Political positions of Cory Booker
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Cory Booker is the senior United States senator from New Jersey and a member of the Democratic Party. He was previously the 36th mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013. Before that Booker served on the Newark City Council for the Central Ward from 1998 to 2002.
Booker has been called a liberal and progressive Democrat. As a senator, he has a liberal voting record. In a July 2013 Salon interview, Booker said, "there's nothing in that realm of progressive politics where you won't find me." In a September 2013 interview with The Grio, when asked whether he considered himself a progressive, he said he was a Democrat and an American. According to the Humane Society, Booker has had the most pro-animal welfare voting record in the Senate year after year.
Booker supports long-term deficit reduction efforts for economic growth, cap and trade taxation to combat climate change, and increased funding for education. He has spoken in favor of creating a federal job guarantee and baby bonds (low-risk savings accounts that minors get access to at age 18). In the Senate, he has emphasized issues of racial and social justice. He played a leading role in the push to pass the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill. He supports ending the war on drugs and the legalization of cannabis. Booker supports abortion rights and affirmative action. He supports LGBTQ+ rights, voting for the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022. Booker also supports a single-payer health care plan: in September 2017, he joined Bernie Sanders and 14 other co-sponsors in submitting a single-payer health care plan to Congress called the "Medicare for All" bill. Booker opposes abolishing private health insurance. Along with Senate Republicans in 2017, Booker voted against a measure to allow cheaper prescription drugs to be imported from Canada, citing concerns about the safety of Canadian drugs, which lead to the defeat of the measure. He faced progressive criticism for his vote. Booker is one of the Senate's top financial recipients from the drug industry.
After the US strike on Syria in April 2017, Booker criticized military action "without a clear plan" or authorization from Congress.
Booker supports a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He has said that Iran is a direct threat to U.S. and Israeli security and feels all options should be on the table for dealing with the conflict, but his decision to back the Iran nuclear deal framework damaged his long-term relationship with some Jewish voters and supporters. In an attempt to reduce the damage, he initiated an emergency summit for Jewish leaders, which some of his longstanding supporters did not attend. Booker was the sole Democratic co-sponsor of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, receiving criticism from free speech advocates. From 2013 to 2024, he declared receiving $871,563 in funding from pro-Israel donors. In 2025, Booker was in a minority of Senate Democrats that voted not to block the sale of military arms to Israel despite rising death tolls from its war on Gaza and restrictions on humanitarian aid resulting in severe cases of starvation. Booker has consistently voted for arms sales to Israel and against Bernie Sanders' resolutions to condition military aid to Israel amidst the Gaza Strip famine and humanitarian crisis, saying that it "would restrict our country's ability to provide future security guarantees without achieving the goal of ending this war now or increasing vital humanitarian aid".
Despite his reputation as a progressive, progressives have criticized Booker for various reasons. In 2017, he voted against a proposal to lower prescription drug prices, which led to criticism that he was too dependent on corporate support. In 2021, The American Prospect criticized Booker and Bob Menendez for recommending Christine O'Hearne to a federal judgeship after she had spent much of her career defending employers against discrimination and sexual harassment claims, and had defended a school against allegations that its swim coach had sexually abused a girl from ages 13 to 19.