Tom Clements' Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
Key
Official Position: Candidate addressed this issue directly by taking the Political Courage Test.
Inferred Position: Candidate refused to address this issue, but Vote Smart inferred this issue based on the candidate's public record, including statements, voting record, and special interest group endorsements.
Unknown Position: Candidate refused to address this issue, or we could not infer an answer for this candidate despite exhaustive research of their public record.
Additional Information: Click on this icon to reveal more information about this candidate's position, from their answers or Vote Smart's research.
Other or Expanded Principles & Legislative Priorities are entered exactly as candidates submit them. Vote Smart does not edit for misspelled words, punctuation or grammar.
Tom Clements refused to tell citizens where he stands on any of the issues addressed in the 2010 Political Courage Test, despite repeated requests from Vote Smart, national media, and prominent political leaders.
Issue Positions
For Presidential and Congressional candidates who refuse to provide voters with their positions, Vote Smart has researched their public records to determine their likely responses. These issue positions are from 2010.
- Despite exhaustive research, Vote Smart was unable to find information about this candidate's position.
- Despite exhaustive research, Vote Smart was unable to find information about this candidate's position.
- Tom Clements. Issue Position: Economic Recovery and Jobs. 15 September 2010. "To remedy our current situation, Congress must support strong regulation of financial markets. While financial regulation will provide a long-term solution to the recession and hopefully prevent future economic crises, short-term relief is essential to remedy high unemployment and foreclosure rates, and help working people have access to basic necessities. . . . The 2009 stimulus law, which combined spending for jobs and tax cuts, was about half as big as it needed to be. While it may have prevented another Great Depression, it was only enough to stabilize unemployment at the current high rate. In order to get the nearly one out of ten Americans who are unemployed back to work, federal lawmakers must enact legislation that helps support small businesses, and creates new jobs aimed at rebuilding national infrastructure and expanding projects in sustainable energy." (votesmart.org)
- Tom Clements. Issue Position: Social Security & Healthcare. "For more than 75 years, Social Security has prevented millions of older and disabled Americans from falling into poverty. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935 he created a safety net to "confront change, both predictable and unforeseen." As our nation faces another decade of economic crisis and uncertainty, this safety net is more important than ever before. Tom Clements will work to protect and strengthen Social Security so that remains the safety net on which Americans have come to depend...Tom Clements believes in reforms that would not increase the burden on working people or require people to work longer before retiring...The attack on Social Security is an attack on working Americans. We must stop the politicians from raiding our nation's most successful public safety net, and ensure that Social Security has adequate funding for the future." (votesmart.org)
- Tom Clements. Issue Position: Human Rights. "The death penalty in our country is both immoral and unjust. While more than two thirds of the world's countries have acknowledged the death penalty as a fundamental violation of human rights and abolished it either in law or in practice, only China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia surpassed the US in number of executions last year. Numerous studies and investigations of the death penalty have proven that it is not a deterrent from violent crime; it kills innocent people; its application is racially and socioeconomically biased; and it costs our government much more than life in prison sentences. Even one execution of an innocent person is too many, yet no state can claim it has not executed innocent men and women. We must invoke a death penalty moratorium pending a comprehensive reexamination of the system, at trial and at sentencing, to insure justice and fairness and to protect the innocent." (votesmart.org)
- Tom Clements. Issue Position: Education "The role of the federal government in education is to make sure that all children - especially the most disadvantaged - have an education adequate to prepare them for the 21st century. Quality education gives our children the tools they need to get better careers and have brighter futures, and it is the key to bringing higher paying jobs and economic growth to our state and nation. Unfortunately, on both state and national levels, reduced funding for underperforming public schools and ineffective assessment strategies are leaving teachers with inadequate resources and overcrowded classrooms. Punishing the schools that are struggling the most, or rerouting high-achieving students to private and charter schools sends the message that our nation would prefer to avoid addressing problems with public education, leaving the children in our worst schools - which are most often in poor minority communities - stuck in schools that are unable to provide them with the tools they need to compete in our society and economy...While NCLB sought to remedy the problem of poorly performing public schools, its misguided accountability system - with its reliance on standardized test scores, state-regulated assessment, and punitive federal funding practices - must be restructured to correctly identify schools that need assistance, and to provide a system of effective intervention...We should provide competitive salaries for teachers and school administrators, to whom we entrust the future of our children, and offer funding and rewards for continuing professional development. We must also hold teachers to higher standards of performance based on meaningful and nationally regulated assessment measures. If our country is to remain a world leader, we must give teachers the resources they need to help our children become knowledgeable, productive citizens of our increasingly diverse and competitive global society." (votesmart.org)
- Behre, Robert. 2010. The Post and Courier: Green Party Candidate Sees Opportunity. "As a Green Party candidate, environmental concerns also are at the root of his campaign. He said sustainability and environmental protection should be the foundation of all government policies and spending." (www.postandcourier.com)
- Tom Clements. Issue Position: Energy. "We are all guilty of using too much misleadingly cheap, dirty energy. A conscious shift in our own habits is essential. We must acknowledge that wasting energy as we have in the past will not be possible in the future, and move rapidly to produce more efficient housing, better- planned cities, and mass transit on a scale never seen before. We have time to plan for the transition to a society based on more efficient energy use, but time is growing short. Tom Clements will be a voice in Washington for a sustainable energy policy based on innovation, conservation and increased efficiency, and decentralized energy generation and use." (votesmart.org)
- Despite exhaustive research, Vote Smart was unable to find information about this candidate's position.
- Tom Clements. Issue Position: Social Security & Healthcare. "While Obama's healthcare bill was a step in the right direction, it falls far short of the level of healthcare reform that our country needs. Insurance companies and other profit-driven medical industries have very little to do with getting real healthcare to people. Real healthcare reform, including a single-payer system is an important step we must take; single-payer healthcare is the only way to effectively control the inflation of healthcare costs, give all Americans access to quality medical treatment, and make our healthcare system more efficient and cost-effective." (votesmart.org)
- Tom Clements. Issue Position: Human Rights. "Our Constitution guarantees every "person" in this country, not just every citizen, a fundamental right to due process and equal protection. We live in a nation of immigrants, a nation that despite its history of racism and inequality has promoted itself as a beacon of liberty and democracy, inviting the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" from other nations to seek the so-called American dream. Our national memory is short, however, among many Americans whose ancestors came from Europe generations ago, and who now wish to deny immigrants -- particularly those from South and Central America -- access to the opportunities that their grandparents and great-grandparents once had. The current immigration debate -- and the discussion of repealing or modifying the 14th Amendment -- is motivated by racism, and lawmakers in Washington have a duty to fight attacks on the 14th Amendment and immigration laws such as Arizona's and South Carolinas, as well as the attitudes behind them. Those discussing immigration must also recognize that for decades the federal government has supported a de facto policy encouraging the flow of cheap labor. This policy cannot immediately be reversed with the application of new get-tough policies. Likewise, US involvement in devastating wars in Central America resulted in a large migration of immigrants from that region, and we cannot simply force these refugees to return to the countries they left during the conflicts. Additionally, the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) must be taken into account in that it forced small farmers off their lands and caused other employment problems. Clements opposed NAFTA during the discussion about it in Congress in the early 1990s and warned that it could have a negative impact on jobs both in the US and Mexico. We must implement immigration reform that puts undocumented workers on a path to legalization, helping them enjoy the privileges and fulfill the duties of citizenship, and protecting them from the racial profiling and unconstitutional treatment that characterizes this most recent wave of immigration laws." (votesmart.org)
- Fuller, Kelly Marshall. The Georgetown Times: Third party candidate endorsed by AFL-CIO. 13 September 2010. '"We need to see that federal money creates as many jobs as possible and we can do a lot better in that area," he said. "The spending that has been dedicated to fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq needs to be redirected to sustainable energy policies and education..." (www.gtowntimes.com)
- Tom Clements. Issue Position: War, Peace, and Militarism. "The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven to be mistakes, yet Congress continues to pour money into them even though "victory" as the military defines it is impossible. We cannot confront terrorism with endless and aimless war; we must confront it as an ideology adopted by radicals who have been economically and socially marginalized. The lives of brave American soldiers and civilians continue to be lost at an alarming rate. Suicides of traumatized soldiers have increased, yet society does little to address the needs of those who have sacrificed the most. It is time to stop the carnage. Tom Clements will be a strong voice for bringing the troops home now, and for providing the support they and their families will need on their return." (votesmart.org)
- Tom Clements. Issue Position: Human Rights. "Our federal government must be a leader in the fight to ensure that Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT) Americans are no longer treated as second-class citizens and are at long last afforded the equal rights and protections guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Recognizing the families and relationships of GLBT Americans by repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and legalizing gay marriage across the nation is essential for equality. Churches and other private groups have a right to define marriage as they see fit, but their definitions of religious marriage cannot not preclude or influence government policies that allow gay marriage. Legal marriage provides literally hundreds of benefits and protections for couples, ranging from hospital visitation rights, to Social Security benefits and pensions, to tax benefits and inheritance rights. Congress should take the lead in this fight for equality by repealing DOMA and providing all GLBT couples and families the same benefits and protections at the federal level given to straight married couples until same-sex marriage is legal in all fifty states." (votesmart.org)
Vote Smart does not permit the use of its name or programs in any campaign activity, including advertising, debates, and speeches.