffer. Sen. Warner will continue to stand up against expanded drilling proposals in the Senate to protect Virginia’s natural beauty and outdoor tourism industries.

Governance

DANIEL GADE 

Limited Government

We must return to a fiscally responsible government that promotes individual freedom. Powers not given to the federal government explicitly in the Constitution are reserved to the people or to the States. Government overreach should be called what it is: tyranny. It’s past time to rein in government overreach and return to Constitutional government

MARK WARNER

Transparency

On the Senate Budget Committee, Warner was appointed chairman of a bipartisan task force on government performance in 2009. Warner was a lead sponsor of the 2010 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), which imposed specific program performance goals across all federal agencies and set up a more transparent agency performance review process.

On May 21, 2013, Warner introduced the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (S. 994; 113th Congress), DATA. “The legislation requires standardized reporting of federal spending to be posted to a single website, allowing citizens to track spending in their communities and agencies to more easily identify improper payments, waste and fraud.” On November 6, 2013, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee unanimously passed DATA.

On January 27, 2014, a version of the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) marked up version of the bill was leaked. This White House version “move[s] away from standards and toward open data structures to publish information” and “requir[es] OMB in consultation with Treasury to review and, if necessary, revise standards to ensure accuracy and consistency through methods such as establishing linkages between data in agency financial systems…” Senator Warner’s responded with the following statement: “The Obama administration talks a lot about transparency, but these comments reflect a clear attempt to gut the DATA Act. DATA reflects years of bipartisan, bicameral work, and to propose substantial, unproductive changes this late in the game is unacceptable. We look forward to passing the DATA Act, which had near universal support in its House passage and passed unanimously out of its Senate committee. I will not back down from a bill that holds the government accountable and provides taxpayers the transparency they deserve.”

On April 10, 2014, the Senate voted by unanimous consent to pass the bill, which was then passed by the House in a voice vote on April 28, 2014.

Health Care

DANIEL GADE  

N/A

MARK WARNER 

On a video in his senate office, Warner promised Virginians, “I would not vote for a health-care plan that doesn’t let you keep health insurance you like.” [33]

He voted for the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA, commonly called Obamacare), helping the Senate reach the required sixty votes to prevent it from going to a filibuster. (As there were exactly 60 Democratic Senators at the time, each Democrat can be said to have cast the deciding vote.) He and 11 Senate freshmen discussed adding an amendment package aimed at addressing health care costs by expanding health IT and wellness prevention.

In January 2019, Warner was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.

Safety

DANIEL GADE  

Defense

 The power to declare war resides in Congress, not the Executive. Since the end of World War II, Congress has shirked this responsibility. I believe that we should commit troops only a) in defense of a vital national interest b) when there is a defined end state and c) when military force is the only remaining option. Military families shouldn’t be the only ones having dinner table conversations before their loved ones go to war. I am opposed to the open-ended commitment of troops around the world.

MARK WARNER 

Defense

In 2011, Warner voted for the four-year extension of the USA PATRIOT Act. In 2011, he engaged Northern Virginia’s high-tech community in a pro-bono effort to correct burial mistakes and other U.S. Army management deficiencies at Arlington National Cemetery. In 2012, he successfully pushed the Navy to improve the substandard military housing in Hampton Roads.

Also in 2012, he pushed the Office of Personnel Management to address chronic backlogs in processing retirement benefits for federal workers, many of whom live in Washington’s northern Virginia suburbs. Warner was successful in pushing the Department of Veterans Affairs to expand access to PTSD treatment for female military veterans returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In August 2013, Warner was one of twenty-three Democratic senators to sign a letter to the Defense Department warning of some payday lenders “offering predatory loan products to service members at exorbitant triple digit effective interest rates and loan products that do not include the additional protections envisioned by the law” and asserting that service members along with their families “deserve the strongest possible protections and swift action to ensure that all forms of credit offered to members of our armed forces are safe and sound.”

Warner was awarded the Distinguished Public Service Medal by U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, the Navy’s highest honor for a civilian, for his consistent support of Virginia’s military families and veterans.

Gun Laws

On April 17, 2013, Warner voted to expand background checks for gun purchases as part of the Manchin-Toomey Amendment.

In 2017, he called himself a strong supporter of second amendment rights and vowed to advocate for responsible gun ownership for hunting, recreation, and self-defense.

In January 2019, Warner was one of forty senators to introduce the Background Check Expansion Act, a bill that would require background checks for either the sale or transfer of all firearms including all unlicensed sellers. Exceptions to the bill’s background check requirement included transfers between members of law enforcement, loaning firearms for either hunting or sporting events on a temporary basis, providing firearms as gifts to members of one’s immediate family, firearms being transferred as part of an inheritance, or giving a firearm to another person temporarily for immediate self-defense.

Veterans 

DANIEL GADE  

N/A

MARK WARNER 

VA Hospitals
For years, Sen. Warner has been devoted to improving performance and reducing strain on Virginia’s VA hospitals. The Daily Press says Warner headed up “the bipartisan push for veteran healthcare projects across the country, including a new VA medical center to be constructed in south Hampton Roads.” Warner’s advocacy has helped keep plans for new facilities on track and top of mind for decision-makers in the federal government. Sen. Warner is deeply committed to making sure that every veteran in Virginia has access to the high-quality services they need.

Benefits for Veterans
When American servicemembers are injured and cannot continue their service, they are given severance disability pay. That money should be tax-free, but tens of thousands of veterans were improperly overtaxed due to a flaw in the 2017 GOP tax bill. Sen. Warner set out to fix that issue, and was the lead Democratic sponsor of the bipartisan Combat-Injured Veterans Tax Fairness Act, allowing injured veterans to get their money back from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Sen. Warner is making sure that veterans who need at-home care to mitigate injuries sustained during their service have access to that care, and that the government pays for it. We owe a debt to these men and women who served our country, and when Sen. Warner found out that some vets bore exorbitant costs for necessary medical care, he fought for them. For years, an estimated 4.4 million veterans injured prior to 9/11 were not eligible for caretaker benefits. Sen. Warner made change happen — in 2018, he passed legislation to make sure all of our veterans have access to vital at-home care resources.

Sen. Warner also worked to repeal the Military Widows Tax, an undue burden on Gold Star families, who lost a family member during military service. The bi-partisan Military Widow’s Tax Elimination Act repeals the law preventing as many as 67,000 surviving military spouses across the country from receiving their full Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs survivor benefits, and was included in the 2019 annual defense funding bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).