Platform

The 36th District Democrats adopt this platform to express the values, attitudes and beliefs that unite us in striving for a just and humane society. We believe social justice and equity are key principles. Our platform provides a firm foundation upon which to make endorsement decisions.

I. Fiscal Policies

  1. We demand progressive, ample, sustainable, and equitable revenue—such as capital gains tax, progressive income tax, employer head tax and closing corporate tax loopholes—by taxing big business and the uber wealthy.

II. Corporate Reform

  1. We call for the 28th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to end the treatment of corporations as if they were human beings and support the use of antitrust laws to break up corporate monopolies.
  2. We support revoking the charters of corporations, including medical and pharmaceutical companies, that value profits and shareholder returns over the community welfare, such as worker rights, living wages, environmental stewardship, and positive contributions to the surrounding community.

III. Education

  1. We call for universal childcare, amply funded public schools, and free public college for all.
  2. We oppose privatization and for-profit endeavors in public education, such as vouchers, charter schools, and high stakes testing.
  3. We expect abolitionist, student-centered, community-led, and explicitly antiracist public schools. We support equitable access and opportunity for every student.

IV. Environment, Energy, and the Climate Crisis

  1. Because the earliest and most acute effects of climate change disproportionately affect frontline communities, we support the Green New Deal including investments in transition to clean energy, access to public transportation, and holding fossil fuel companies accountable to pay for cleanup of environmental hazards in these communities first.
  2. We support conserving natural resources, promoting transparency in decisions affecting the quality of the environment, ensuring sustainability through legislation, and providing free access to our public lands.
  3. We expect the transition off of carbon sources of energy, green job creation, and the transition to a renewable energy economy through a tax on carbon, and investment in research, development, and electrification.

V. Health and Human Services

  1. We believe affordable housing, food, water, healthcare, and a healthy environment are human rights.
  2. We support a nondiscriminatory, publicly funded, single-payer, not-for-profit, comprehensive health care system, including access to dental, mental health, and substance abuse services, and safe, legal, accessible, state-funded reproductive services and abortions without restrictions.
  3. We believe treating addiction as a health issue focusing on the individual, family, and community, and holding medical providers and pharmaceutical companies responsible.
  4. We support retirement and disability insurance (scrap the cap), including expansion of Social Security/Medicare, and oppose privatization of any public programs.
  5. We support funding services, such as addiction services, homelessness prevention, and workforce development that are shown to increase public safety, in combination with right-sized policing.

VI. Election Reform and Voting Rights

  1. We support universal suffrage, and public access to and transparency of the electoral process.
  2. We support public financing of the entire electoral process, including campaigns and postage, and oppose unlimited and non-transparent expenditures in campaigns.
  3. We believe in one person, one vote and elections that are accessible, open, and fair—a system that ensures that every eligible person can cast a vote and that every lawfully cast vote is counted.

VII. Foreign Policy

  1. We support a foreign policy based on respect for human rights, through alliances with other free and open democracies, and through the peaceful championing of human rights and political freedoms around the world.
  2. We hold our military personnel and veterans in the highest regard and expect an effective Veterans Administration that provides them, and their families, the support and care needed, including treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other behavioral health issues.

VIII. Human and Civil Rights

  1. We support affirmative action to address historical systems of oppression.
  2. We support the Constitutional right to privacy, freedom from government intrusion, and corporate intrusion into people’s personal lives.
  3. We believe in restorative justice and incarceration with dignity, and a focus on rehabilitation to ensure a full and productive return to society, and that no one has their right to vote revoked.
  4. We oppose denial of civil rights based on race, immigration status, disability, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
  5. We support sanctuary cities and admonish criminalizing immigration status.

IX. Labor and Economic Justice

  1. We demand an economic system in which workers control their labor.
  2. We support broad rights of all workers to be employees, earn living wages, have equal pay, have safe workplaces, organize, collectively bargain, have sustainable defined benefit pensions, and take collective action.
  3. We support strong regulation of financial and banking systems, the derivatives market and predatory lending, and the establishment of a Washington State owned bank.

X. Constitutional Law

  1. We believe in the Constitution as a living document, strict separation of church and state, and strict control over the ownership and use of firearms and other weapons.

XI. Local Issues

  1. We expect land use policies to provide more jobs and housing.
  2. We support public transportation and internet broadband to provide robust service as infrastructure.
  3. We support full mobility pedestrian and cycling access, including sidewalks and separated protected bike lanes.
  4. We oppose the transport of highly volatile materials by rail.

 

* Approved by the membership of the 36th District Democrats on October 21, 2020.