Amy Jean Klobuchar (; born May 25, 1960) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Minnesota. A member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Minnesota's affiliate of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the Hennepin County Attorney. She ran for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 election, before pulling out in March and endorsing Joe Biden.
Klobuchar's political positions have generally been in line with modern American liberalism. She is pro-choice on abortion, supports LGBT rights and the Affordable Care Act, and was critical of the Iraq War.
According to GovTrack, Klobuchar passed more legislation than any other senator by the end of the 114th Congress in late 2016. According to Congress.gov, , she had sponsored or co-sponsored 111 pieces of legislation that became law. During the 115th Congress, she voted in line with President Donald Trump's position on legislation 31.1 percent of the time.
Crime
Criminal justice reform
In December 2018, Klobuchar voted for the First Step Act, legislation aimed at reducing recidivism rates among federal prisoners through expanding job training and other programs in addition to forming an expansion of early-release programs and modifications on sentencing laws such as mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, "to more equitably punish drug offenders."
On July 31, 2019, following Attorney General William Barr announcing that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Klobuchar was a cosponsor of a bill banning the death penalty.
Gun laws
As of October 2018, Klobuchar has an "F" rating from the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) for supporting gun control legislation.
In the wake of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, Klobuchar participated in the Chris Murphy gun control filibuster.
Following the Las Vegas shooting in October 2017, Klobuchar was one of twenty-four senators to sign a letter to National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins espousing the view that it was critical the NIH "dedicate a portion of its resources to the public health consequences of gun violence" at a time when 93 Americans die per day from gun-related fatalities and noted that the Dickey Amendment did not prohibit objective, scientific inquiries into shooting death prevention.
In November 2017, Klobuchar was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of Domestic Violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions would have to be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In January 2019, Klobuchar was one of forty senators to introduce the Background Check Expansion Act, a bill that would require background checks for either the sale or transfer of all firearms including all unlicensed sellers. Exceptions to the bill's background check requirement included transfers between members of law enforcement, loaning firearms for either hunting or sporting events on a temporary basis, providing firearms as gifts to members of one's immediate family, firearms being transferred as part of an inheritance, or giving a firearm to another person temporarily for immediate self-defense.
In February 2018, after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Klobuchar was one of four Democratic senators to sign a letter to President Trump asserting that were he "to endorse legislation to require a background check on every gun purchase, without other poison pill provisions attached, we could finally move much closer towards the comprehensive system that you called for after the Stoneman Douglas attack" and that there was no justification in allowing individuals denied firearms by federally licensed dealers being able to "simply visit a gun show or go online to purchase the same gun that they were denied at the store."
In February 2019, Klobuchar was one of thirty-eight senators to sign a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham calling on him to "hold a hearing" on universal background checks and noted Graham's statement in the press that he "intended to have the Committee work on ‘red flag’ legislation and potentially also background checks", actions the senators indicated their support for.