I support family reunification.

No. There are better ways to secure our southern border than by building a wall from coast to coast. Donald Trump wants to waste $18 billion of taxpayer money on a wall that most Americans oppose and that won’t secure the border as well as other more innovative, less expensive technology. What we need is better, newer more innovative technology to detect underground tunnels used to smuggle drugs and people, and more customs agents with better technology to screen cars and cargo driving through border crossings. 

San Diegans view the border as an opportunity, not a threat. It is an economic engine for San Diego and our country.

Yes. As a member of the Congressional Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, I have been a consistent, vocal advocate for Congressional action to address gun violence. In the wake of Sandy Hook, Aurora, Pulse nightclub, Las Vegas and now Parkland, Congressional action is long, long overdue. After each of these tragedies, Congressional Republicans hold a moment of silence in honor of those whose lives were senselessly cut short, and then send “thoughts and prayers,” and then do nothing to make it better. That needs to change. I am ready to make our background check system work better, and I’m ready to ban bump stocks, high-capacity magazines and weapons of war that have no place in our schools or in our communities. My priority now is to raise the volume on this issue — to make it so that Congressional Republicans can’t just move on — and to help all of those who have been calling for action from Congress to have their voices heard.

I have focused on pushing legislation to establish universal background checks because it has broad bipartisan support and, thus, the best chance of passage in the House. 

Yes. Pulling the U.S. out of NAFTA would rip the rug out from underneath our economy and devastate small business owners, workers, and families in San Diego and across the country. It would create new barriers that make it harder to sell American-made products and crops to our two largest customers. And it would raise the prices that working families pay for everything from cars to groceries.

All but ten states in the U.S. count on Mexico or Canada as their largest export markets. In San Diego, they are our two top customers, with $5.5 billion in annual exports to Mexico alone. San Diego’s economy has benefitted greatly from being a center for international trade and it has made our binational region a more attractive place to start a business and manufacture products. Pulling out of NAFTA could hurt this ecosystem and the 120,000 San Diegans whose jobs depend on trade.

NAFTA isn’t perfect. It makes sense to prioritize raising enforceable environmental and labor standards through trade agreements to further level the playing field for American workers.

As a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over health care, I fought back attempts to strip access to health care away from millions of Americans.  I support the Affordable Care Act. And it was a huge undertaking. That means it was bound to need fixes over time and I’ve sought ways to repair and improve those elements that aren’t working the way they were intended.

Here are some reforms I’ve supported:

1. Congress should reauthorize and make permanent federal reinsurance programs, which protect insurers against the costliest medical claims. Without a sufficiently funded reinsurance program, insurers with sicker enrollees would have to charge higher premiums to all of their customers to stem their financial losses.

2. Congress should shield Cost-Sharing Reduction Subsidies (CSRs) from the uncertain appropriations process and commit to long-term funding. These subsidies reduce out-of-pocket health care costs for hardworking American families. If CSRs ended, insurance would become unaffordable for many, more insurers would hike premiums or leave the exchanges altogether, and the federal government would foot the bill for newly uninsured families flocking to the emergency room for basic care.

3. One of the most important ways to keep insurance available and premiums down is to get young, healthy people into the insurance pool. The ACA tries to do this with an “individual mandate” — everyone has to get insurance or pay a fine. As an alternative to the mandate, Congress could authorize an automatic enrollment system, where young individuals who do not purchase insurance would be automatically enrolled in an inexpensive health plan that covers basic primary care and catastrophic illness or injury.

Many individual insurance markets need help today, and the fixes are available and need not be partisan. This is what Congress should be doing.