The Issues
Nadler has one of the House’s most liberal voting records , earning perfect ratings from labor and environmental groups as well as the American Civil Liberties Union. He is a strong supporter of abortion rights and same-sex marriage, and he has opposed private accounts for Social Security. And while he backed Clinton during his impeachment trial, Nadler opposed some key items of Clinton’s legislative agenda during the 1990s, including the 1996 welfare reform bill and the North American Free Trade Agreement.Nadler has also been a longtime supporter of the National Endowment for the Arts, fighting attempts by conservatives to reduce the agency's funding in the 1990s.
On foreign policy, Nadler drew criticism in the 1990s for pushing for U.S. humanitarian intervention in places like the Balkans while opposing increases in the defense budget.He strongly opposed the Iraq war in 2002, though he is more hawkish in espousing support for Israel and its right to defend itself.
The Economy
With Wall Street located within the borders of his district, Nadler watched from a front row seat the rapid decline of the financial sector in 2008 and 2009. He voted reluctantly in support of the initial $700 billion bailout package for financial firms in September 2008, lamenting at the time that it was “a weak bill in many respects” but justifying the legislation as “the only bill that can be agreed upon now.”
Similarly, he backed President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package in 2009 but warned that it was “not nearly big enough to stop the catastrophic economic decline we’re facing.”
Nadler introduced separate legislation to allow judges to modify the terms of mortgages to prevent foreclosures, and he has urged the Treasury Department to take a stronger role in forcing banks that received bailout funds to step up lending. In March 2009, the Democrat co-sponsored a bill that would have authorized the attorney general to directly recover the widely-criticized bonuses paid to executives at A.I.G., the insurance giant.
Civil Liberties
Nadler’s most forceful stands on national issues have come in the area of civil liberties. Despite the pressures inherent in representing the area targeted by terrorists in 2001, he staunchly opposed the USA Patriot Act as an affront to civil liberties. He fought against other Bush administration measures in the war on terrorism, including warrantless wiretapping, the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and enhanced interrogation of captured terrorist suspects.
He is taking on a more vocal role on the issue as a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and the chairman of its subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. In 2009, Nadler called on the Obama Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate and if necessary prosecute Bush administration officials who authorized harsh post 9/11 interrogation methods of terrorist suspects such as waterboarding. He is also pushing for the impeachment of Jay Bybee, a federal judge in Las Vegas who as a lawyer in the Bush administration was one of the authors of the so-called “torture memos” that made the legal case for harsh interrogation techniques. “It was an instruction manual on how to break the law,” Nadler said of one of Bybee’s memos.
Nadler also cites as priorities the passage of the State Secrets Act and the American Anti-Torture Act. The State Secrets Act would limit the power of the executive branch to invoke the "state secrets" priviledge and quash lawsuits in federal court, a power that Nadler says has been a virtual "blank check" in recent years. The anti-torture bill would require all governmental agencies to follow interrogation procedures outlined in the Army Field Manual.
Nadler has praised President Obama for planning to close Guantanamo Bay and forbidding the use of enhanced interrogation methods, but he said the moves are not sufficient. “The president's intentions are honorable, but don't go far enough,” he said in April 2009.
9/11 Health
Nadler was in Washington on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when the collapse of the World Trade Center left a 16-acre crater in the middle of his district. He rushed back to New York, spending virtually the entire day on a train before making it to lower Manhattan in the evening. “It was a surrealistic scene,” he later told The Hill, recalling his return to Manhattan that day. “Nothing moving. No people. No cars. Nothing.”
Since then, he has taken a leading role on the myriad constituent issues that arose from the tragedy. Along with other New York City lawmakers, Nadler has pushed aggressively for federal funding for treatment programs to help rescue workers who toiled at ground zero in the days and weeks following the attacks. Many of the workers have since contracted respiratory illnesses, with studies suggesting a link between their conditions and the toxins that were in the air after Sept.11. Nadler was a harsh critic of the Environmental Protection Agency’s response to the disaster, accusing top officials of lying to residents and businesses about the air quality in lower Manhattan.
Funding for post-Sept. 11 health care has come in bits in pieces, but Nadler and the New York delegation are pressing for a comprehensive bill that would provide nearly $11 billion for long-term studies and treatment.
New York Rail-Freight Tunnel
During his local and national political career, Nadler’s signature local issue is his advocacy for a rail freight tunnel between Brooklyn and New Jersey. He has long bemoaned New York’s reliance on truck traffic for freight as compared to other major cities, and he has argued that a rail tunnel would cut down on congestion and pollution. But the project would cost several billion dollars and faces opposition in the neighborhoods where it would be built. Beyond an allocation fo $100 million to complete a study in 2005, it has yet to gain approval from Congress.
Health Care Reform
Nadler is a proponent of a strong public option that will be available from the day the reforms go into effect.
