The Issues
Kirk is actively involved in issues that most voters do not associate with the Republican Party: He is co-chair of the Task Force on Illegal Guns, a member of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus and co-chair of the Great Lakes Task Force.
“He is, as we have stated before, one of the most independent members of Congress,” wrote the Daily Herald in an October 2008 electoral endorsement.
Kirk voted with his party 86.9% of the time during the 111th Congress and 88.3% of the time spanning his congressional career.
Closing Guantanamo
In December 2009, Kirk fiercely opposed the relocation of dozens of suspected terrorists to an Illinois prison about 150 miles northwest of Chicago from Guantanamo Bay prison camp. He contended that such a move would make "our state and the Chicago Metropolitan Area.. ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization."
The Economy
Kirk led efforts to enact a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution and strengthen budget rules using his "12 Consensus Principles to Limit Federal Spending." Among these principles: automatic spending reductions, a line-item veto and accounts for emergency spending.
He has also cosponsored many tax-cut proposals: removing more than 3.9 million low-income Americans from the tax rolls completely, eliminating the estate tax and the marriage penalty, increasing family-tax credits and increasing the contribution limits for education savings accounts.
But Kirk opposed President Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus package.
Following enactment, he opposed the dispensation of stimulus funds to then-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) in light of the governor’s impeachment, but he left the door open for disbursement to Blagojevich’s successor.
"We want to make sure that federal law denies Gov. Blagojevich any chance to provide funds through his office to any one of his friends of allies,” he said.
While he voted for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout of 2008, Kirk then introduced corporate-responsibility proposals to require that corporations immediately disclose investor information—not quarterly, as the previous law had permitted; impose harsher criminal sentences on executives who defraud investors; and allow that government to seize ill-gotten gains and return the proceeds to defrauded investors.
The Environment
Kirk raised conservative ire when he was one of eight Republicans to vote in June 2009 for the cap-and-trade legislation passed by the House. Kirk defended the vote by saying that while not perfect, it would "still lower our dependence on foreign oil by diversifying American energy production."
Generally, Kirk has voted to protect the environment. He cosponsored, with Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.), legislation to fine polluters throughout the Great Lakes region and forward the proceeds into water cleanup funds and sewer-infrastructure construction. As a co-chair of the Great Lakes Task Force, Kirk works with government and environmental groups to improve protection of the Great Lakes from mercury pollution, sewage runoff, depletion of wetlands and invasions by non-native species.
In 2006, when developers announced plans to build high-rise condominiums on the Navy-owned beaches and bluffs neighboring Fort Sheridan, Kirk helped negotiate a transfer of ownership of the land from the Navy to an environmental trust. The agreement stipulated that the bluffs would become a migratory bird sanctuary and leave the lakefront park open to the public.
As a member of the Renewable Energy Caucus, he has cosponsored bills for raising fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks, and increasing t funding for biodiesel, wind and solar power, and other renewable fuels. He is also working to advance ethanol-based gasoline (E-85).
In March 2009, Kirk joined 119 other representatives in writing to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and prevailing upon him to instate a moratorium on logging and development in roadless forest land. He voted to ban logging and phase out snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park and he has consistently voted against opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
Israel
Given his extensive international and military background, it should come as no surprise that Kirk has devoted much of his congressional career to U.S. foreign policy.
Israel is one of his greatest areas of interest. After Hamas became the dominant political party in the Palestinian legislature, Kirk cosponsored a bill to restrict funding to the Palestinian Authority until Hamas agreed to recognize Israel, renounce violence, disarm and accept prior agreements. Concerned that U.S. aid to the Palestianian Authority via the United Nations might be funneled to terrorist groups, Kirk co-authored with then-Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) a 2006 bill that called for an independent audit of the U.N. agency's $400 million annual budget.
He also authored a letter to Bush U.N. Ambassador John Bolton urging him to vote against any U.N. budget that did not include “an end to discrimination against Israel."
China
In June 2005, Kirk founded the U.S.-China Working Group in with co-chair Rick Larsen (D-Wash.). The group seeks to build diplomatic relations with China and to make Congress more aware of U.S.-China issues, including trade, economic policy and space exploration.
In 2006, Kirk cosponsored legislation to increase the availably of Chinese language training for U.S. students, increase exchange programs between the U.S. and China and promote U.S. exports to China.
Iran
Kirk also co-chairs the Iran Working Group with Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.). The group organizes monthly briefings on Iran's nuclear ambitions and Iran's influence in Iraq.
Kirk sponsored a House resolution to demand a quarantine of Iran's oil imports in the event that negotiations over its nuclear program fail.
Human Rights
As a member of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, the Illinois Republican has taken on a smorgasbord of additional human-rights issues. When mass killings peaked in Darfur, Kirk cosponsored then-Caucus Chairman Henry Hyde's (R-Ill.) bill to label them “genocide,” intensify sanctions on the Sudanese government and call for U.S. and international intervention. He later cosponsored a resolution, authored by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), urging the president to appoint a special envoy to Sudan. And he worked to secure funding for Darfur relief programs.
Kirk led the effort to free Bangladeshi journalist Shoaib Choudhury, whom Bangladeshi authorities had imprisoned and charged with sedition for promoting an interfaith dialogue between Bangladesh and Israel. Kirk met with Bangladeshi officials and corresponded with State Department diplomats to urge the journalist’s release. Within two months of Kirk's intervention, Choudhury was released on bail.
