Here is the final draft of the Delaware Democratic Party Platform that will be voted on during the convention on Saturday. It is a marked improvement upon the first draft of the platform, as Delaware United illustrates in what items were added:
- Support for a Medicare for All, Single Payer Healthcare System
- A huge commitment to fighting for Veteran’s needs, including mental health care, education, job training, campaigns to battle homelessness, and more
- Repealing the Death Penalty
- A commitment to mental health, including suicide awareness and prevention programs
- Debt-free college, and expansion of programs like the SEED program
- Universal Preschool
- Expanding Green energy infrastructure in Delaware
- Corporate Reform, specifically stopping shadow LLCs from setting up in Delaware
- Commitment to ending Super PACs
- Public Financing of Elections
- Equal pay for equal work
- Ending mass incarceration
- Fighting income and wealth inequality
- $15 an hour minimum wage for the State of Delaware
- Fighting outsourcing in Delaware
- Rebuilding our infrastructure
- Fighting to support our Unions
Erik Raser-Schramm, who is on the Platform Committee, and who is also a candidate for our next Party Chairman, had this to say on the year long process:
This Final Draft is the culmination of over a year’s worth of hard work and dedication on the part of Delaware’s Democrats. When assembled last spring, the Platform Committee made it our duty to ensure that every Democrat in the state had a chance to provide their input on the Party Platform.
In 2016 the Committee held a series of Public Suggestion Meetings in each of the Party’s four subdivisions (New Castle, Kent, Sussex, and the City of Wilmington). These were well-attended meetings in which any registered Democrat could make suggestions toward the 2017 Party Platform. After taking the Democratic public’s suggestions into consideration, the Platform Committee spent the early months of 2017 composing a draft platform.
The initial draft then went through a month-long public comment period. Both Delegates and the Democratic public were given the opportunity to provide input and feedback on the draft platform. Many of Delaware’s Democrats seized that opportunity and the committee received over 180 individual suggestions regarding the platform’s first draft. We would like to thank everyone who submitted their comments and suggestions. Incorporating the wide range of views held by our state’s Democrats, presented a unique set of challenges, but we are confident that we crafted a platform that Delaware’s Democrats will be proud to call their own.
Repealing the Death Penalty? Someone please explain exactly who it will affect both positively and negatively, i.e., what are the pros and cons.
It saves money, as death row is more expensive than regular prison. There is the added bonus of not killing innocent people who are wrongly on death row. There is also an equality and civil rights argument that the death penalty is racist as it is given disproportionately to black criminals rather than white criminals who have committed the same offense. And then there is the moral issue. With studies showing that the death penalty is not in fact a deterrent, then why is the state in the business of killing people. Why are we lowering ourselves to the level or a murderer?
Well said.
Weird how the criminal justice reform section finds a way to mention women multiple times, but not a single reference to how over criminalized minorities are in this state
Delaware Left seems to be missing something here, with all due respect. The entire national and local conversation about criminal justice reform in context has always primarily been about its treatment of and impact on minority communities and this was well known to the committee drafters.
No shit that’s the context. Do you not see the inherent value in explicitly making that clear?
And Mass incarceration in the text doesn’t do it for you? I don’t think anyone thinks we’re talking about American Samoans here. That reference always in context means African American’s and Hispanics.
Again, an explicit reference has much more rhetorical and political weight than an implicit one
Like every bit of it, let’s see how the politicians follow thru. And even better hold them accountable. Delaware has an incarceration rate that is double that of New jersey, this must stop, mass incarceration is at best a massive failure.
The item “$15 an hour minimum wage for the State of Delaware” is terribly phrased as are all proposals and legislation with dollars listed. The living wage of $15 an hour started in 2013 if my memory is correct. If passed in 2018, assuming 2% annual inflation the $15 should be $16.24 in 2018.In addition a living wage that lifts people out of poverty should include an annual COLA, medical insurance, and paid leave. If the Democrats really want to lift people out of poverty these changes are a must.
Two other points. First the above does not even allow for the recent studies that have been released which show that even employees in Sussex county need to make at least $20 an hour to afford a decent two bedroom apartment. Second, the implementation of the above would reduce expenses for food stamps, negative income tax, medical costs for dependent children and other federal and state programs designed to help the poor. These expenses go down as employees income goes up. These expenses essentially are subsidizes to employers who underpay their workers.