Author: G. Li, Megaphone Editor-in-chief

Read previous article titled “November 5, 2024⁩: U.S. Senate Election for California – Steve Garvey” for information on Republican candidate Steve Garvey.

Adam Schiff 

Schiff is the Democratic candidate for the US Senate for California. 

Here are his views on major California issues:

Defending Democracy 

Restoring the Vote: Schiff hopes to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to ensure voters are able to exercise their right to vote by counteracting restrictive voter suppression and subversion laws. To make voting easier for all people, he believes that we should make Election Day a federal holiday so everyone is able to vote, “including hard-working families that may not get time off., and also has the idea to automatically register all voters through government agencies such as the DMV, and the option to vote by mail. 

Eliminating the Gerrymander: Schiff wants to remove the gerrymander, which includes the drawing of district lines to increase a political party’s power, by passing the For the People Act to ban the practice of partisan gerrymandering so voters’ are what counts. He also wants to restore the vote to those who have served their time and returned to society. 

Affordable Agenda:

“It’s not that people aren’t working hard – they’re working harder than ever, and still not making enough to get by. They’re paying more for housing, childcare, gas, medicine, education and food. And their wages simply aren’t increasing fast enough to keep up with the basic costs of living. Meanwhile, corporations continue to make record profits and the wealthiest among us don’t pay their fair share.” – Congressman Adam Schiff Candidate for U.S. Senate

Making Childcare Affordable

Schiff wants to guarantee three months of paid parental leave to allow parents to stay home and bond with their child throughout the first months of their child’s life. He also wants to provide universal childcare through a refundable tax credit that caps child care copayments for families at no more than 5-10% of a family’s income, helping working parents with low wages allow their child to be safe at a daycare. Additionally, he believes in creating a federally funded teacher preparation system to ensure early childhood educators are well-informed and prepared to help children at early stages of development. 

Schiff wants to enforce and strengthen federal antitrust laws to rein in monopolization, which he believes “leads to higher costs”. He also hopes to impose federal price-gouging regulations, to prevent price increases, restrict inflation, and rein in powerful corporate monopolies. 

Additionally, Schiff wants to bring down prescription drug costs, lower gas prices, and rein in or prohibit corporate use of stock buybacks to inflate share values. 

Increasing Competition and Reducing Costs

Protect and Strengthen the Right to Organize: Shortened as the PRO Act, Schiff is a proponent of the Protect and Strengthen the Right to Organize Bill, hoping it will expand critical labor protections for workers’ rights and allow them to organize and collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions. 

Eliminate Rules Preventing Workers from Suing Employers for Violations: Schiff believes to avoid employers forcing customers and employees into arbitration, we need to ban mandatory arbitration clauses and class action waivers in employee contracts through legislation.

Ban Non-Compete, Non-Solicit, And No-Poaching Agreements: Schiff believes that ⅕ of workers are restricted by a non-compete agreement that prevents them from working for competitors of their current employers after leaving their position, causing lower wage growth and decreasing career mobility. He hopes to ban these agreements in favor of the employees. 

Foster and Grow California’s Innovation and Entrepreneurial Economy: He wants to “develop comprehensive regulatory frameworks to ensure that these companies and jobs stay here and grow here”.

Creating a Robust Care Economy: 

Enact Paid Family Leave For All American Families: “No one should have to choose between taking care of a child or sick family member and making a living.” Schiff believes that we need a national paid family leave policy that guarantees up to 12 weeks of paid leave for all American families for those that have to take care of sick families. 

Provide and Fund Care For Our Elderly and Our Sick: Schiff hopes to provide additional funding for long-term care by giving long-term care workers fully refundable tax credits (minimum of 1000 dollars annually). 

Making Home Care More Affordable: He wants to increase funding for home care under Medicare and Medicaid to allow seniors to continue living in their communities as house prices increase. 

Making our Tax System Fairer

Increase Taxes on Corporate Profits: “Trump lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, and now he’s threatening to make it even lower if he returns to the Oval Office. Some companies avoid paying taxes altogether — in fact at least 55 of the largest corporations in the United States paid ZERO federal corporate income taxes on their 2020 profits.” Schiff wants to return the corporate tax rate back to 35%.  

Fully Fund The IRS To Go After Tax Cheats: “If the top 1% of Americans paid the taxes they already owed, we could raise at least an additional $175 billion per year in tax revenue.” Schiff wishes to increase the budget for the IRS so they can hire more auditors and train their workers better. 

Middle Class Tax Cut: Schiff wants to provide middle class families relief through a middle-class tax cut, and restore the State and Local Tax Deduction (SALT) for families making less than $400,000. 

Expanding the Social Safety Net for Vulnerable Families

Pilot Guaranteed Income Programs Grant: Schiff wants to create a federal grant program that allows states to experiment with UBI programs, namely those focused on mothers and low-income families. 

Expand and Strengthen Social Security: Schiff wants to boost and strengthen Social Security benefits for the lowest-income retirees.

Expand Eligibility and Funding For SNAP Benefits: Schiff wants to index the benefits to inflation every six months instead of every year for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – also known as CalFresh in California– to make sure that SNAP benefits meet the needs of consumers based on current prices.

Expand Medicaid Eligibility: Schiff hopes to incentivize states to expand Medicaid availability in other states.

Lowering the Cost of Education

Make Public College Free for Californians: Schiff wants to help make college more affordable for California families by guaranteeing two free years of community college for full and free college tuition through tax credits and deferred tuition at California’s public universities.

Cancel Student Debt: Schiff wants to cancel at least $50,000 in student loan debt for every borrower. 

Tackling the Twin Crises of Housing Affordability and Homelessness

Building More Housing

Expand The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Program: Schiff wants to make it easier to build affordable housing by loosening restrictions on Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC).

Create Federal Low-Interest Loans For Multifamily Housing Construction: Prioritize multifamily housing. 

Convert Unused Federal And State Government Buildings And Land Into Housing: Schiff hopes to convert underutilized federal and state government buildings to housing.  

Make Homebuilding Faster, Cheaper And Safer: Schiff wants to provide funding to universities and public institutions to create new and quicker construction methods. 

Providing Relief to Renters

Schiff wants to make Section 8 An Entitlement And Create Incentives For Landlords Who Accept Tenants In Housing Voucher Programs, create A Federal Renter’s Tax Credit, create A Federal Fund For Tenant’s Rights Organizing And Legal Action, create A Federal Office Of Eviction Protection, and create a program building Positive Credit Scores Through Renting. 

Making Homeownership Easier and More Accessible

Schiff plans on creating A Nationwide Down Payment Assistance Program For Low-Income Homebuyers, placing Restrictions On Corporate And Private Equity Landlords, and funding Pilot Programs For Nonprofits That Lease Land And Sell Homes At A Low Price For Moderate Income Community Members. 

Helping Californians Experiencing Homelessness

In creating a comprehensive approach, Schiff hopes to adopt a wraparound approach to address homelessness, including: house subsidies that make housing affordable, adoption of Housing First, healthcare to meet the needs of veterans, research to improve operations/implementation efforts, efforts to address social needs, increased access to transportation, employment opportunities and programs for veterans exiting the justice system, etc. He also wants to create a national housing strategy, having the president and congress work with state and local governments to plan and execute a nationwide strategy to increase housing supply. 

Schiff also wants to increase federal funding for homelessness, through “tenant-based rental assistance, supportive housing for seniors, people with disabilities, and individuals struggling with substance abuse, and an investment in our housing options including repairing and preserving our public housing.” He also wants to create an innovation fund for homelessness, in attempts to prevent homelessness. We also need to invest in what works, relying on data to support innovative new approaches to solving homelessness. He also wants to address the root causes of homelessness and housing availability by passing the Housing for All Act that would authorize federal funding for the National Housing Trust Fund to address the affordable housing shortage and invest in other housing strategies. 

Additionally, Schiff hopes to create new federal offices dedicated to addressing the housing crisis, specifically expanding access to mental and behavioral health services to establish a new office in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and an Interagency Council on Housing Affordability.  

Protecting our Environment

Investing in Renewable Energy and Decarbonization

End Federal Subsidies For Fossil Fuel Production: “The federal government can generate $13 billion in tax revenue over a decade by eliminating tax subsidies that benefit the oil industry and incentivize drilling new oil wells.”

States Should Adopt Rules To Advance Environmental Justice: Schiff hopes to make sure communities that have been impacted by environmental hazards don’t have to face the full burden of transitioning to a green economy.

Increase Federal Support For Clean Energy Innovation And Tech Innovator Hubs: Schiff wants to increase funding of the Department of Energy to $475 million to allow smaller incubators to be featured in new programs that address the climate crisis.

Reducing our Transportation Sector Carbon Emissions

To reduce our transportation sector carbon emissions, Schiff mainly wants to: make the EV Tax Credit a point of sale rebate for all EV sales, set an ambitious decarbonization date for the aviation sector, make shipping greener, and invest in “Last Mile” infrastructure. 

Creating Green Jobs and Ensure a Just Transition

Pass The Green New Deal: Schiff hopes to help pass the Green New Deal, which would create millions of green jobs and increase access to nature, clean air, clean water, etc. 

He also wants to make a major national investment in a battery repurposing program, and incentivize fossil fuel employers to keep displaced fossil fuel workers on their payroll. 

Greening our Public Spaces

Schiff hopes to: bring tree cover to urban areas, invest in increasing access to parks in communities that lack access to local parks, and increase federal investment in reconnecting communities divided by freeways. 

Improving California’s Water Infrastructure

For improving California’s Water Infrastructure, Schiff wants to: address California’s aging water infrastructure and increase water capture, and provide robust funding for lead pipe replacement.

Mitigating Wildfires and their Impact

Schiff wants to protect homeowners from environmental financial catastrophes, hold insurance companies accountable for their role in the climate crisis, increase investments in co-stewardship of national forests for prescribed burns, invest in firefighter protection and address long term health risks, and create incentives for U.S. Forest Service Jobs and Wildland Federal Firefighters. 

Cleaning up Environmental Hazards

In this regard, Schiff wants to adjust the permitting process for oil rigs to hold polluters accountable, hold companies accountable for PFAS contamination, and increase federal funding for oil and gas site reclamation. 

Conserving our Natural Ecosystems

Schiff wants to prohibit oil and gas leasing off the coast of California, preserve our natural lands, expand national monuments, and protect and preserve our kelp forests. 

Read about Schiff’s work on his website here: https://www.adamschiff.com/plans/accomplishments/ 

Read more about Schiff’s plans on his website here: https://www.adamschiff.com/plans/ 

About Schiff: Schiff grew up in the Bay Area, and graduated from Danville’s Monte Vista High School before attending Stanford University and Harvard Law School. Schiff was a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, and became a State Senator while teaching political science courses part-time at Glendale Community College. Schiff was later elected to Congress, representing California’s 30th Congressional District. Schiff loves cycling and has completed numerous triathlons, including the 550 mile AIDS/LifeCycle. He also enjoys screenwriting and writing, and sometimes does stand-up comedy.