The Issues
Kaptur has urged her party to listen to those who are disenfranchised by the political process and excluded from the economic system. She has urged reform of the campaign finance system, championed policies to address economic inequality and battled against free trade agreements.
One area on which Kaptur breaks with liberal Democrats is abortion. While she favors a legal right to abortion, Kaptur opposes federal funding for the practice. During the 1993 health-care reform debate, she played a leading role in an effort to exclude abortion from federally-mandated benefits. In 2003, she voted in favor of the ban on late-term abortions. In 2005 and again in 2007, she voted against the Stem-Cell Research Enhancement Act, which would have allowed federally-funded stem- cell research.
Campaign Finance Reform
A self-professed member of the Democratic Party’s “non-money wing,” Kaptur contends that the parties’ reliance on fundraising alienates people from politics and prevents the type of grassroots supports that could empower the disenfranchised. This has made her critical of what she sees as the Democrats’ failure to engage the working class.She has said that the financing of campaigns amounts to a “whole for-sale government” and that it “predisposes” Congress toward the upper class.
Kaptur opposes the Supreme Court’s 1976 decision to strike down limits on campaign spending and she favors requiring free television airtime for congressional candidates. Kaptur has also denounced the requirement that congressmen raise money and then donate it to their party; she has described the system as “institutional prostitution."
The Economy
Kaptur often expresses alarm at the continued loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and the impoverishment of the middle class. Throughout the 1990s, her analyses clashed with President Clinton’s descriptions of a rosy economy. "The brokers are happy," Kaptur said in 1999. "But now look at the wealth accumulation of the average American family… What is actually there for a rainy day? Most people couldn't survive six months if they didn't get a check."
Kaptur has made it a priority to restore the industrial sector and reduce economic inequality. In 2002, she got Ohio Gov. Bob Taft (R) to decrease his cuts to a nutrition program by holding a bake sale in Columbus. In 2009, she introduced a resolution calling for a temporary moratorium on home foreclosures.As a representative of a heavy manufacturing district, Kaptur has backed federal help for the auto industry; in November 2008, she announced her support for the bailout aimed at the Big Three automakers.
Kaptur opposed the 2008 financial bailout plan. She argued that the measure concentrated too much power in Wall Street banks and that it didn’t do enough to address the credit freeze and home- foreclosure crisis. Kaptur partnered with Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), to introduce the NO BAILOUTS Act, which included an array of regulatory reforms and a tax on security transactions. She teamed up with Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.), to call on the Securities and Exchange Commission to change accounting rules.
Trade
In 1993, Kaptur emerged as one of the most active opponents of NAFTA’s ratification. Arguing that it would hurt American workers, she led a caravan through Ohio to mobilize opposition; she traveled to Mexico on a fact-finding mission; and she held countless press conferences to denounce the agreement.
“He is the president for Wall Street, not Main Street,” she said of Clinton shortly after NAFTA’s passage. “He better remember that every plant that closes will be on Clinton's watch.” Kaptur also battled the Clinton Administration on normal trade relations with China, and on fast-track trade promotion authority.
Kaptur has delivered sobering estimates on free trade’s impact on the U.S. economy. In 1996, she teamed up with Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to introduce the NAFTA Accountability Act; the legislation was meant to force a renegotiation of provisions that failed to meet benchmark standards.
That same year, she spectacularly ripped into Clinton’s trade policies at a presidential campaign event held in Toledo. In the Clinton’s presence, she deviated from her prepared remarks to dispute his contention that the country was on the right track. "Fourteen thousand Toledo workers… lost their jobs because of NAFTA,” she told him in front of a cheering crowd. “It's a crime! It's a crime!" In 1999, Kaptur again clashed with Clinton at a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus. She read a letter from a woman who said she had lost her job because of free-trade policies. "Maybe your advisers protect you from these letters," Kaptur told Clinton.
Under the Bush Administration, Kaptur continued to battle free-trade agreements. Along with a majority of her caucus, she voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement and against the Peru bilateral pact. In 2008, she introduced legislation opposing a trade deal with Colombia.
Defense
One of Kaptur’s defining achievements is the construction of the National World War II Memorial. In 1987, she introduced legislation establishing such a memorial after being approached by a veteran. She reintroduced her World War II Memorial Act three more times before getting it approved by Congress in 1993. The memorial, built on the National Mall, opened in 2004.
As a member of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, Kaptur is in a position to shape the country’s defense spending. Citing dependence on imported petroleum as America’s chief strategic vulnerability, Kaptur has indicated that converting the military to alternative energy will be one of her top priorities.
In 1991, Kaptur voted against legislation authorizing the first Gulf War. In 2002, she opposed the Iraq war resolution. “The one thing we don't want America to do is to stick our nose into a part of the world and become the common enemy of many people, many countries, many forces," she explained. She has also argued that the Iraq war was motivated by the quest for oil.
