46th District Democrats - Platform 2000

As amended and passed at the District Caucus April 29, 2000

I. Preamble

As Democrats, we commit ourselves to working toward political, social, and economic change, which contributes to the increase of equality, opportunity, and personal freedom for each of our citizens. We envision a society where the individual pursues her or his own good and the good of the community untrammeled by restrictions of prejudice, ignorance, and inequality. We envision a nation, which uses its great bounty to educate and build, not destroy and oppress, both domestically and abroad. We envision a nation where the strong may flourish, but not at the expense of the rights of the weak; where we work toward consensus, but not at the cost of silencing those who disagree with us; where economic expediency does not overrule ethical obligation in public policy.

Being a Democrat means acknowledging the value of public debate. We cherish freedom of speech and expression as fundamental blessings of liberty. We recognize an obligation to teach our children to respect and continue the American traditions of pluralism, civic participation, and mutual tolerance. We recognize that our national strength rests upon maintaining respect for regional, cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual preference, and religious diversity, and we work to create consensus from diversity rather than silencing any voice.

We believe that political power should be wielded lightly, responsibly, and with a constant recognition that the power belongs ultimately to the people. We support free and full access to public information, as well as government which is open and accountable to its constituents. Thus, we are especially dedicated to encouraging public participation in the making of important decisions, which affect us all. We believe that by encouraging others to vote, a primary function of the 46th District Democratic organization, we promote both freedom of expression and meaningful democracy. We expect candidates seeking our endorsement will be familiar with, and the candidates whom we endorse will be generally guided by, the principles set forth in this platform.

The 46th District Democrats believe that the proper purpose of representative government is to encapsulate our own best ethical selves, based upon recognition that we are all collectively responsible for the ethical, economic, and environmental legacy we will leave for future generations of Americans. We believe that the government can and should act forcefully to preserve our environment, and that no economic motive, however powerful, can justify jeopardizing this legacy upon which our collective health and happiness are so dependent.

Being a member of the 46th District Democrats means being excited about the potential of the American republic and, in our love for our country, dedicating ourselves to working together to attain these ideals. We believe that by dedicating ourselves to these goals, we are making a valuable contribution to our community, our state, our country, and our world.

II. Social Issues

We are committed to the attainment of equal civil and human rights for all persons. We stand opposed to discrimination of any kind, and believe that those who suffer the burdens of discrimination must be afforded the legal means and economic opportunities to overcome such injustices. We recognize that prejudices regarding gender, race, age, ethnic origin, religious belief, sexual orientation, disability, or political affiliation are deeply rooted and lingering in our society. It is mere wishful thinking to assume that divisive and dangerous discrimination will disappear of its own accord, without government intervention.

Therefore, we support strong affirmative action laws designed to ensure that these prejudices do not prevent qualified persons from obtaining employment, promotion, education, housing, or any other social good, and support meaningful legislation and policies which provide protection from such discrimination. We also urge the vigorous enforcement of existing laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and Title IX, to equalize the distribution of public resources within our schools and other public institutions, so that all citizens may enjoy equal access to these programs.

The 46th District Democrats believe in reproductive freedom as a basic human right. We therefore unequivocally support a woman's right to choose to have an abortion, a woman’s right to make contraceptive choices, and vigorously reject legal, social, and economic encroachments upon those rights.

In recognizing the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental human right, we also recognize an obligation to allow the individual to choose for her/himself, for we are all the best judges of what constitutes our own best interest. Therefore, we reject both pervasive social prejudices and political legislation, which tend to limit the range of personal choice. As the rights to free association and personal privacy logically imply freedom to choose with whom we live, the 46th District Democrats support freedom to marry, regardless of sexual orientation.

Furthermore, we assert that each citizen has the right to live without fear of personal injury, and so support strong legislation, treatment programs, and public education efforts to reduce domestic violence and child abuse.

We strongly believe that criminal justice emphasis should be on preventative and rehabilitative measures. We as a nation must invest in children to help prevent future crime, as well as work actively to eliminate poverty.

We support: universal gun registration and licensing; mandatory safety training for gun owners; required trigger locking mechanisms to prevent firing by unauthorized persons; background checks on all gun sales, with a minimum 30 day waiting period; and, we advocate holding gun owners legally responsible for misuse of their weapons.

We believe that individual citizens, not governments or corporations, are the proper custodians of ethical, moral, spiritual, and other personal choices. Therefore, we reject as frivolous, unnecessary, and an invasion of the right to privacy, persistent Republican efforts to legislate such diverse private issues as family structure, reproductive choice, religious practice, and right to seek legal redress for corporate wrongs. We reject efforts to cloak this legislative agenda in the guise of increasing governmental efficiency, as in the case of so-called welfare reform.

III. Education

A sound and diverse education is a necessary and vital component in the creation of future citizens. We believe that education is a most important function of government. Universal access to excellent education is not only the surest path to equality, opportunity, prosperity, and the continuing preservation of our democratic heritage, but also the best means available for eradicating prejudice. To this end, we support a well-funded and excellent public school system. We believe that a simple majority vote should be sufficient to pass school levies.

As it is unreasonable to expect teachers and students to flourish while depriving schools of necessary resources, we regard the funding of education as one the top priorities of an enlightened society. We reject the dissolution of such important programs as school lunches and Head Start, as these, too, contribute to the total learning experience for youngsters. Any child's unrequited hunger, be it for food, health care, proper housing, or knowledge, constitutes an open challenge to us as a society.

We believe that all Americans, regardless of age, sex, race, or any other extraneous factor, have a right to the highest-quality public education and job preparation programs we can create. Thus, we enthusiastically support increased funding for higher education, the continuation of federal grant and student loan programs, and other measures to ensure that the quality of our system of higher education continues to increase and that learning is not reserved for the children of the rich. To this end, we oppose school vouchers and privatization of our public schools.

We believe that our educational institutions have an obligation to accommodate all learners, and that our schools and students should be held accountable for meeting rigorous academic standards, as well as abiding by the doctrine of the separation of church and state. We believe that our public schools must be safe places, and should provide all students with a learning environment that is free of bullying, harassment, and violence, where children can learn free from fear.

We encourage full inclusion in the school environment for all students regardless of sex, race, ethnic origin, religious, beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. We support both the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997, which further addresses the needs of children with disabilities. Further, we support the use of state and federal funds to implement fully the rules and regulations provided by those laws.

The 46th District Democrats believe that encouragement of the arts and humanities is a legitimate and important function of government. We believe that governmental funding for the arts, sciences, and humanities should serve the purpose of enriching society's knowledge, not censoring personal vision. We support increased funding to increase the quality of education smaller class sizes, increased teacher salaries, assisted professional development, and extended learning assistance.

IV. Economic Justice

The 46th District Democrats believe that economic justice is the foundation upon which healthy families, healthy communities, and a free and prosperous nation rest. We deplore the growing gap between rich and the poor fueled by the downward trend in wages, soaring executive paychecks, and an increasingly regressive system of taxation. We support economic policies and business practices which promote the creation of living-wage jobs and the creation of sustainable economic growth which does not damage our environment.

Workers have the right to work in an atmosphere free of discrimination in the workplace based upon sex, disability, sexual, religious or political preference. Where there is a history of discrimination that affects training and access, we believe that affirmative action is an important tool to end discrimination and make the promise of equal opportunity a reality. It is discriminatory to offer benefits to some workers and not to others because of sex or sexual orientation. Thus, we support extension of benefits to domestic partners or married couples, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. We support vigorous enforcement of fairness in hiring policies. We support equal pay for equal work, and measures which would decrease the wage gap between men and women workers.

We support a livable minimum wage, which increases with inflation, so that our poorest workers and their families do not live in poverty and hunger. Washington and the federal government must act to ensure that working families have access to high quality child care to enable parents to be in the workplace -especially as their access to welfare is eliminated.

We believe that access to healthcare is a basic human right, and that it is necessary and proper that government should step in to ensure access to both physical and mental health care for all of its citizens where the free market has failed to provide it. Furthermore, that access must not be denied by lack of affordability. Therefore, we call for the establishment of a national single-payer universal healthcare plan.

Our State’s relationship with sovereign Native American Nations and tribal governments must be built on a respectful government to government relationship, which includes respect for decisions to improve the self-sufficiency of tribes, the right of tribal governments to enact social policy through taxation on reservations and the right to decrease alcoholism and disease by preventing the sale of alcohol on reservations.

We believe that the government, as the representative of what is best in ourselves, has an ethical obligation to care for children, the elderly, the disabled, and the ill, as well as those who temporarily can not care for themselves and their children. A primary function of good government is to provide a social safety net, so that its citizens need not live in constant fear of being struck down by poverty, old age, or disease. Therefore, we support welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other state and federal programs as necessary and desirable governmental functions. We oppose cutting off access to healthcare for families when welfare benefits are cut, and we oppose eliminating welfare support without training, educational opportunity, childcare and access to family wage jobs.

Current surpluses in federal budgets should be used to repay the funds owed to keep Social Security solvent, and ensure access to Medicare and Medicaid, rather than reducing taxes for the wealthy and corporations.

V. Economic Justice and Labor

The 46th District Democrats believe in the dignity of labor. We enthusiastically support workers’ right to organize, engage in collective bargaining, and strike without fear of reprisal or replacement. Workers who are locked out should be entitled to extended unemployment benefits and retraining opportunities. All workers have a right to work in a safe, hazard free workplace. There is a need for both the federal and state governments to more actively protect workers from "invisible" hazards, such as chemicals. All workers should have the right to stop work, without fear of retaliation, when they observe a potential safety hazard. Washington State must actively ensure that workers who blow the whistle on safety hazards or environmental violations have protection from retaliation and access to our state courts.

We strongly support mandatory safe and adequate housing, sanitary facilities, education and safe working conditions for migrant and seasonal workers and their families. These workers should be free to unionize and collectively bargain without fear. Agricultural workers should be ensured that pesticide and herbicide safety regulations will be strictly enforced, and that their water supplies are as safe for their children as any other community’s water.

VI. The Environment

As stewards of the American land and of our continent’s coastal zone, we recognize an obligation not to destroy our natural resources and heritage. Every American and resident of Washington has a fundamental right to a healthy environment, including clean air, clean water, uncontaminated food - now and for future generations. In order to preserve this right, government at all levels must act ethically and decisively to ensure the preservation of ecosystems and our global environment. This includes taking responsibility for actions to reverse the damage done to the ozone layer by human activity, to reduce dramatically the emissions of greenhouse gases, and to reverse the long-term decline of marine aquatic life in our world’s oceans. We expect our elected officials and government officials to take actions reflecting their duty as trustees, and not to place short term economic interests ahead of this duty.

We believe that the value of our natural resources cannot be measured solely by market value, and that we have a compelling obligation to preserve and protect the environment for future generations. It is the government’s duty to ensure that private gain is never allowed to take precedence over the preservation of the health of the natural legacy which belongs to our descendants. This principle must be applied to decisions that would: strip the tops of mountains in our state and jeopardize water resources for gold mines; take water from rivers and streams for private beneficiaries, while not leaving adequate water for salmon and aquatic ecosystems; determine whether we remove dams rather than damn salmon to extinction; trade or sell old growth forests; allow agricultural, wood products and developer interests to destroy the shoreline habitats needed for healthy aquatic ecosystems; allow clean air or water rules to be waived for individual industrial facilities. We call on Congress and the President to ensure that our state can take the measures necessary to protect our marine environment and shorelines from the threats of oil spills and hazardous cargoes; and, to allow our state to protect our communities and environment from oil pipelines.

The use of nuclear and chemical weapons, whether in war, by accident, or as a terrorist tool, remain the greatest catastrophic threat to our environment and our fundamental rights to a healthful environment. We urge the reduction and decommissioning of weapons of mass destruction, ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, START II and an immediate mutual effort to reduce nuclear weapons to proposed START III levels. Residents of Washington have the right to live free from fear of cancers, illnesses and catastrophes from the radioactive and toxic waste legacies of the Cold War - and from new weapons production - at facilities such as the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, Umatilla Chemical Weapons Depot, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Bangor Nuclear Submarine Base, which have contaminated our region’s water and air or threaten to expose ourselves, future generations, site workers and entire ecosystems. The federal government must clean up these facilities, without spreading their risks, by meeting our state’s cleanup and health standards. We oppose any new missions that add more wastes to the toxic and radioactive wastes at Hanford, whether from restart of reactors or efforts to make our state a National Radioactive Waste Dump.

The 46th District Democrats believe that our City must be committed to fulfilling our role as responsible stewards and fully support such endeavors as: neighborhood planning, with funds to implement our communities’ visions; a dramatic increase in the preservation of the open spaces within our urban environment; ensuring that no children in our City do not live within reasonable distances from open space, playfields and open libraries; daylighting and restoration of Ravenna and Thornton Creeks and Magnuson Park’s wetlands; increasing recycling and reuse rates; eliminating the use of potentially harmful pesticides, herbicides and other chemical hazards from schools, City agencies and where their use threatens water resources; charging City water and electricity users rates that encourage conservation, discourage waste and discourage sprawl that conflicts with City, County and State Growth Management policies; and , ending logging in the Cedar River Watershed. We support the development of mass transit (including lightrail via underground route through Roosevelt to Northgate in Phase One of Sound Transit, and design of a monorail system to enhance our transit options); the dedication of HOV lanes to HOV vehicles; and improved facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists in both our neighborhood and regional planning.

VII. Foreign Policy

It is crucial to the health of our citizens, our country, and our planet to end nuclear proliferation. The 46th District Democrats stand opposed to nuclear armaments, and oppose the development, production, and maintenance of weapons of mass destruction. We urge our government and all states possessing nuclear weapons to take such steps as will lead to the abolition of nuclear weapons at the earliest possible date, including the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. We oppose any alteration by the U.S. Government of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

We believe that it is of vital importance that our nation act ethically in the international arena, and work toward promoting world peace and international cooperation. As Democrats, we elect to pursue foreign policies which genuinely reflect the values of the American people, rather than the interests of corporations. These values include respect for the rights of indigenous peoples, workers, women, ethnic minorities, and other resources, and an expectation for reasonable regulation of trans-national corporations, all in the interest of increasing conditions of justice and peace. Towards this end we expect the global financial trade institutions, WTO, IMF, and the World Bank, be either dismantled or fundamentally restructured to serve democratically the broad public interest. Specifically, we support the democratization of the World Trade Organization. We urge the WTO to recognize the immutable importance and primacy of human rights, especially with regard to the labor of children, women, and recognizing collective bargaining units.

We support the United States' fully paid participation in the United Nations and other organizations which promote human rights, adherence to international law, democratic elections, health and safety, peace, commerce, cultural understanding, and preservation of our planet's fragile ecosystems.

We are deeply concerned with securing the rights of individuals worldwide. We support and urge funding for universal free education, as well as family planning efforts, which will allow all persons, and societies to make informed choices regarding family size and population growth. We support international efforts to assure clean air, clean water, and tolerable living conditions for all people on earth. We support strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and strong treaties with other nations to reduce emissions worldwide. We support the right of citizens to know if food has been genetically modified. The right of privacy of personal financial and healthcare information should be universally acknowledged. We support worker's rights to organize in every nation, and work towards a higher global standard of worker safety. In recognizing that women's rights are inherently human rights, we recognize rape as a violation of human rights, and urge the international community to regard it as such. We deplore institutionalized sexism, racism, and other forms of intolerance wherever they prevail, and support international efforts to eradicate them and guarantee human rights to all people on earth.

VIII. Campaign Issues

We believe that in order to keep our representative democracy vibrant, it behooves us as a nation to encourage the best and brightest of our citizens to run for public office. In order to keep our electoral processes open to all who feel up to the challenge of serving our country, regardless of their income level, we must open the public airwaves to all candidates free of charge. Money should not equal speech; we support contribution and spending limits as an integral part of campaign finance reforms.

We believe a meaningful and effective campaign finance reform bill must be passed as a first order of business in order to regain our democratic processes and government. We feel the McCain-Feingold bill constitutes a good starting point for reform efforts, in order to increase citizens' faith in the fairness of the electoral process.

IX. State Issues and Budget

It is the "paramount duty" of our State Government to provide for public education. The 46th District Democrats believe that this duty must not be undermined by spending restrictions, which prevent even surplus funds from being used to meet the needs of public education. It is not tolerable that our state’s per student spending has shrunk and class sizes grown, while the state has large budget surpluses. Washington should not accumulate reserve funds to provide tax reductions for politicians seeking to please businesses, while failing to ensure that basic needs for education, higher education, child welfare and the disabled are met. Our state’s trust responsibilities for our children and those not able to care for, or protect, themselves must not be sacrificed by politicians claiming that government has no role or responsibility, and too much money. We believe that Initiatives 601 and 695 were shortsighted and violate these trust responsibilities.

We support initiatives such as our City’s Seattle Jobs Initiative, which seek to ensure that families (especially single parent families) have educational and training opportunities to move into self-sustaining long-term jobs that pay family wages and provide benefits. Washington State must support childcare and preschool options for working parents, especially those who are moving off of welfare. Childcare and pre-school teachers must be paid commensurate with the trust we place in them.

Homelessness is a condition that our State and local governments can eliminate. Affordable housing must be built, and basic housing standards met for migrant workers.

Washington State must continue to work towards preserving universal access to basic services, such as utilities, health insurance, and auto insurance, at reasonable rates. Elimination of state scrutiny of the reasonableness of rates for these services, especially where ratepayers have paid for the infrastructure or monopoly power is exercised in the markets, will only result in cutting households off from these necessities - while providing windfall profits.

When people in our community, or even entire communities, are injured because of the irresponsible acts of an industry, we believe that access to our state’s courts must be preserved and increased, and the jury system must be allowed to deter irresponsible conduct from harming others.

X. Local Issues

The 46th District Democrats believe that the health and well-being of our community is of the utmost importance. We must all be forever vigilant in the preservation of all the local beauty, which makes this such a vibrant and beautiful place to live, work, and raise a family. We urge our local elected officials to recognize that our park lands are public trusts, which should not be given to private entities that are neither directly accountable to voters nor subject to open-access government requirements.

We also believe that it is incumbent upon our elected officials to plan prudently to ease traffic congestion, while at the same time keeping our communities livable. We support increased funding for public transportation, as well as programs, which encourage human-powered travel. Our mass transit system requires 24-hour dedicated HOV lanes in order to provide timely service, as well as more frequent trips to the North End of Seattle, in order to serve the 46th District well. We urge the city to strictly require the Seahawk owners to fully honor all commitments previously made regarding parking, traffic, and permanent amenities for the local community.

Increasing population density in our community is putting a strain on our infrastructure. Consequently, we believe that developers should pay for improvements such as sidewalks, increased storm water/sewer capacity, park maintenance, and school upgrade expenses.

We of the 46th District are committed to maintaining the beauty of our local environment. As such, we support policies and programs, which encourage recycling. Our recycle bins should be of a weight and size as to be easily transported to the curb for pick-up.