On the evening of March 21, in caucuses
across Boulder County, Democratic Party voters had a precedent setting
opportunity to discuss and vote upon the 2006 Platform proposal, issue by
issue. Those voting passed the majority of the platform, as presented. Three
Foreign Policy recommendations did not pass with sufficient numbers at the
caucuses. Two, within a margin of error, were voted on again at the County
Assembly. One was passed and is included below. Issues A-H, from the initial
caucus survey, are now listed in an order reflecting the average of caucus
participants’ ranking choices. Note: While impeachment received a greater
number of first place choices than its placement here would indicate, the
number of last place choices it received mandates this position (see first
place tally results on the addendum page). Issues I-N were submitted to and
approved, along with the main body of the platform, by the Boulder County
Democratic Party Assembly on April 14, 2006.
The Boulder County Democratic
Party seeks to create and support a community of informed citizens actively
engaged in the processes of democracy. We believe government must be open and
accountable, and that it must dedicate itself to the common good today and for
future generations.
Boulder
County Democrats are champions of peace, equality, social justice and civil
liberties. We believe that freedom of conscience and freedom of choice are
innate rights of every human being. We are dedicated to ensuring that every
citizen has access to adequate food, shelter and medicine and real opportunity
to prosper.
We
are prepared to defend our nation and our values. Still, we believe that war is
waged only as a last resort. The powerful should never be allowed to silence the powerless. The immense blessings bestowed
upon our county, state and nation obligate us to provide leadership toward
international cooperation, peace and prosperity for all.
Affordable health care is a critical
human need. The
current health care system in the United States is in crisis: far too many are
uninsured or under-insured, costs have escalated dramatically, and the
administration of the private medical bureaucracy system is wildly inefficient. Boulder County Democrats support the
development of a universal health care system that provides equal and
affordable access to quality health care for every citizen.
Policy
Preferences:
· We believe that a universal health care, single payer
system is the most effective and efficient means of providing equal access to
quality health care for every citizen – with medical providers paid through one
agency (public or quasi-public), strong cost containment programs and emphasis
on prevention.
· We call for repeal of the Medicare reform act.
· Democrats support legalization of safe prescription
drug purchases in the United States from countries such as Canada.
The American people must stand united in
common defense against global threats without sacrificing the nation’s central
values, and with an unwavering commitment to international cooperation and
prosperity. We call on our country
to:
· Dedicate its significant intellectual, economic,
diplomatic and creative resources toward the elimination of world hunger,
poverty, disease, environmental degradation, terrorism and conflict.
·
Honor existing
international treaties and strengthen its collective security relationships,
including those of the United Nations.
· Reject the policy of
unilateral preemptive strike unless there is overwhelming evidence of an
imminent threat.
· Support the humane treatment of prisoners of war and
reject the use of torture.
Policy
Preferences:
· We believe the United States should agree to resolve
disputes with – and become a party to – the International Criminal Court.
· We support a full and detailed evaluation of our
current role in Iraq. We support the rapid development of an exit strategy, an
immediate transition to a broad international presence in Iraq, and recognition
of the US obligation to reduce the suffering of the Iraqi people brought on by
this war.
We support environmentally responsible
growth, rapid movement toward energy independence, and protection of precious
natural resources including air,
water, wildlife, forests and public lands, to ensure the long-term health and
sustainability of the Earth and its resources for future generations.
Specifically, Boulder County Democrats support:
· Development of renewable and alternative sources of
energy.
· Dramatic increases in Federal CAFE standards.
· Conservation as a significant component of energy
policy.
· Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and air
pollutants.
· Ratification by the United States of the Kyoto
Protocol on Climate Change.
· Balanced local growth with thoughtful zoning, public
education, open space protection and regional planning initiatives to mitigate
or eliminate the impact of local sales tax competition.
Policy Preferences:
· The price of newly developed property in Boulder
County should fully reflect the cost of sewers, roads, schools, public
transportation, protection of biodiversity, water and other infrastructure
demands. Developers should not be allowed to simply pass these costs on to the
general community.
· We support a national gasoline tax to fund alternative
energy development.
· Democrats support the elimination of all subsidies for
nuclear and fossil fuels.
· Democrats propose a national policy objective of eliminating
entirely any consumption of foreign oil by 2025.
· We support increased funding for research on
conservation methods, efficient use of energy, renewable energy, recycling, and
environmental innovation.
Government's duty to protect its
citizens includes a duty to protect each citizen’s privacy. We affirm the absolute rights defined by the
Constitution, legal precedent and those granted by international treaty. We hold that:
· The government has no legitimate authority to intrude
into the private lives of individuals who have not displayed evidence of being
a threat to the security of others.
· The President of the United States is an elected
official, bound by public trust, and is fully obligated to adhere to the laws
of the United States, including those that protect the privacy of the
individual citizen.
· We hold that government must be open and accountable,
with power balanced among all three branches of the federal government.
Policy
Preferences:
· We call for the repeal of the PATRIOT Act with
concurrent enactment of appropriate safeguards to ensure the well being of
Americans and the civil liberties we hold so dear.
· We call for a full independent investigation of the
circumvention of the FISA Court, and, if necessary, the enactment of laws to
clarify the absolute illegality of spying on the American people.
· We affirm the principle of separation of church and
state and believe that our government should not judge a citizen by his or her
religious beliefs, nor should religious belief have any bearing whatsoever on
one’s qualification for public office. We
oppose religious harassment and coercion. We affirm the right of everyone to
practice his or her religion, or lack there of.
· Laws and enactment of laws in Colorado that provide
for civil marriage between any two
consenting, committed, unrelated adults, should accord the same rights,
privileges, and responsibilities to all married couples.
· Laws and enactment of laws in Colorado that provide
for marriage between any two consenting, committed, unrelated adults, should
accord the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities to all married
couples.
· We support the Constitutional reproductive rights of women including the right in the early months of pregnancy to terminate that pregnancy.
Equal access to a high-quality, publicly-funded
education is a central tenet of American democracy. It also is
critical to the economic, social and intellectual health of our state, our
nation, and the world. Consequently, Boulder County Democrats strongly support:
· Public funding adequate to guarantee a quality
education for every American.
· Training and wages for teachers consistent with the
high value of their contribution to society.
· Strong financial support from the state for all Colorado’s
public universities and colleges.
· Federal funding for financial aid programs sufficient
to compensate for tuition increases nationwide.
Policy
Preferences:
· We oppose vouchers. We believe that the potential
socio-economic and religious segregation created by a voucher system will be
detrimental to the quality of education for all children.
· In order to attract and retain the best educators
possible, we believe professors working at Colorado’s public universities and
colleges should be paid professional wages that are competitive with those of
professors working at peer institutions.
· Boulder County Democrats believe that the availability
of quality early childhood education programs, particularly for those from
disadvantaged backgrounds, is vital toward
breaking the cycle of poverty and providing academic and economic opportunity
for the next generation.
· The Boulder County Democrats call upon the state and
federal government to enhance college access for disadvantaged youth through
improving the ties between the K-12 education system and the higher education
system.
We support policy that promotes
diversity, social justice and economic opportunity for every individual. Specifically, U.S. policy should provide long-term
economic stability while prioritizing:
· Reduction of the national debt.
· Long-term solvency of our Social Security system and
other programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
· Assured access for every individual to the basic
necessities of life, including adequate medical care, shelter, nutrition, clean
water, clean air, and a fair and living wage.
· Increased funding for education and training to
enhance American competitiveness in global markets.
· Support only for those free trade agreements that guarantee
the right of sovereign governments to protect the economic, environmental and
physical health of their own citizens.
· Support for family planning efforts worldwide to
dramatically improve the health and well-being of women and children.
Policy Preferences:
· Although we recognize the economic value of some
government subsidies to serve the public good, we call for the elimination of
subsidies that are best categorized as corporate welfare.
· Permanent tax cuts are irresponsible fiscal policy and
therefore are opposed by Democrats.
· Corporations that do not honor their obligation to the
public trust and common good should be subject to revocation of their corporate
charter.
· The federal, state and local minimum wage should be
raised to a level that provides a reasonable living.
· We support the right of all workers to organize and
form a union by a simple majority vote of the employees.
· Affirmative Action programs that have helped to ensure
diversity and equal access to education and economic opportunity should be
maintained.
A healthy democracy is dependent upon an
informed electorate with fair and equal representation in government. We support:
· Election and campaign laws to ensure that the powerful
have no advantage over ordinary citizens.
· Federal laws that guarantee and encourage the absolute
freedom of the media to provide critical oversight of governmental activities
and public access to information.
· Policies that will limit media consolidation and
encourage competition to ensure the media’s role as critical and unbiased
observers.
Policy
Preferences:
· The Boulder County Democratic Party supports a
transparent and verifiable voting process with the inclusion of paper ballots.
· Periodic upgrading of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign
Reform Act. After every congressional election (every two years), we believe
these reforms should be reviewed specifically with the intent of eliminating
newly discovered loopholes and abuses.
· Reinstitution of equal time laws. Recognizing that the
airwaves are public property, we support laws requiring broadcast license
holders to give free substantial airtime, equal in both quality and quantity,
to all qualified candidates.
· Clean Money/Clean Elections. We support and will seek
to institute a system of campaign reform called "Clean Money/Clean
Elections." This system already exists in Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts,
New Mexico, North Carolina, and Vermont, and allows for:
1) a very limited number of modest contributions to use
as seed money for the campaign;
2) a certain number of moderate, per person contributions
that will be used to determine eligibility for the program;
3) participants in the CM/CE program to receive public
funding to match non-participant soft money and special-interest donations.
· Rollback of media ownership limits to pre-1996 levels.
We oppose the recent steps taken by the FCC to allow greater market ownership
by a single organization.
· Increased government funding for public broadcasting.
· Full, fair, and readily available public access to all
public information.
The Boulder
County Democratic Party firmly believes that the laws set forth by the US
Constitution demand a Congressional Inquiry into the legality of actions the
President and his administration have undertaken. We support the creation of a committee to examine this
Administration’s:
· Intent to go to war before congressional
authorization, and the manipulation of pre-war intelligence to achieve that
aim.
· Manipulation of pre-war intelligence.
· Encouragement and countenance of torture.
· Retaliation against critics, including, but not
limited to, the outing of the CIA operative, Valerie Plame.
· The illegal circumvention of the FISA Court.
· Repeated assertions that the federal government could
not have anticipated the 9/11 attacks or the breaching of the New Orleans
levies, with indisputable evidence to the contrary.
Should
the President and his administration be found liable of any of the above
actions, we support the drafting of articles of impeachment.
As a basic human right, working people should be free
to form unions. The Boulder County Democratic Party supports
the right of Boulder County employees to unionize, and calls upon county
commissioners and other elected county officials to:
· Establish a process whereby employees by majority vote
can decide whether to form a union.
· Direct county management to be neutral on this issue.
· Recognize and negotiate with the employee union,
should employees decide to form a union.
Because
the rights of immigrant members of our society, whether documented or
undocumented, should be defended by all who are truly concerned with justice,
we honor and defend the basic human rights of every person in the United States
regardless of citizenship status.
Democrats support the development of an immigration system that honors the
human dignity of every worker whether documented or undocumented, includes the
full protection of U.S. labor law, protects against exploitation, values
diversity and provides the opportunity for workers to earn citizenship. Specifically, Democrats support:
We call for the withdrawal of
all U.S. troops from Iraq by December 2006. A multi-national plan should be
implemented for the deployment of an international peacekeeping force. No
additional money should be expended in Iraq until a specific exit strategy is
in place.
With regard to the Public
Employees Retirement Association we affirm that the following protections should
be put into place:
Whereas the bush
administration, in creating its next war in Iran, is taking us down the same
path as it did with Iraq and
Whereas
our congressional leaders are once again largely quiet on this issue,
Therefore
be it resolved that the Boulder County Democratic Party directs our elected
representatives to reject the policy of pre-emptive military aggression against
Iran and to reject the use of nuclear weapons.
We support the application of
run-off voting, which simply requires that the winning candidate achieve a
majority of the votes.
BCDP 2006 Platform Addendum
BCDP 2006 Platform Ranking
Results
|
ISSUE |
1ST |
2ND |
3RD |
4TH |
5TH |
6TH |
7TH |
8TH |
|
Foreign Policy |
193 |
110 |
84 |
82 |
62 |
69 |
56 |
24 |
|
Health Care |
130 |
137 |
136 |
102 |
88 |
32 |
35 |
10 |
|
Education |
66 |
117 |
129 |
128 |
81 |
91 |
45 |
24 |
|
Conservation |
93 |
97 |
120 |
111 |
101 |
94 |
46 |
8 |
|
Economic Prosperity |
39 |
64 |
83 |
92 |
138 |
133 |
91 |
19 |
|
Civil Liberties |
93 |
110 |
91 |
94 |
114 |
119 |
44 |
12 |
|
Campaign Reform |
34 |
42 |
36 |
39 |
52 |
93 |
226 |
103 |
|
Impeachment |
64 |
18 |
20 |
21 |
21 |
32 |
77 |
299 |