Amy Klobuchar

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Amy Klobuchar bigraphy, stories - American Senator

Amy Klobuchar : biography

25 May 1960 –

Amy Jean Klobuchar ( born May 25, 1960) is the senior United States Senator from Minnesota. She is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, an affiliate of the Democratic Party. She is the first elected female senator from Minnesota and is one of twenty female senators serving in the 113th United States Congress.

She previously served as the County Attorney for Hennepin County, Minnesota, the most populous county in Minnesota. She was a legal adviser to former Vice President Walter Mondale. She has been named by The New York Times as one of the seventeen women most likely to become the first female President of the United States, and by MSNBC as a possible nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Footnotes

Political positions

As a Democrat, Klobuchar’s political positions have generally been in line with modern liberalism in the United States. She is pro-choice, supports LGBT rights, favors federal social services such as Social Security and universal health care, and is critical of the Iraq War.

Foreign issues

In March 2007, Klobuchar went on an official trip to Iraq with Senate colleagues Sheldon Whitehouse, John E. Sununu, and Lisa Murkowski. Klobuchar noted that U.S. troops were completing their job and working arduously to train the Iraqis, but voiced her frustration with Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.

Klobuchar opposed President George W. Bush’s plan to increase troop levels in Iraq in January 2007. In May 2007, after president Bush vetoed a bill (which Klobuchar voted for) that would fund the troops but would impose time limits on the Iraq War, and supporters failed to garner enough congressional votes to override his veto, Klobuchar voted for additional funding for Iraq without such time limits, saying she "simply could not stomach the idea of using our soldiers as bargaining chips".

Local issues

Within days after the collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge, Klobuchar introduced and succeeded in passing legislation to appropriate $250 million to Mn/DOT to quickly build a replacement bridge.

After the nationwide publicity of an injury of a 6-year-old Minnesotan girl at a public wading pool, Klobuchar co-sponsored the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool And Spa Safety Act that created new safety standards for pool drains.

Free trade

Klobuchar opposes free trade agreements that some perceive to cause a loss of jobs in the U.S.; however, she has wavered on her opposition to such trade agreements since her election. A current trade agreement with Peru may achieve her support on grounds of expanded labor and environmental protections, even though they contain the same language as past trade agreements.

Civil liberties

In August 2007, Klobuchar was one of only 16 Democratic Senators and 41 Democratic House members to vote in favor of the "Protect America Act of 2007", which was widely seen as eroding the civil liberty protections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and posing difficult questions relative to the Fourth Amendment. Klobuchar did however, vote against granting legal immunity to telecom corporations that cooperated with the NSA warrantless surveillance program.

Klobuchar voted in favor of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2008, which included a provision to ban the use of waterboarding by the United States.

During the hearing of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, Klobuchar sparred with Senator Tom Coburn when he questioned the nominee about his perception that Americans were "losing freedom." Klobuchar argued that the "free society" the senator favored was one in which women were underrepresented in government, including no representation on the Supreme Court or the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In 2011, Klobuchar co-sponsored the Protect IP Act and introduced S.978, the Commercial Felony Streaming Act, a bill that would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted material for the purpose of "commercial advantage or personal financial gain" a felony under US copyright law. Backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and praised by industry groups, the legislation has been enormously unpopular among critics who believe it would apply to those who stream or post videos of copyrighted content on public sites such as YouTube. Justin Bieber has on radio called for Klobuchar to be "locked up" for supporting a bill that would make "unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted material a felony".