[17] His service as state's attorney was notable for his participation in the sting operation that caught Paul Lawrence, an undercover police officer for numerous departments in Vermont.

[22] The murder, which Leahy later called among the most violent he saw while working as a prosecutor, went unsolved until 2023, when DNA testing of evidence left at the crime scene led to the identification of the perpetrator.

He called the Reagan administration's cuts to the enforcement budget "de facto amnesty" for violations made by alleged increases in prices for oil companies.

[64] In August 1994, Leahy attended a news conference with the health advocacy group Public Voice, as it urged the federal government to take more ambitious steps to increase the healthiness of school lunches.

[68] In 1994, Leahy introduced legislation to encourage schools to ban soft drinks and other food items of "minimal nutritional value",[69] saying, "These vending profits go for good causes.

[73] After winning the Republican nomination in a campaign designed both to promote the movie and to mock ostensible GOP frontrunner Jack McMullen, who had only recently moved to Vermont from Massachusetts, Tuttle recommended that voters support Leahy.

In December 2006, during an appearance at the law school of Georgetown University, Leahy said that after the September 11 attacks, "the White House accelerated its power plays at the expense of the other branches of government, all in the name of fighting terrorism."

[77] Leahy added that the White House had been subpoenaed, so George W. Bush administration officials could explain "the legal justification they tried to follow when, for years, they wiretapped ordinary Americans and everyone else put out a warrant.

Sotomayor received criticism for having said "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Attempts at distorting that record by suggesting that her ethnicity or heritage will be the driving force in her decisions as a justice of the Supreme Court are demeaning to women and all communities of color.

In February 2013, Leahy was one of 24 senators to sign a letter asserting that Sikh, Hindu and Arab Americans were often targets of violence because they were mistaken for radical Muslims and citing a need for the federal government to "begin tracking information about anti-Sikh, anti-Hindu and anti-Arab hate crimes as soon as possible so that law enforcement can more effectively respond to this threat".

[109] In April 2017, Leahy was one of 11 senators to cosponsor a bill that would have restored a FCC rule requiring internet service providers to obtain permission from customers before selling data about them to advertisers that had been repealed earlier in the week.

[113] On January 18, 2018, Leahy announced he would not support the stopgap measure for the fiscal year to avert a government shutdown, saying the House bill left "too much undone, and it is woefully inadequate".

When this proposal was not implemented in the final version of the package, which consisted of military construction and veterans' affairs, legislative branch, and energy and water, Leahy warned the decision would leave the VA choice program unfunded.

The senators wrote, "Not only have reputable international organizations detailed the arbitrary detention of peaceful activists and dissidents without trial for long periods, but the systematic discrimination against women, religious minorities and mistreatment of migrant workers and others has also been well-documented.

"[122] In December 2018, after United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the Trump administration would suspend its obligations in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 60 days, if Russia continued to violate the treaty, Leahy was one of 26 senators to sign a letter expressing concern over the administration's "now abandoning generations of bipartisan U.S. leadership around the paired goals of reducing the global role and number of nuclear weapons and ensuring strategic stability with America's nuclear-armed adversaries" and calling on President Trump to continue arms negotiations.

[132][133] On March 11, 1982, Leahy voted against a measure sponsored by Orrin Hatch that sought to reverse Roe v. Wade and allow Congress and individual states to adopt laws banning abortions.

[134][135] In 2019, Leahy worked with Senators Sherrod Brown, Susan Collins, and David Perdue on a bipartisan effort to ensure students have access to local foods.

[137] In May 2019, Leahy and eight other Democratic senators sent Perdue a letter that criticized the USDA for using farm bailout money to purchase pork from the Brazilian-owned JBS USA, writing that it was "counterproductive and contradictory" for foreign companies to receive "U.S. taxpayer dollars intended to help American farmers struggling with this administration's trade policy".

The senators requested that the department "ensure these commodity purchases are carried out in a manner that most benefits the American farmer's bottom line—not the business interests of foreign corporations.

"[138] In June 2019, Leahy and 18 other Democratic senators sent USDA Inspector General (IG), Phyllis K. Fong, a letter requesting that she investigate USDA instances of retaliation and political decision-making, and arguing that to not conduct an investigation would mean these "actions could be perceived as a part of this administration's broader pattern of not only discounting the value of federal employees, but suppressing, undermining, discounting, and wholesale ignoring scientific data produced by their own qualified scientists.

The legislation also supported universal access to high-quality preschool programs for all three- and four-year-olds, changed compensation for the child care workforce, and provided training to aid both teachers and caregivers.

[153] Leahy was a longtime critic of the Iraq War, and spoke in favor of timetables for troop withdrawal, saying the country needs well-trained employees in both foreign service and private industry to help repair damage to its civilian structure.

"[163] In February 2019, in response to reports that the EPA intended to decide against setting limits for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in drinking water, as part of an upcoming national strategy to manage the chemicals, Leahy was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Acting EPA Administrator, Andrew R. Wheeler, calling on the agency "to develop enforceable federal drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS, as well as institute immediate actions to protect the public from contamination from additional per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)".

Leahy has broken with Democratic leadership in supporting allowing states to make bulk drug purchases on their own, an idea he has characterized as an important short-term solution until Congress can agree on a similar proposal.

[citation needed] In a May 2012 speech on the Senate floor, Leahy advocated that Chief Justice John Roberts uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act: "The conservative activism of recent years has not been good for the court.

Given the ideological challenge to the Affordable Care Act and the extensive, supportive precedent, it would be extraordinary for the Supreme Court not to defer to Congress in this matter that so clearly affects interstate commerce.

"[176] In January 2019, Leahy was one of 20 senators to sponsor the Dreamer Confidentiality Act, a bill banning the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from passing information collected on DACA recipients to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Department of Justice, or any other law enforcement agency with exceptions in the case of fraudulent claims, national security issues, or non-immigration related felonies.

[184] In October 2018, Leahy was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the rolling back of a policy that granted visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQIA+ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that too many places around the world have seen LGBTQIA+ individuals "subjected to discrimination and unspeakable violence, and receive little or no protection from the law or local authorities", and that refusing to let LGBTQIA+ diplomats bring their partners to the US would be equivalent of upholding "the discriminatory policies of many countries around the world".

The senators requested the creation of "an independent Special Counsel to investigate collusion with the Russian government by General Flynn and other Trump campaign, transition and Administrative officials", in order to maintain "the confidence, credibility and impartiality of the Department of Justice".