Cory Booker’s Message of Unity and Strength Is at the Core of His Presidential Campaign
Candidate: Cory Booker
State of Residence: New Jersey
Campaign Website: https://corybooker.com
Short Bio: Cory Booker was raised in Harrington Park, New Jersey, and graduated from Northern Valley Regional High School, in nearby Demarest. He received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University, where he played on the varsity football team. While at Stanford, he also was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and went on to study at the University of Oxford where he received an honors degree in History. Booker then completed his education at Yale Law School, receiving his J.D. in 1997.
After law school, Booker moved to Newark — where he still lives to this day — and started a nonprofit organization to provide legal services for low-income families and help tenants take on slumlords, improve living conditions, and stay in their homes.
At the age of twenty-nine, Booker was elected to the Newark City Council from the city’s Central Ward. In the seventeen years since, Booker has worked tirelessly at the local and national levels to improve the lives of New Jerseyans and Americans.
Starting in 2006, Booker proudly served as Newark’s mayor for more than seven years. During his tenure, the city entered its largest period of economic growth since the 1960s. In addition, overall crime declined and the quality of life for residents improved due to initiatives such as more affordable housing, new green spaces and parks, increased educational opportunities, and more efficient city services.
On October 16th, 2013, Booker won a special election to represent New Jersey in the United States Senate. He was re-elected to a full six year term in November 2014. As New Jersey’s junior Senator, Cory Booker has brought an innovative and bipartisan approach to tackling some of the most difficult problems facing New Jersey and our country.
Senator Booker has established himself as an innovative and bipartisan problem-solver committed to developing collaborative solutions that address some of our most complex challenges. Booker has also emerged as a national leader in the Congressional push for common sense criminal justice reform, advocating for front-end sentencing reforms, pushing for the banning of juvenile solitary confinement in federal facilities, and spearheading legislation to make the hiring process fairer for the formerly incarcerated. Booker has also partnered with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to create a number of economic proposals, from increased small business investment to apprenticeship programs, with the hope of fostering greater economic mobility and opportunity for individual Americans. [Official Senate Website]
Fun Fact: Cory Booker became a vegetarian in the 1990s while a student at Oxford and a vegan in 2014. He would be our first vegan president if elected in 2020. [LA Times]
On the Issues
Health Care: In 2017, Mr. Booker announced his support for the Medicare for All Act drafted by Senator Bernie Sanders, and reiterated his support in an interview after he announced his candidacy Friday, saying “I signed up and am a big believer in Medicare for all.” But as a senator from New Jersey who had received millions in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, Mr. Booker had been reluctant to focus regulatory efforts on the industry, voting against a measure in 2017 that would have greatly reduced drug prices by allowing imports from Canada. He has since reversed course, announcing his support this year for Mr. Sanders’s bill to rein in prescription drug costs. [New York Times]
Jobs/Economy/Taxes: “Cory believes in an economy that values American workers and benefits everyone, not just the privileged few. His baby bonds proposal, the American Opportunity Accounts Act, would virtually close the racial wealth gap by funding a federally-backed savings account for every child born in America that grows with them as they grow up, ensuring that all children born in this country are afforded the opportunity for upward mobility.” [Official Website]
“Mr. Booker said Friday that “environmental justice” will be one of the three top policy issues of his campaign. He has recently signed on to endorse the Green New Deal, a progressive litmus test on the environment pushed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, that pushes for investments in clean-energy infrastructure and policies to directly address climate change.” [New York Times]