San Juan County Democratic Party Platform
Revised by a committee of SJC Democrats in winter, spring, summer, 2020
Adopted unanimously by the voting members of the SJC Democrats present
San Juan County, WA Date: July 11, 2020

SAN JUAN COUNTY DEMOCRATS PLATFORM HIGHLIGHTS

1) Election Reform: Publicly Financed Political Campaigns (buy back our lawmakers), Constitutional Amendment overturning Citizens United and declaring that corporations are not people and money is not speech. (This is listed first because none of what follows can be adopted until we buy back our legislators.).

2) Voting Reform: Ensure universal voting rights; institute vote-by-mail; install Ranked Choice Voting; eliminate the Electoral College (popular vote election of the President).

3) Green New Deal/Fight Climate Change/Protect the Environment, Paris Climate Accord.

4) Single payer Medicare-for-All-type universal healthcare.

5) Reduce the Military Budget and Stay Out of Endless Wars.

6) Racial Justice and Law Enforcement Reform; opposition to the killing of Black people in interactions with law enforcement (see recently adopted Resolution).

7) Free Public Education (including pre-K-12 and four-year public college or trade school), plus elimination or easing of college debt.

8) Federal Job Guarantee, linked to the restoring and upkeep of our infrastructure; Establishment of a Living Income Guarantee.

9) Immigration Reform.

10) More progressive tax policy, including higher income tax rates at the top end, a wealth tax, and a Wall Street transaction tax.

11) Immediate Adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment.

PLATFORM OF THE SAN JUAN COUNTY DEMOCRATS

Preamble

We, the Democrats of San Juan County, believe in the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. These fundamental democratic principles to which we subscribe are: Liberty, Justice, Equality, Cooperation, Community, Security, and Open Society.

In addition, we hold certain values and beliefs in common with others, including: grassroots democracy; social, environmental, and all other forms of justice; ecological wisdom; nonviolence; a balance between centralization and decentralization of governmental powers; community-based economics; gender equity; respect for diversity; personal and global responsibility; and economic and environmental sustainability.

In promoting these principles, we place enduring value on the individual qualities of honesty, integrity, fortitude, ethics, forward vision, and open communication essential to sound democratic process.

In accordance with these principles, we recognize that we are a community of people whose purpose is to promote the general welfare, public good, and the liberty and justice which allows all in our community to reach their full potential.

We believe we can only reach those goals through a government based on the consent of the governed, a free and open democracy where all persons are treated as equals and with rights and privileges and responsibilities.

Further, we believe that a democracy cannot be sustained when economic power is concentrated in the hands of a few who can manipulate the government to their own benefit to the detriment of the many.

We recognize that we are stewards of the environment and must, for the health and wellbeing of future generations and life at large, ensure that the planet can continue to sustain life.

We further believe that it is the duty of the community, through its democratic institutions, to ensure that the least fortunate among us are not left behind.

We believe the role of government should be to provide the infrastructure and means to put the above values into practice, and the regulations and enforcement to maintain a nation that lives by these values.

Local Issues

We acknowledge as residents of San Juan County, that we have an obligation and responsibility to protect our marine and terrestrial life and habitat against environmental and human threats and seek to actively support those efforts.

We support the preservation of the San Juan Islands National Monument and including all terrestrial and marine wildlife in and around the monument, acknowledging that there will be times that humans are not allowed access to some or all of the monument.

We support the maintenance of the rural quality of our islands with a larger percentage
of protected wild land than we currently have in the county, and the majority of land
being unlit to preserve the dark night sky.

We support preserving and expanding the San Juan County Land Bank.

We support a San Juan County Comprehensive Water Carrying Capacity Study. This study will determine the availability of ground water to limit future development which has not as yet been effectively addressed by San Juan County.

We support following the Vision Statement in the County Comprehensive Plan for planning the future of San Juan County.

We call for hybrid and electric ferries, airships, and other emerging modes of transportation to be used as soon as possible.

We support securing a rescue tugboat to be based in the San Juan Islands. As more tanker and freighter traffic uses our waters, the potential for disaster has increased.

We support local law enforcement authorities’ cooperation with ICE and CBP only to the extent as is permitted under San Juan County Code, Chapter 9.24, Immigration Enforcement. We support San Juan County being a sanctuary county for immigrants. We oppose local law enforcement authorities entering into federal programs or agreements such as the Secure Communities Program or Section 287(g) agreements of the Immigration and Nationality Act, relating to local law enforcement of federal immigration laws.

On a local, state, and national level:
We declare that access to clean, safe, potable water is a basic human right and public health issue. Therefore, we support laws, regulations and systems that help ensure that everyone has sufficient, safe and affordable water for personal and domestic uses. This includes a ban on the sale and use of glyphosate-based herbicides, atrazine, and 2,4 D in all public, private, and commercial applications in the county; ongoing, robust, independent monitoring of lead, glyphosate and its primary metabolite, AMPA, and other pesticide levels in surface water and drinking water, and strict enforcement of
modernized standards.
We also oppose water privatization when it leads to any of the following: rate increases, water quality degradation, corruption, loss of local control or public rights, or profit. We support banning the sale of all plastic water bottles containing water from
companies currently privatizing water supplies.
We recognize the right of all human beings to be free from hunger, food insecurity, malnutrition, and synthetic toxicants in the food supply. We also recognize that largescale agriculture often has negative environmental, nutritional and health effects.
We favor independent, science-based analysis of the food supply and the food and agriculture economic sectors, to ensure that food supplies are sufficient, sustainable and safe. This includes independent, ongoing, science-based, case-by-case testing and
analysis of toxicants and genetically modified organisms that may enter the food supply, affect the environment or otherwise impact human health.

We encourage citizens to participate on county commissions, boards, and districts to ensure that the interests of the general populace are represented, recognizing that all talents are needed in an atmosphere of respect for those with whom we may disagree.

We support equal treatment of women in all respects, including equal pay for equal work, the right of women to be free of all government, corporate, or religious interference in all their reproductive decisions including birth control and abortion, and full unrestricted access to healthcare supportive of those rights enumerated above.

We support efforts to create more affordable housing, including regulation of vacation rentals, so that all county residents have a safe, dignified place to live.

Our local Democratic Party should actively work to represent and include as participants all races, classes, and other demographic groups of people in our county.

State Issues

We support the use of Instant Runoff (ranked choice) Voting in our elections as both efficient and cost effective, and because it increases voting, encourages more diverse candidates, eliminates negative campaigning, and increases democracy.

We support limiting election campaign spending in Washington to funds provided publicly and equitably to all eligible candidates certified by the PDC.

We support legislation limiting the areas where campaign signs can be placed.

We support the establishment of a more progressive and equitable tax structure.

We support shifting state and federal industrial tax credits, write-offs and subsidies from the volatile export sector and unsustainable energy-intensive sunset industries to local economic enterprise and infrastructure serving stable domestic demand in regional and local markets. Furthermore, we support all other aspects of the Just Transition as described at climatejusticealliance.org: shifting economic control to communities, democratizing wealth and the workplace, advancing ecological restoration, driving racial justice and social equity, re-localizing most production and consumption, and retaining and restoring cultures and traditions.

In the state revenue and budgetary system, prioritize equitable taxation and equitable distribution of funds to communities. Prioritize money for vital public services including public health, emergency medical, environmental quality, police and fire, education, transportation, etc. All state expenditures must serve some public purpose, which must be stated.

We support the establishment of a Washington State Investment Bank similar to the one in North Dakota. For over a century, their state banking and credit have been stabilized and foreclosures eliminated.

We support a living income, continually adjusted for inflation.

We support the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA) and we oppose any export terminals on the Salish Sea moving coal, oil, or other hazardous or toxic substances. Additionally, we oppose any fossil fuel traffic on the Salish Sea.

We support the replacement of internal combustion powered vehicles, tools and equipment with all-electric alternatives.

We support legislation for fully funding public pre-school through grade 12, and for fully funding tuition for technical education, community college, and public colleges and universities with the proviso that tuition cost increases for higher education need to be regulated.

We support eliminating standardized tests at all levels except high school, replacing them with assessments designed locally by educators.

We support social-emotional skills education from pre-K through grade 12, and we encourage the participation of teachers, principals, school counselors, and parents in this process.

We support funding for the creative and performing arts in K-12 education.

We support requiring all high school seniors to receive civics instruction to prepare them to assume full citizen responsibility when they turn eighteen.

We support school seismic safety legislation.

National Issues

On a state and national level, we call for the immediate adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment.

We call upon the U.S. Congress to send a proposed Constitutional Amendment to the States for ratification that will overturn Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission. Corporations are not people. We support the concept of publicly financed elections as a means of removing the corrupting influence of big money as much as possible from the process of governance. We call upon Congress to replace private donations that influence elections with even-handed distribution of public funds and free use of our publicly owned airwaves to qualified candidates.

We support rendering it legal and constitutional for governments at all levels to institute reasonable limits on expenditures for electioneering purposes.
We call for limiting lobbyists to providing information or asking for support relevant to specific legislation, regulation, or enforcement.

We support nationwide mail-in voting with a required verifiable paper trail. We support automatic voter registration for citizens when they get their drivers’ licenses. We call for the repeal of all laws and practices enacted primarily as barriers to voting, e.g. voter ID, shortened early voting periods, inadequate number of polling places, striking voters from the rolls for failure to return letters sent to them, removing people from the voting rolls for not voting, mailings with incorrect voter location information, and restrictions on registered voters. We strongly support every citizen exercising their right to vote.

We call for Ranked Choice Voting in all elections where applicable.

We call for the end of gerrymandering. District lines should be drawn by a nonpartisan commission, with a citizen oversight panel.

We support all efforts against internet voting (with current technologies) and advocate a return to paper ballots.

We favor term limits for Congress members, at least until the campaign finance and lobbying problems are fixed.

We call for the elimination of the Electoral College, the president to be elected by popular vote.

We call for a re-examination of the allocation of two senators per state.

We support passage of the Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act of 2017 or a similar bill. We call for a legislative clarification of the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution and expansion to make clear that neither a US President nor presidential appointee, nor any other elected official, judge, or federal or state employee may receive current or promises of future financial, business, or media favors that could introduce a conflict of interest in the execution of their duties, nor use the power or perks of their office to favor any private person or entity for personal, business, or political gain.

We call for legislation to make illegal:
1. The appointment of immediate Presidential family members in any paid or privileged position (except the first spouse) or business associates in any paid or privileged position with any security clearance, unless they have divested from all previous business associations;
2. The actions of any Presidential associates to operate outside of established governmental channels that could impact foreign relations; and
3. The presidential pardon of anyone convicted of crime associated with that president’s own campaign for office, election, or administration.
4. We call for a shift from the current exploitive and extractive economic growth model to a model of a regenerative global economic and environmental sustainability, and all other aspects of the Just Transition as described at climatejusticealliance.org: shifting economic control to communities, democratizing wealth and the workplace, advancing ecological restoration, driving racial justice and social equity, re-localizing most production and consumption, and retaining and restoring cultures and traditions. Foreign policy should support these practices worldwide. Just Transition programs are well-organized, well-funded programs that provide continuing education and benefit protection for working people and their communities impacted by job loss. The post-World War II GI Bill could be a useful model on which to base this transition.

We declare that unpolluted soil, water, and food are critical to public health, and thus
support all regulations to ban:
1. Glyphosate-based and other toxic herbicides and pesticides;
2. Genetically modified organisms in the food supply; and
3. Industrial and mining waste from entering the water supply including flood-prone areas.
We support well-regulated industry and well-regulated transport of hazardous substances to prevent harm to public health and the environment. Foreign policy should support this practice worldwide.

We call for the formulation of a realistic, long-range national energy policy focused on decreased use of energy, sustainable, renewable sources, aggressive energy-efficient retrofitting of all existing buildings, the highest standard of energy-efficiency in all new construction, and eliminating the serious threat posed by climate change, in short, a Green New Deal that creates millions of new living wage jobs.

We support a carbon fee and dividend on industry that pollutes our atmosphere with greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, etc. Energy policy must wean us off of fossil fuels no later than 2050, with a mile marker system to track progress. For example, see the Washington state Clean Energy Transformation Act of 2020. Subsidies, loopholes, and incentives used to support the production of fossil fuel energy must be ended, and instead promote renewable energy. The US needs to withdraw from the petrodollar system, which ties the purchase and sale of oil to US dollars.

We support elimination of ecosystem destruction and setting aside of vast amounts of undeveloped public lands in all ecosystems for the health of the planet and for future generations of all life. Leave room for nature.

We also support setting aside land for parks so that all humans have access to nature within walking distance of their homes.

We support the preservation of city, county, regional, state, and national parks as well as national monuments. The physical integrity of public parks and natural monuments shall remain undisturbed forever.

We call for a more progressive federal tax system, including:
— income taxes at the highest brackets to be increased significantly,
— elimination of loopholes in the tax code which allow persons and entities to escape taxation largely or entirely,
— amendments to the tax code to ensure that all persons and entities pay their fair share,
— creation of a wealth tax to redress the historically unprecedented imbalance of wealth distribution in this country,
— creation of a financial transaction tax on every Wall Street and other financial market transaction, and measures to tax capital gains at the same rate as income,
— creation of a corporate value-added or use tax as a means of redistributing profit so that at the very least, when corporations or individuals profit from the use of people’s data, from the use of public land, trees, wild animals, oceans, ground water, rivers, air, outer space, they will pay the public for this use via taxation. This is beyond what they would pay for polluting and otherwise destroying natural resources.

We call for the immediate education of the public and all government officials to understand how Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) makes reduction of the federal debt and deficit unimportant and makes implementation of our progressive platform beneficial to the economy. We reject the notion that cutting current social programs is necessary.

We support all workers being paid a living wage. We support a maximum disparity between a CEO and the company’s lowest-paid worker to be no more than 20 times.

We support the abolition of poverty and its attendant effects on health, education, civil rights, justice, etc. in the United States. It shall be the federal government’s role to accomplish this.

We call for a comprehensive study of corporate subsidies and tax abatement issues, and the elimination of them wherever called for.

Any corporation within the legal reach of the United States, whether based in the U.S. or any other location, including both for-profit and not-for-profit corporations, with gross annual receipts in excess of $50 million (adjusted for inflation or deflation with 2016 as base year) shall be required to obtain a new corporate charter every five years in order to preserve their status as a corporation. This charter shall be granted only if the corporation can prove a satisfactory history of environmental, social, and ethical responsibility to an Environmental and Social Responsibility Panel (ESRP) of ordinary citizens who agree with the importance of judging a corporation’s environmental, social and ethical responsibilities by criteria that will be provided. [https://spiritualprogressives.org/visionary-strategies/environmental-economic-and-social-justice/full-text-of-the-esra/]

We support eliminating the cap on the Social Security income tax.

We call for the reform of existing trade policies and agreements that currently encourage off-shoring of American jobs. Any trade treaties must have the protection of labor and the environment as primary goals, and we must end the negotiation of trade treaties that benefit only elites and that further a race to the bottom. In that international trade brings about the use of more energy, we encourage shorter supply chains.

We advocate for abolition of the death penalty in the United States as well as solitary confinement, cash bail, and mandatory sentencing. The voting rights of felons must be restored upon completion of their time in prison even if still under the authority of the department of corrections. We must eliminate the disproportionately negative impact of the criminal and civil justice system based on race or any other classification. And we must end the toxic for-profit prison system which has been encouraging mass incarceration disproportionately affecting people of color. We oppose private prisons, which are expensive, inhumane, and out of citizen control. Prisons should be a function of government, not of “for-profit” businesses.
We support efforts to end the effects of slavery and racism affecting Black Americans. At a minimum, those efforts should include: 1) a 21st Century Voting Rights Act which would ban voter suppression practices (like voter ID laws, inadequate polling places and voting machines within easy reach, removing names from voter rolls for failing to return a letter, etc.) ensuring that every vote is counted, particularly in communities of color, and would mandate that potentially discriminatory changes to voting laws be reviewed by the Department of Justice; 2) ending unnecessary and discriminatory incarceration and establishing effective programs ensuring that every person returning from incarceration can reintegrate into society; 3) help start the healing of the relationship between law enforcement and the Black community through federal funding of programs in every local community in the country bringing the parties together for honest, open, trust-building dialogue; 4) combat the huge wealth disparity (for every $100 in wealth a White family has, the average Black family has only $5.04) by, for example, tripling the number of Black entrepreneurs within ten years, creating over 3 million jobs and $660 billion in new wealth for Black communities; 5) federal government to pay financial reparations to descendants of enslaved people, and 6) by way of indirect reparations for the original sin of human slavery, create a multi-billion dollar fund to support Traditionally Black Colleges and Black students attending other institutions of higher learning.
We oppose the unjustified killing and mistreatment of black people at the hands of law enforcement. We therefore propose to:
(1) Establish a separate unit of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice which, in the absence of swift and just action by state or local authorities, will be tasked solely with the investigation and criminal prosecution of any law enforcement personnel found to have deprived a Black person of their civil rights through violence, including violence resulting in death. This division would also be charged with the investigation and prosecution of any person found to have deprived any law enforcement agent of their civil rights through violence, including violence resulting in death,
(2) Establish in every community in this country which has a police department or other law enforcement agency a Citizens’ Advisory Council on Law Enforcement and the Community. In addition to its broad responsibility to advise government and law enforcement agencies, this Council would conduct an ongoing, periodic Public Forum on Law Enforcement and the Community. Any of the Council’s recommendations not adopted by the law enforcement agency would be sent to the community’s executive and to its legislative body for their action,
(3) Appropriate federal funds to sponsor the retraining of all law enforcement agents on Non-Violence in Interactions with the Public,
(4) Conduct psychological testing of all prospective employees of law enforcement agencies, aimed at identifying and rejecting as candidates any active racist, white nationalist, or other persons who could pose an unnecessary threat of violence, particularly to Black people
(5) End “qualified immunity” for law enforcement,
(6) Re-imagine law enforcement, with rearranged budgeting, which would include: a) a significant reduction of the number of armed, sworn, uniformed officers to reflect the fact that they would only be assigned to calls where armed persons were presenting a threat to other members of the community, b) hiring of other unarmed Community Safety Officers who are experts educated in resolution of problems regarding mental health, substance abuse, family altercations, homelessness, and the apparent commission of non-violent felonies and misdemeanors. Some of law enforcement’s former budget would be redirected to addressing many of those issues which cause members of the community to commit crimes in the first place, and
(7) Condition Federal funding of law enforcement agencies upon the adoption and enforcement of the following policies a) the termination of officers found to be guilty of serious, unnecessary violence, b) banning of chokeholds and other moves resulting in the blocking of airways, c) banning of “no-knock” searches, with or without warrants, and d) cooperation, through the supplying of information, with a new Federal registry of police misconduct and use of force. This would include the refusal to hire anyone who appears on that registry for misconduct or is otherwise found to have such a record.
We support efforts to reduce the inequality in our society. Our economic and educational system must provide equal opportunity for all to be as successful as they can. Everyone in our society must be guaranteed a basic minimum standard of living in the context of a healthy planet regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, or any other classification.
We advocate for ending the “war on drugs” by legalizing or decriminalizing, regulating, and taxing drugs; addiction must be treated as a medical problem.
It is the responsibility of government to provide infrastructure to educate its populace so as to be able to participate in democracy in an informed and intelligent way. We believe that education should focus on teaching critical thinking rather than testing.

We believe that the federal government should provide all children equal access to pre-K through grade 12 public education for the purpose of maximizing the potential of each child. We oppose all efforts to reduce the obligation of government to provide for every child free public pre-K through grade 12 education and its attendant programs.

We also support the responsibility of federal and state governments to provide free high-quality public education, including vocational training, community college, and at least four years of undergraduate public college or university. We support immediately forgiving all student debt, or, at least, lowering and locking in interest rates and extending repayment periods.

Graduate or professional degrees in areas of public service will be funded publicly through loan forgiveness in exchange for service in that field for at least five years.

We encourage the federal government funding the training of more licensed health care providers of all types.

We support a single payer healthcare system for all Americans. This system must include dental, vision, naturopathic, osteopathic, chiropractic, acupuncture, mental health, and all other licensed health professionals, provide equitable insurance and loan
forgiveness treatment of all licensed primary care physicians, and include coverage for
all prescribed testing, medicines, drugs, treatments, biological products, and durable
medical equipment.

We support the right of unions to organize in the workplace without the interference by employers or government.

All federal expenditures, credits, and subsidies must serve a specific stated public purpose. In the federal revenue and budgetary system, prioritize equitable taxation and equitable expenditures for the public welfare.

Use a bottom-up method of distribution rather than trickle-down. There should be immediate direct cash assistance and a bolstering of public services.

We support the creation of a Federal Government-wide system of Inspectors General, appointed by a bicameral, bipartisan select Congressional committee, and reporting to the Congressional committees responsible for oversight of the Executive branch of the federal government. Under this system, there would be one Inspector General responsible for monitoring each Department within the federal government, tracking that Department’s execution of the laws relating to it, including the appropriate expenditure of every dollar appropriated by the Congress.

Whistleblowers need to be able to come forward to report behavior that is illegal under US or international law with protection from punishment or reprisal. Inspectors general whose job it is to receive whistleblower complaints must maintain complete independence and cannot be fired except for good cause, not for political reasons.

We support breaking up big monopolies, especially in the media and social media.

We support news media publishing facts, not lies, using mutually agreed upon reliable fact-checking sources with citation. News media should clearly distinguish between fact/journalistic reporting and opinion/editorialization.

Social media platforms should take responsibility for prohibiting and removing false information. Sources of information and sources of advertising must be cited.

We support a dramatic improvement in the management of technological and online ethics, privacy, security, and consumer protection.

No agency of the United States government shall search or collect phone records, emails, or any other form of communication between private parties without a warrant based on due process. All such data collected to date without due process must be destroyed.

We support the organized reduction of the U.S. military footprint around the world. Funds saved from this effort should be applied to rebuilding our infrastructure, educating our children, providing universal healthcare, establishing a safety net for all residents, and creating a Cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peacebuilding (HR 1111).

Foreign policy should be based on our values, including but not limited to the premise of environmental and economic sustainability, not economic growth. This would include promoting human rights, promoting family planning, correcting the deficit in education of women and girls, ending exploitation of vulnerable people, and ecosystem restoration.

We call for sensible nationally standardized gun regulations, expanding the NICS background check system, which would include universal background checks before the purchase of any firearm, a ban on military-grade weapons, and a ban on extended capacity magazines. We recommend using the template for owning an auto: have a title, license to operate, annual renewal permit, ongoing safety education, and proof of insurance covering injury from wrongful use by owner or another. In addition, we believe that socio-economic justice reform along with social-emotional skills education at all grade levels will help reduce violent behavior.

We call for the respecting and upholding of Tribal Sovereignty and Tribal Treaties, and Native Americans having self-governance and autonomy over their land and public services. Our educational system needs to present accurately the whole truth of the impact of Euro-Americans on Native Americans, including the governmental policy of genocide. Current policies and practices of neglect and discrimination need to be reversed. The Bureau of Indian Affairs needs to be reorganized by and for the benefit of Native Americans.

We call for comprehensive immigration reform, recognizing the basic human rights of immigrants and persons seeking asylum, and protecting them with transparent due process in all proceedings and providing a clear and equitable pathway to documented status and citizenship if desired. We oppose separating families of undocumented immigrants and people seeking asylum. No one is “illegal”. Any existing quotas should be greatly increased. We support an accelerated path to citizenship.

We oppose mandatory detention of persons awaiting immigration proceedings or removal, recognizing there are provenly effective alternatives to detention that should be fully funded. We call for a return to a robust refugee resettlement program that matches or exceeds historical levels of admission (c. 90,000 per year) and longer-term solutions for recipients of Temporary Protected Status. We call for restoration and expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and its adoption into federal law. We call for reversal of the rule on public charge that has hindered immigrant use of important safety net programs, such as SNAP and Medicaid.

We call for an independent immigration court under Article 1 of the Constitution to ensure due process.

Global Issues

We call on our government to recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court and to ratify the conventions of the U.N. regarding human rights. We call on our government to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and to propose, pass, and implement much strong language.

We call on the US to align with all countries to do everything possible to curb the impact of global climate change. We support and encourage significant reduction of energy and resource consumption and reduction of greenhouse gases. We support aggressive investment and job creation in renewable energy, in energy efficiency retrofitting of all existing buildings and energy efficient new construction. We support and encourage aggressive ecosystem restoration including re-forestation and an end to clearcutting and burning of forests, most especially rainforests, and in particular the Amazon rainforest. We support regenerative agriculture, natural carbon sinks, and other earth-restorative measures. We oppose mining in any form that is disproportionately harmful to the environment.

We declare that access to clean, potable water is a basic human right, and essential to the realization of all other human rights. Therefore, we support laws, regulations and systems that help ensure that everyone has sufficient, safe and affordable water for personal and domestic uses. This includes ongoing, robust, independent monitoring of glyphosate levels in surface water, groundwater and drinking water, and strict enforcement of applicable standards. We also oppose water privatization when it leads to any of the following: rate increases, water quality degradation, corruption, loss of local control or public rights, or profit being prioritized over human life.

We recognize the right of all human beings to be free from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. We also recognize that large-scale agriculture often has negative environmental, nutritional and health effects. We favor independent, science-based analysis of the food supply and the food and agriculture economic sectors, to ensure that food supplies are sufficient, sustainable, and safe. This includes independent, ongoing, science-based, case-by-case testing and analysis of genetically modified organisms that may enter the food supply, affect the environment, or otherwise impact human health.

We acknowledge that human population is now several times larger than can be sustained by our planet’s ecosystems. Therefore, rather than acceding to increased death from war, disease, infection, and starvation, we support programs such as those that empower women to plan their own reproductive lives, including unrestricted access to birth control for all women of reproductive age.

Additional Items

See additional resolutions adopted by our party here: https://sjdemocrats.org/resolutions

If interested in the Washington State Democratic Party Platform, go to this link:
https://www.wa-democrats.org/about/documents/

Environmental & Social Responsibility Amendment proposed to the U.S. Constitution https://spiritualprogressives.org/visionary-strategies/environmental-economic-and-social-justice

Here’s the full text https://spiritualprogressives.org/visionary-strategies/environmental-economic-and-social-justice/full-text-of-the-esra/