The Issues
Levin has a liberal record. He voted with his party 96 percent of the time during the 110th Congress, though he isn’t afraid to oppose Democrats, especially if the legislation will hurt Detroit automakers.
During his Senate career, Levin has developed an extensive knowledge of national security issues. He has often challenged military spending, choosing to forgo large-scale projects and military-weapons systems in favor of improving pay, health care and housing for members of the Armed Forces and veterans.
As the chair of the Senate Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), he has advocated laws protecting whistleblowers, competition in government contracting and lobbying disclosure.
He has pushed the Senate to address several of Michigan’s environmental concerns. In 2006, he led the effort to reauthorize the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act, which provided money to clean up the lakes and repopulate decimated fish populations.
In 2008, he passed legislation that would prevent other states from taking drinking water from the Great Lakes.He also sponsored a bill to pay for cleaning up the lakes, and to stop trash shipments to Michigan from Canada.
The Economy
As chair of the PSI, Levin has focused on curtailing abusive credit-card company practices and on strengthening regulations and protections against white-collar crime.
In 2004, Levin launched an investigation into the ways companies abuse tax shelters. He was prompted by the Enron scandal, and his investigations uncovered a series of unlawful manipulations perpetrated by companies. In response, he proposed several new regulations.
In 2007, Levin chaired two hearings on abusive practices by the credit-card industry, questioning the ways companies keep families mired in debt. The hearings convinced two major credit-card companies to stop charging extra interest through punitive billing practices and to halt interest rates hikes for responsible cardholders. Levin proposed legislation to ban the practices.
Levin supported the October 2008 $700 bill bailout package, saying that the bailout would end the free-fall and help Detroit’s automakers, who said they could not add inventory or close sales because of a lack of credit. Levin told the Detroit Free-Press "there's too many people's pensions and savings and businesses that could get wiped out.”
The Auto Industry Bailout
At the end of 2008, Levin attempted to engineer a loan for Detroit’s “Big Three” auto companies. The measure would have extended a $14 billion loan to save the beleaguered car companies, which argued they might not survive the winter without it.
Levin implored his Senate colleagues to support the legislation, warning that a failure to do so would send a “tsunami” through the “already-battered economy” and lead to record unemployment and defaults on over $1 billion in corporate bonds.
But Senate Republicans refused to vote for the package unless Detroit slashed its workers’ wages. Levin spent the next several days working with President George W. Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to transfer up to $15 billion from the initial $700 billion bailout of the financial industry to the companies.
Levin supported the bankruptcy proceedings of GM and Chrystler.
The Military
As the chair of the Armed Services Committee, Levin has been a forceful advocate of increased spending on troop safety,often at the expense of costly defense programs.
Levin opposed the missile-defense system proposed by Bush in 2000, using his clout to defund it and use the money to pay for counter-terrorism activities. In 2002, his committee approved a defense authorization bill that cut the Bush administration’s missile-defense request by $812 million, but Bush was later able to restore the cuts.
Levin has said that the U.S. Army is stretched too thin, and has called for additional funding for protective gear and other equipment.
He has opposed Guantanamo Bay and the use of enhanced interrogation techniques like water-boarding. In 2005, Levin lobbied for a clause in the Army Field Manual that required humane treatment of all terrorism suspects and that limits interrogation techniques.
In the 2009 defense authorization bill, Levin proposed a pay raise for military personnel and a measure requiring the president to allow Congress to review any agreement it reaches with Iraq on the future of U.S. forces there. Two other amendments — a ban on private interrogators and a freeze on competition involving private firms vying for Defense Department contracts — passed the Senate but were removed because of veto threats.
Iraq War
Levin has been a consistent Iraq war skeptic. He advocated a multilateral approach to the crisis there and pushed the Bush administration to defer intervention until the United Nations approved. He proposed an alternative resolution on military action in October 2002 that would have required the U.N. to authorize any use of force. It was defeated, 75 to 24.
Levin issued a report in 2004 that charged the Bush Administration with exaggerating the ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
In June 2006, Levin co-sponsored an amendment calling for a phased redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq over six months without a definite withdrawal deadline. It was defeated, 60 to 39. He also opposed the 2007 troop surge, pushing the Bush administration to lay out a clearer plan for the troops' use.
Levin has since called the conflict in Iraq a “low-grade civil war,” and he continues to push for troop withdrawal.
However, Levin voted to confirm Gen. David Petraeus for the Central Command Post, saying that he supported the general’s leadership though he was still deeply critical of the way the war was being run.
Manufacturing and the Auto-Industry
Levin has opposed free trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement.
When some senators proposed increasing car fuel-efficiency standards to 36 miles-per-gallon, Levin objected and proposed an alternate bill that mandated that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration set the standards in the next two years. He has said that the Transportation Department should set fuel efficiency standards, not Congress.
Levin has advocated a reduction on foreign oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions, and an increase in the number of renewable energy sources available. He has also called for tax incentives to help automobile companies develop new technologies.
Intelligence
In response to a massive re-ordering of the intelligence community immediately following Sept. 11, Levin pushed a measure that would have required that the national intelligence director act independently of the White House. But the final bill reorganizing the U.S. intelligence apparatus did not include the amendment.
Levin has objected to the National Security Administration’s surveillance of communication between al-Qaeda suspects abroad and U.S. citizens.
Levin supported the bill to reauthorize, with certain limitations, the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
In May 2009, Levin disputed claims by former Vice President Richard Cheney that releasing two classified memos would prove that torture works. Cheney had delivered several speeches in the months before decrying President Barack Obama's decision to stop many of the harsh interrogation techniques practiced under the Bush administration. In a speech to the Foreign Policy Association, Levin said "Mr. Cheney has also claimed that the release of classified documents would prove his view that the techniques worked. But those classified documents say nothing about numbers of lives saved, nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of the abusive techniques."
