5 Must-Read Quotes from Last Night’s Democratic Debate

1

“Do black lives matter, or do all lives matter?”

Through video, law school student Sterling Arthur Wilkins asked if black lives matter. Sanders took the lead on this question. “Black lives matter,” he began.

“The reason those words matter is the African-American community knows that on any given day, some innocent person like Sandra Bland can get into a car and then three days later she’s going to end up dead in jail, or their kids are going to get shot. We need to combat institutional racism, from top to bottom, and we need major, major reforms in a broken criminal justice system, in which we have more people in jail than China.”

2

In-State Tuition for Undocumented Immigrants

Martin O’Malley already had the upper hand when it comes to offering undocumented immigrants in-state tuition, as Maryland approved this while he was governor. On Tuesday night, Clinton also got behind in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants.

“My plan would support any state that takes that position and would work with those states and encourage more states to do the same thing,” Clinton said. “I want to support states that are expanding health care and including undocumented children and others. I want to open up the opportunity for immigrants to be able to buy into the exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. I think to go beyond that, as I understand what Gov. O’Malley has recommended, so they would get the same subsidies, I think that raises so many issues, it would be very difficult to administer.”

3

Immigration Reform

https://twitter.com/MartinOMalley/status/654118453507399680

Martin O’Malley said that “old thinking” has kept the country from moving forward on immigration. “I would go further than President Obama has on DACA and DAPA,” O’Malley said, referring to the deferred-action on deportation programs that Obama created using executive action. “We are a nation of immigrants. We are made stronger by immigrants. … I am for a generous, compassionate America that says we’re all in this together.”

4

War on Drugs

Bernie Sanders said weed wasn’t really his style, but that this doesn’t mean it should be criminalized. “I am seeing in this country too many lives being destroyed for nonviolent offenses,” he said. “We have a criminal justice system that lets CEOs on Wall Street walk away, and yet we are imprisoning or giving jail sentences to young people who are smoking marijuana.”

5

The difference between the Democratic and Republican debates

Martin O’Malley was also on a roll. On top of calling Trump a “carnival barker,” he explained what the difference between the Democratic and Republican debates were.

“On this stage you didn’t hear anyone denigrate women, you didn’t hear anyone make racist comments about new immigrants, you didn’t hear anyone speak ill of anyone because of their religious belief,” O’Malley said. “What you heard was an honest debate of what will move us forward, to lead to a clean electric grid by 2050, and employ more of our people, rebuild our cities and towns, educate our children at higher and better levels, and include more people in the economic and social life in our country.”