Maine Democratic Party Platform, 2010
Preamble
Since the time of Jefferson and Jackson, the Democratic Party
has led the struggle to strengthen democracy in our government. Democracy is
the belief that the best repository of wisdom is an informed and educated
electorate and that this electorate has a right to control the political agenda
and debate those issues that are of importance to them.
In keeping with this philosophy, Maine
Democrats believe in serving the people in Maine
by promoting strong sustainable communities, fairness and opportunity for all,
and investment in Maine’s
future. Economic opportunity and security, universal access to quality
education and healthcare, good government, fair taxes, safety and national
security, human rights, environmental protection, and international cooperation
are the policies and principles for which we have long fought and will continue
to fight.
We adopt this platform as an expression of what Democrats in Maine support and as a
guideline for elected officials in their political work.
A. Economic
Security, Opportunity, and Justice
We support a democratic government that:
Builds strong communities by ensuring: jobs for all who can work; a
livable wage; affordable housing, food, fuel, health care, and other
essential commodities for all; and support for those suffering hardship.Provides economic security through: a strong, non-privatized Social
Security program, stricter regulation of public and private pensions, and
guaranteed protection of workers’ pension funds and the rights of their
designated recipients.Opposes reducing the Social Security benefits earned by workers who
have also earned a benefit from public retirement plans; and works to repeal
discriminatory laws that penalize some retired workers and their families
while allowing others to receive full benefits.Ensures a fair workplace by: guaranteeing the rights and the
ability of all workers to form unions through
the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, bargain collectively, and
strike without replacement or reprisal; keeping the workplace free from
health and safety hazards, discrimination, and harassment; enacting rules
that respect employees' family obligations, health, and other needs; and
monitoring and penalizing offenders of labor laws.Encourages a sustainable economy by promoting: private and public
Maine-owned and operated businesses; tourism (including ecotourism);
cultural diversity; working waterfronts; high-value woodland management;
active and potential farming; the total fishing industry; the manufacture
and export of value-added products; and Maine food and fiber products.Creates economic opportunity by promoting investments in: ports,
public and commercial transportation, renewable energy, environmentally
responsible construction, small business, research and development, employment
skill building, information technology, and arts, culture, and other
amenities that stimulate a creative economy, attract business and tourism,
and improve quality of life for all.Creates an equitable economic environment through: strong consumer
protection, banking, access to pensions, and corporate governance laws; encouraging
the growth of local banks, credit unions, and other cooperatives; and
preventing discrimination based on race, color, gender, age, physical and
mental ability, religion, ancestry, national origin, and sexual orientation.Supports an energy policy that seeks to protect the people of Maine from corporate
speculation and profiteering, and supports the non-profit operation of public
facilities for public purposes without creating local economic hardship.Believes the authors of the U.S. Constitution did not intend
corporations to be included in the definition of the word “person” and
“people,” and supports legislative remedies and/or a Constitutional amendment to
correct contrary court decisions. Protects people from the repercussions of natural disaster.
B. Health Care and
Education
We support a democratic government that:
Believes that quality
health care is a fundamental human right and therefore supports a
universal, single-payer, and nonprofit health care system on a national
level and, in addition, supports the efforts of individual states to
develop single payer systems until the goal of national coverage can be achieved.
Strengthens Medicaid, Medicare, Dirigo, and veterans’ benefits.
Addresses the unique medical needs of all individuals, especially discrepancies
of health care delivery to minorities.
Supports public and preventative health initiatives, wellness and
healthy living, and disease prevention. Ensures prenatal and childhood
care and inter-operationally coordinated electronic medical records.Protects a woman’s access to reproductive choice.Strives for a strong healthcare workforce by providing incentives
to recruit, educate, and retain well-qualified primary care physicians and
nurses as well as other direct care workers.Provides health care and community support for people with
disabilities, making it possible for them to live freely and to perform
productive work. Supports individual choice in managing the end of one’s life.Ensures food safety through science-based testing, quality control
by a dedicated federal agency, the identification of imported food by country
of origin and the identification of any genetically modified content, and
support for local food production and distribution.Ensures humane living, transportation, and slaughter conditions for
farm animals raised for food.Helps children succeed by: supporting youth and families with
affordable early childhood education and other vital services; preventing
domestic violence; protecting children from abuse, neglect, and the
dangers of poverty; and focusing on prevention and intervention and
providing adequate funding.Ensures a learning environment that: challenges all children to
reach their highest potential; respects their backgrounds; protects them
from violence, abuse, and bullying; and provides programs to prevent
substance abuse, suicide, and other destructive behaviors. Supports
alternative educational settings and special-needs programs.Invests in public educational institutions, provides lifelong
learning opportunities for all, equitably funds all school districts,
improves salaries and professional working conditions for all teachers and
staff, develops criteria for excellence in schools, involves community
members and parents in student-centered education, and improves
educational quality through training and development.Recognizes our responsibility to provide post-secondary education
opportunities for everyone, with financial support and minimal student
debt.
C. Ethical
Government and Democracy
We support a democratic government that:
Promotes the general welfare by: delivering promised social
services, making needed public investments, embracing transparency and
accountability, and promoting the most effective use of available
financial resources.Opposes contracting out the jobs of public employees to
profit-making businesses.Calls for an uncensored and democratic media to foster the
equitable distribution of economic, social, cultural, and informational
assets; and ensures an informed citizenry by: promoting the
diversification of communications media, supporting public broadcasting
and locally-based public access television; upholding public interest
standards for broadcasters; restoring the Fairness Doctrine and Equal Time
Rule; expanding cable franchising; increasing public access to communications,
supporting equal access to the Internet; and extending low cost, high
speed Internet access to all communities.Promotes democratic accountability through: campaign finance
reform, including publicly funded elections at all levels; a fair
assignment of legislative districts; increasing the allowable number of
terms for state legislators; and electoral reforms such as preference
voting, proportional representation, voter-verified paper ballots,
non-partisan election commissions, Election Day National Holiday,
elimination of excessive personal identification for voting, and counting
of every vote including valid provisional votes.Maintains the integrity of the Maine and the U.S. Constitutions by
strengthening the separation of powers and by requiring executive,
legislative, and judicial accountability.Supports fair and equitable compensation for legislators and
ensures that they are provided with the tools and resources they need to
perform their work adequately.Promotes reforms in the legislative and regulatory processes to
reduce the influence of professional lobbyists and to increase the ability
of the public to influence legislation and regulation.Places a priority on negotiation, mediation, arbitration,
reconciliation, and restitution; and enables the prevention, management,
and peaceful resolution of conflict.Supports a fair, progressive tax system that focuses tax
responsibilities on those most able to pay.Limits land taking by eminent domain exclusively to federal, state,
and local governments, and only for projects directly benefiting the
public and not for private gain or benefit.Supports the elimination of the income cap on Social Security
taxes.Calls for a democratic and accessible national presidential
nomination process that is truly representative of national political
party constituencies and is not unnecessarily burdensome to the candidates
in the commitment of time, money, or resources.Understands that government regulation is for the protection of
individual citizens and consumers, and not for the benefit of corporations
or their corporate profits.
D. Freedom, Safety,
and National Security
We support a democratic government that:
Protects the full enjoyment of the Bill of Rights as a living
document, especially its guarantees of free speech, free exercise of
religion, separation of church and state, and freedom from all forms of
discrimination.Supports the right of women to be secure in their persons, as
articulated in Roe v Wade, and guarantees them the right to access all
forms of reproductive choices.Endorses the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including its
guarantee that all people have the right to food, water, shelter, medical
care, and a good education.Does not torture or condone torture, and expeditiously closes the Guantánamo Bay detention camp.Guarantees the right to personal privacy and rejects all forms of
spying on American citizens without warrants.Upholds the ancient right to habeas corpus for everybody by
rejecting detention that is secret, indefinite, and not subject to court
review or in which detainees lack access to counsel and loved ones.Protects our communities by requiring businesses and organizations
to act responsibly toward their employees, their communities, and the
environment.Protects our communities by properly regulating corporations and
financial institutions, strongly prosecuting corporate crime, preventing
crime of all kinds, reforming prosecution of nonviolent offenders,
uniformly enforcing laws, and enacting new laws where needed. Works for the
preservation of public peace, health, and safety and is responsible for
peaceful economic security and justice through the enactment and enforcement
of law.
E. Civil Rights
We support a democratic government that:
Affirms its special responsibility to promote full participation of
all persons in all of society’s activities.Promotes and enforces all laws, including Affirmative Action and
Hate Crimes Laws, that protect civil rights; prohibits racial, ethnic and
religious profiling; provides for equal treatment; guarantees equal access
to higher education, employment, and housing; and prohibits discrimination
based on race, color, gender, age, physical and mental ability, religion,
ancestry, national origin, or sexual orientation.Respects the dignity of all immigrants, ensures their human rights,
and offers a path to legal residence for undocumented immigrants.Extends to gay and lesbian couples and their families all the same
legal and social rights and protections that heterosexual couples now
receive, including civil marriage, and opposes any constitutional
amendment or legislation that would deny these rights.Calls for a transparent, equitable voting system where every vote
counts, including write-ins, and prohibits efforts to intimidate and
discourage voters or restrict voter rights.Protects employees against unfair and arbitrary dismissal by (at a
minimum) creating a right to administrative due process.Immediately suspends discharges under the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”
policy and removes heterosexual orientation as a condition for military
service.Fairly and uniformly enforces the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA), bringing into full compliance all public accommodations, including
all federal facilities, with no exceptions.
F. Environmental
Protection
We support a democratic government that:
Develops and implements a comprehensive energy resource plan to
increase efficiency, to reduce pollution and reliance on fossil and
unclean fuels, and to mitigate global climate change by promoting the
research and use of domestic, environmentally sound and renewable energy
sources with particular caution for the placement and use of all
alternative energy sources, and the fuel supply of biomass boilers. The
development of the plan should be transparent and open to public comment.Conserves our working landscape and natural heritage through
responsible stewardship of our environment and natural resources and
opposes environmental degradation in accordance with the “precautionary
principle”: do no harm to the public good.Promotes protection of open space and responsible land and marine
use laws and planning processes; makes comprehensive environmental and
socioeconomic impact reports an integral part of the decision making
process for all proposed projects that may significantly affect Maine's
communities and environment; and supports local control of projects having
potentially negative impact.Conserves and protects land, water, forest, wetland, vernal pools,
air space, and marine resources; expands public lands to preserve
biodiversity, vital habitats, scenery, recreation, hunting, and fishing;
and promotes sustainable farming and fishing.Ensures access to clean, safe, public drinking and swimming waters,
and enacts laws to protect surface waters and aquifers against economic exploitation.Leads New England's campaign
against airborne pollution; defines, limits, and monitors out-of-state
waste; eliminates harmful waste; enforces the state's “Solid Waste Hierarchy”
as currently in the statues; and promotes recycling.Supports the re-writing of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976
to provide protection for people according to the “precautionary
principle.”
G. Global Peace,
Security, and Justice
We support a democratic government that:
Safeguards
our national security through peaceful solutions to international challenges;
supports international law and ratified treaties; works closely with allies and in good
faith with all nations; strengthens the United Nations and its
peacekeeping operations; opposes subversion of popularly elected
governments; actively works to prevent genocide; and joins the
International Criminal Court.Maintains
a strong, effective defense force that is equipped and organized to handle
legitimate foreign threats and is complemented by a reliable intelligence
service; opposes the use of private contractors in combat zones; strives to end civilian
casualties; works to reduce arms and the arms trade worldwide and ultimately
to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction; opposes new arms races; and
never launches undeclared or pre-emptive wars.Works
to end the threat of terrorism multilaterally, primarily through negotiations
and cooperative police work, using force only as a last resort.Strives
for a comprehensive approach to achieving sustainable peace and stability in the
greater Middle East through renewed
emphasis on diplomatic means, economic and social development, and
reduction of military presence, notably:
§
In Iraq,
by pursuing diplomatic solutions, transferring control to the Iraqi people,
accelerating the return of our soldiers and contractors in a responsible
manner, and fostering an international stabilization program that supports the
Iraqi people and improves their economy.
§
In Afghanistan, by refining our strategic objectives to
focus on eliminating the threat of terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its
allies through enhanced use of diplomatic, political and economic means; by
working with allies to achieve military disengagement in a short period of
time; and by supporting Afghan efforts to achieve a credible, legitimate
government committed to reducing the influence of corruption and
narcotrafficking and promoting economic and social development, including human
rights.
§
In Iran, by cooperating with other nations to help the
people of Iran and their government decide through direct negotiation that they
do not need nuclear weapons, and by demonstrating to Iran the
advantages of improved relations with the world community.
§
In Israel
and Palestine,
by active involvement in an international peace process allowing Israelis and
Palestinians to co-exist with mutually recognized borders.
Promotes
human
dignity and international security by dramatically increasing support for
humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, international development, and
the elimination of poverty. Takes
a leading role in an international effort for reconstruction and
sustainable development in Haiti.Leads
in shaping a global economy that supports a fairer distribution of growth
and development among all peoples; protects indigenous trades and
resources; strengthens democracy; and protects the environment, labor
rights (including right to a fair wage), public health, and the public
good.Strengthens
regulation of international financial and commodity transactions.Ensures
that
current and future trade agreements support and strengthen domestic jobs,
businesses, and farms by assisting their integration into the global economy;
eliminates all forms of government assistance for outsourcing of jobs and
businesses; reforms WTO, NAFTA, and other U.S. trade agreements so that
they include enforceable protections for workers’ and consumers’ human
rights and enable sustainable environmental quality for all.Acts aggressively to reduce the U.S.
trade deficit.Diminish
the role of the Department of Defense in world affairs to a strengthened
and expanded Department of State. Appoint ambassadors and high-level aides
who are culturally and educationally experienced for their posts.
Strengthen the entire diplomatic corps in cultural and language training,
governance and diplomatic skills. Eliminate partisan political
appointments in the diplomatic corps. Expand citizen cultural and
educational exchanges with all nations and coordinate efforts and provide
leadership in the developing world for non-governmental Organizations and
universities.
We, as Democrats of Maine, support these principles and
pledge to work cooperatively with local governments, other states and nations,
and all other parties for a better future for all Maine's people.
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