Beto O’Rourke and Jay Inslee, On the Issues:

CLIMATE CHANGE: Most Democrats know about Jay Inslee’s campaign because he made the issue of climate change front and center. His logo included a shot of the globe, and his Issues webpage devoted more categories to climate change than to any other topic. Inslee called for a transition to 100% green energy, the creation of a green jobs economy, environmental justice for poor Americans taking the brunt of the pollution damage by dirty energy, and a mobilization of American diplomatic might to get the rest of the world to fight climate change alongside us.

Beto O’Rourke’s full climate plan is similarly ambitious, and you can read about it here. It is the general consensus of climate scientists that if we do not hit net-zero emissions (through a combination of eliminating all dirty energy sources and sequestering carbon out of the air) by the year 2050, we will start to see vastly more disasters and ecological collapses than we’re already seeing today. The IPCC report on climate change states that global net-zero/net-negative is possible if we slash carbon emissions in half over the next ten years and then spend the next twenty years whittling it down to zero. Beto is for this plan, and while he is eager to rejoin the Paris Agreement and take executive action to curb emissions wherever possible, he knows that we will need to mobilize the entire nation (and the entire world) to fight this crisis and meet the goals he and the IPCC have set.

To that end, Beto O’Rourke’s climate plan calls for the mobilization of $5 trillion in federal and state funds to go to a clean energy fund, subsidizing clean public transit and public infrastructure projects, and bankrolling a massive new clean energy/carbon capture R&D project to literally engineer humanity’s way out of the hole it has dug itself into. Much like Inslee’s plan for a climate conservation corps, Beto wants to use some of this cash to fund an AmeriCorps-style group to plant trees, deploy clean energy solutions, and fight the damages of the climate crisis. Beto also wants to revitalize the economies of agricultural states by investing in their ability to fight climate change and incentivizing the planting of cover crops to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere (a necessary first step in tackling the crisis). This plan is incredibly ambitious, and I’m not just saying that. Beto’s plan invests more money into climate change mitigation/prevention than candidates like Elizabeth Warren would, and the mere existence of a comprehensive plan puts him above some of the other frontrunners in the race. Beto is also a strong proponent of a climate-focused debate, which Inslee also championed, though the DNC rejected this measure at the urging of certain other campaigns. I should also note that Beto has a proven record on fighting for the environment: he has an incredible 95% lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters, a hair better than Inslee’s 92%.

Jay Inslee’s team has put an incredible amount of work into their campaign’s climate policy plan. I really commend them for doing that, and I hope that Inslee will join O’Rourke’s cabinet to shore up the USA’s anti-climate-change bona fides, maybe in the second term since he’s decided to run for reelection. The two men both believe that climate change is the number one threat to peace and security across the globe, and with Inslee out of the running we have to coalesce behind a viable candidate who will deliver pragmatic solutions on climate change. But as much as Inslee prioritized the climate in his campaign, there’s much more to talk about.

HEALTH CARE: As the Governor of Washington, Inslee eagerly expanded Obamacare and signed a health care public option into state law. Inslee is also a proponent of a nationwide expansion of Medicare such that any adult can buy into it in order to reach universal, high-quality, guaranteed health care, much as Beto O’Rourke is. Inslee has not specifically endorsed Medicare for America as Beto has, but he supports its broad strokes: expand Medicare so that anyone who doesn’t like their employer insurance can get it, cap prices and reform the industry, but don’t throw >160 million Americans off of their employer-sponsored health insurance. Medicare for America is pretty similar, although it’d automatically enroll any adult in the program on their 18th birthdays as opposed to just letting them buy in. Although both Beto and Inslee are not philosophically opposed to the idea of Medicare for All, both believe that making private health insurance illegal is unnecessarily drastic and ultimately counterproductive to the goal of reaching universal high-quality health care, and that people who like their existing health insurance should be allowed to keep it. Beto O’Rourke is an enthusiastic supporter of Medicare for America and its authors, and I imagine Inslee would like it too. If you’d like to read more about what health care would look like under an O’Rourke administration, check out this policy summary.

TRADE/THE ECONOMY/LABOR: Beto and Inslee are both huge supporters of unions and are pragmatists on trade. Both men support a nationwide $15 minimum hourly wage, reinstating the Obama-era overtime rule that let millions of workers qualify for time-and-a-half overtime, letting workers get seven days of sick leave per year, funding apprenticeship/retraining programs, and a whole host of other things. On trade, both Inslee and O’Rourke know that it is important to lift trading barriers, but only if other countries are willing to strengthen labor and environmental protections so that their workers can compete fairly with ours without polluting the air we breathe. Beto also just published a detailed blog post on Medium that addressed what he wanted to do with labor unions and their rights to bargain, which is definitely worth a read. Suffice to say, he’s a friend.

GUN SAFETY: Beto O’Rourke is a leader among Democrats when it comes to reducing gun violence and curbing white supremacist terrorism, and he and Jay Inslee have a lot of ideas in common here. Beto’s gun safety plan is available to read here. In it, Beto speaks about the need to pass a new assault weapons ban plus a suite of other common-sense gun reforms (universal background checks, red flag laws, no bump stocks or high-capacity mags, a federal gun registry, etc). Beto is also the only Democratic candidate in the race with a substantive plan for a mandatory buyback of assault weapons currently in circulation, and the only Democrat qualified for the 3rd debate who has endorsed the March for Our Lives Peace Plan. Lawful gun owners would be fairly compensated for their weapons, and would still keep most long guns and handguns for hunting/self-defense/competitions. Tim Ryan, who has not yet qualified for either the third or fourth debate, is the only other signatory to that bold, new peace plan. Anyways, Beto and Inslee also want to empower the FBI to crack down on white nationalist terrorism, and Beto goes further by promising to hold social media companies like Facebook and Twitter accountable if they don’t take measures to enforce their rules against harassment, extremist threats, and online intimidation.

Once again, I’ve left out a billion incredibly important issues, both because I lack the qualifications to talk about most of these topics (and, therefore, I increase the risk of messing something up with every word I type) and because what I’ve already said shows that Inslee and Beto are on the same page. I can sum it up like this: both have made stopping climate change a priority, both have plans to expand public health care without kicking you off your private insurance plans, both have plans to defend unions and make smart trade deals, and both want to stop mass shootings. If you’re not sold that we’re all on the same team, check out betoorourke.com/#plans to find out more.