CDP 2010 Platform

The 2010 State Platform was adopted at state convention in April.
Click here to download a pdf version.   

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CDP invited interested Democrats to participate in the process by submitting suggestions for the new platform. The Progressive Caucus solicited input from members and our Platform Committee presented the folowwing sugestions to the CDP.

Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party
2010 CDP Platform Submissions

Business and Economy

California Democrats are dedicated to a robust economy and business climate that creates jobs and economic opportunity for all and the tax base for the programs and policies we champion.

To grow the jobs and assure a prosperous future for all Californians, California Democrats will:

• Support the research, development and implementation of green electrical generation and transportation technologies with some combination of tax credits, low interest loans/loan guarantees and grants;

• Promote and guarantee low-interest small business loans to provide the seed capital to launch and expand job creating small business and growth of already successful businesses;

• Support legislation and/or Executive Policy which gives preference to community banks and credit unions for the State’s Main General Fund Account, mandates that state agency accounts be held in community banks or credit unions, and requires the State Treasurer to develop a program for increasing investment in community banks and credit unions.

• Facilitate improved banking services for small businesses and consumers by supporting legislation which offers community banks and credit unions tax credits for the implementation of new technologies such as online banking, check imaging, automated reporting, and security systems.

Defend consumer banking free choice by supporting legislation eliminating out of network ATM fees charged by large financial institutions who have accepted tax payer funding through the Troubled Asset Relief Program

•Support a legislative initiative that will freeze foreclosures for up to six months where homeowners had the ability to pay their mortgage before the adjustable rate started climbing by deferring past due payments and any increases created by the ARM to the end of the loan and/ or wrapped up in a refinance at affordable fix rates. The State will assist in locating private and or institutional lenders willing to enter into such a program. In addition the State needs to investigate and fund prosecutions where appropriate into private lender and or mortgage agent abuses including but not limited to redlining, the unauthorized switch and bait tactic of replacing fixed rate financing with ARMs;

• Support the right of all employees to organize, select a bargaining representative of their choice, work in a safe work environment and to be free from intimidation and retaliation tactics intended to chill their rights; through the use of card check certification;

• Oppose privatization of essential government services and the outsourcing of public sector jobs; 

• Incentives/reward employers that chose to stay in California that can show a reasonable likelihood of significant sales and job growth, by giving the California Treasurer/Board of Equalization the right to negotiate a competitive package of discounted state-based fees and or taxes to offset some of the employer's anticipated cost savings from moving the business out of California;

• Support the adoption of a Universal Health Care plan for all Californians so that California employers will not have to bear the cost burden of being the principal provider of health care and medical care to injured workers through workers compensation policies they purchase;

• Continue to support and fund job retraining and or vocational rehabilitation programs to meet the manpower needs of California's changing economy; and

• Oppose new and unfair trade agreements and renegotiate new agreement

Clean Air

?·Submission for Clean Air platform plank based on the resolution, "Support U.S. and California Renewable Energy Plans and State Moratorium on New Nuclear Plants" adopted by the CDP Executive Board on July 19, 2009:

 

?·To promote clean air, California Democrats will support the California Energy Action Plan of 2003 (reaffirmed in 2005 and 2008) which provides for the transition from fossil and nuclear fuels to cleaner, safer, and cheaper renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, and geo-thermal.

 

Criminal Justice

Californians deserve to live in safe neighborhoods. We must be tough, smart and just when dealing with crime, starting with prevention and through punishment and rehabilitation efforts. Strong families and safe communities are the highest goal of our society. Crime prevention and rehabilitation are essential to our families, our communities, and our State’s budget. Prosecution represents a failure on behalf of the individual and on behalf of society.

We are determined to put an end to family violence and gang activity, drug and alcohol addition, unemployment, poverty and racism. We are dedicated to ensuring that our criminal justice system provides fair and equitable treatment for all. We believe in the human rights of all citizens. Smart on crime must include evidence-based criminal justice prevention programs as the best use of taxpayer funds.

To promote safe communities, California Democrats will:

• Provide state-of-the-art equipment and training in the latest crime fighting
techniques;

• Enhance victim-witness advocacy that respects the rights of crime victims and provides therapeutic assistance and financial compensation;

• Strictly enforcing the existing fair penalties for all violent crimes, especially those against women, children, the elderly and disabled, and support comprehensive services for victims of crime;

• Support the establishment of a bipartisan non-partisan sentencing commission to review inequitable sentencing laws;

• Reduce prison overcrowding and the drain on our economy by decreasing penalties for minor drug offenses and other victimless crimes, making the punishment fit the crime;

• Implement community-based policing to break down barriers between law enforcement officers and the people they serve, and to curtail police misconduct;

• Promote responsible gun ownership and reasonable gun safety and work with gun owners and sporting associations to promote gun safety education;

• Continue the efforts to keep guns out of the hands of children and criminals; 

• Continue to support the common sense ban on deadly assault weapons;

• Prosecute white-collar criminals and improve methods for recovering financial losses;

• Protect consumers against identity theft and violations of privacy to ensure they know what personal information is collected by businesses and government (such as social security numbers, financial data, phone numbers, street and email addresses) and how that information is used;

• Implement legal protection from unsolicited and unwarranted commercial phone calls, faxes and email spam;

• Employ DNA testing when appropriate to ensure that innocent people are not
convicted and guilty people are not set free;

• Prohibit the use of so-called "secret evidence" in courts and tribunals; 

• Challenge the practice of racial profiling;

• Strive for a state prison system that promotes inmate rehabilitation, education, and job readiness; and

• Promote dialog that examines the inequity between public school funding and prison expansion in California, and support efforts to address high school dropout rates.  

• Reform the “Three Strikes”/Proposition 13 law so that it provides judges with more sentencing discretion, eliminates non-violent non-serious crimes from the application of this law, and makes these changes retroactive;

• Promote strong families and communities by making rehabilitation, education and job readiness the top priority;

• Oppose capital punishment;

• Pursue prison policy reform and oppose privatization of prisons; and

Education

California's children students must have access to a free, individually appropriate, high-quality public education from preschool through grade 12. Post-secondary education must be accessible and affordable to all interested students. Education must provide a well-rounded curriculum including life skills, the arts, music and physical education. Teachers and support staff, as the stewards of our future, should be well paid and work in safe learning environments with up-to-date equipment and necessary learning tools.

To help educate California's leaders of tomorrow, Democrats will fight to:

• Provide linguistically and culturally sensitive educational opportunities;

• Ensure equal and affordable access to vocational, technical, community college, or university-level educational opportunities of the highest caliber at minimal personal expense, including opportunities for lifetime learning and career retraining that enables Californians to participate successfully in the global economy;

• Fund California's public education institutions to meet these requirements so that no person is denied opportunity due to an inability to pay;

• Vest curricular decision-making responsibility in education professionals in conjunction with content experts, including the means and methods of assessment and the decisions regarding the appropriateness of educational placement;

• Ensure that California schools get full funding for any federally mandated programs;

• Assure the provision of sex education, confidential medical services and access to nurses and counseling services; for youth at ages that make sense for communities

• Set per-student public education funding at a minimum of $1,000 per student above the national average to keep California competitive in the global economy.

• Close all American-based schools or facilities that engage in mental, physical, or sexual abuse of our children, and hold accountable all responsible parties.

• Education will be capped at research-supported optimal levels, providing students from preschool through graduate school with access to sufficient educator attention, materials and space;

• Educational placements must follow IDEA or program guidelines, and not be
relegated to boards or administrative discretion;
Test scores will not be used exclusively to rate students, staff, schools or districts;

• Educational support staff will receive appropriate training for the position in which they are employed and receive appropriate monetary compensation;

• Schools shall provide trade and vocational training to interested students;

• All publicly funded schools will be held to the same standards of accountability;

• There will be communication between secondary institutions and post-secondary institutions to improve awareness and access to all students, providing options.

Energy & Environment #1

The environment is the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. Our world's beauty and complexity - the elegance of its inter-connectedness - is a foundation of our inspiration, creativity and spirituality. California Democrats have led the way towards bipartisan solutions to problems arising from our industrial society - resource extraction, waste disposal, and pollution - and their disparate impact on the poor, on ethnic minorities and on indigenous people. 

We will work to reverse the real and imminent threat of Global Warming Climate Change and to protect our planet.

To safeguard our cherished environment, California Democrats will:

?·Create green collar jobs by incentivizing the development, production and purchase of environmentally friendly products, renewable energy, and recycled materials through public/private partnerships such as the state and national Apollo Alliance;

?·By 2020: Return to the state’s 1990 greenhouse gas emissions levels; produce 40 percent of California's electricity from renewable and sustainable energy sources and reduce electricity and natural gas use by 20 percent; by 2030 produce 40 percent of the state's transportation fuels from non-petroleum sources; and support Low Carbon Fuel Standards; 

?·Reject any attempt for new offshore oil or gas development, preserve coastal access, protect the mandates of the California Coastal Act, and support the recovery and preservation of our ocean ecosystems;

?·Oppose any attempt to weaken the federal Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, or the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA);

?·Preserve the health of the Delta, by bringing the Delta levee system to 200-year flood protection;

?·Curtail and phase out pesticides which pose threats to our farm workers and consumers;
Encourage the use of non-toxic, fire resistant, termite proof, energy efficient building materials, in all new residential and light commercial construction;

?·Conserve natural resources and public lands to combat suburban urban sprawl; by rejecting any sale of public open space land or any land purchased with any portion of State funding including public forestry and park lands and develop policies that require infill development; and safeguard California's forests through sustained yield best practices forestry and preservation of heritage trees;

?·Safeguard California’s forests through sustained yield best practices forestry, preservation of heritage trees, and elimination of subsidies for roads;

?·Support minimum price guarantees as a method of promoting domestic and entrepreneur renewable energy production so as to increase the percentage of renewables in California's power mix;

?·Support the Attorney General’s suit against the Environmental Protection Agency to grant California’s waiver request under the Clean Air Act, and support Clean Vehicle Incentive Programs;

?·Encourage Require the goal of “net zero emissions” new homes by 2020, and zero net energy new commercial construction by 2030; and

?·Urge Congress to pass a rigorous greenhouse gas emissions cap for the nation that meets or exceeds sound scientific standards.;

Require public schools to offer climate-change science classes every year in order to foster more solutions to the problem of climate change;

Pursue an energy resources severance tax that would provide compensation to California citizens for the extraction of their non-renewable resources, and to use these funds to guarantee the stability of funding for higher education;

Implement policies that will disincentivize environmentally destructive practices and products;

Support phasing out government subsidization of commercial interests for practices that are destructive to our environment such as lumber harvesting and fertilizer subsidies;

Require identification of new water supplies for all new subdivision construction; and

Energy & Environment #2

The environment is the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. Our world's beauty and complexity - the elegance of its inter-connectedness - is a foundation of our inspiration, creativity and spirituality. California Democrats have led the way towards bi-partisan solutions to problems arising from our industrial society - resource extraction, waste disposal, and pollution - and their disparate impact on the poor, on ethnic minorities and on indigenous people. We will work to reverse the real and imminent threat of Global Warming and to protect our planet.

To safeguard our cherished environment, California Democrats will:

• Create green collar jobs by incentivizing the development, production and purchase of environmentally friendly products, renewable energy, and recycled materials through public/private partnerships such as the state and national Apollo Alliance;

• By 2020: Return to the state’s 1990 greenhouse gas emissions levels; produce 40 percent of California's electricity from renewable and sustainable energy sources and reduce electricity and natural gas use by 20 percent; by 2030 produce 40 percent of the state's transportation fuels from non-petroleum sources; and support Low Carbon Fuel Standards;

• Reject any attempt for new offshore oil or gas development, preserve coastal access, protect the mandates of the California Coastal Act, and support the recovery and preservation of our ocean ecosystems;

• Oppose any attempt to weaken the federal Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, or the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA);

• Preserve the health of the Delta as the water source for 23 million Californians; oppose efforts to increase water exports until science-based methods verify minimum instream flows for North America’s largest freshwater estuary; bring the Delta levee system to 200-year flood protection; ensure Delta legacy communities are protected from unnecessary development.

• Curtail and phase out pesticides which pose threats to our farm workers and consumers;

• Encourage the use of fire resistant, termite proof, energy efficient building materials, in all new residential and light commercial construction;

• Conserve natural resources and public lands to combat suburban sprawl; reject any sale of public forestry and park lands; and safeguard California's forests through sustained yield best practices forestry and preservation of heritage trees;

• Support minimum price guarantees as a method of promoting domestic and entrepreneur renewable energy production so as to increase the percentage of renewables in California's power mix;

• Support the Attorney General’s suit against the Environmental Protection Agency to grant California’s waiver request under the Clean Air Act, and support Clean Vehicle Incentive Programs;

• Encourage the goal of “net zero emissions” new homes by 2020, and zero net energy new commercial construction by 2030;

• Urge Congress to pass a rigorous greenhouse gas emissions cap for the nation that meets or exceeds sound scientific standards.

Energy & Environment #3

Preserve and restore the health of the California Delta, the largest and most significant estuary on the West Coast of the Americas; establish science-based minimum instream flows to double anadromous fish populations as mandated under the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA); oppose all efforts to increase water exports and/or to build a peripheral canal; bring the Delta levee system to 200-year flood protection; ensure Delta legacy communities are protected from unnecessary development.

The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) provides a broad legislative mandate for coordination and new authority to comprehensively protect marine resources and habitat. We support implementation of the Act using resourcefulness and all possible means to fully protect California's marine ecosystems from urgent current and evolving environmental threats. Recognizing limits on public resources, it is imperative that the most cost efficient and effective strategies for ecosystem protection be pursued while minimizing economic harm. The MPLA must respect tribal sovereignty and allow

Health Care

California Democrats believe that health care is a right not a privilege. The CDP recognizes the health and well-being of Californians cannot continue to be based on arbitrary private and public financial decisions and therefore advocates legislation to create and implement a publicly funded (single-payer), privately delivered, fiscally tractable, affordable, comprehensive, secure, high-quality, efficient, and sustainable health care for all Californians.

To build a healthy future for all Californians, Democrats will:

• Support and implement universal comprehensive health care for all Californians, that includes medical and dental care, full reproductive health services including a woman’s right to choose, preventive services, prescription drugs and mental health counseling and treatment;

• Until all Californians are covered by publicly funded health care, we shall:

• Support legislation that requires all HMOs and health insurers obtain prior approval from the state before rates can be increased;

• Lead the nation in providing comprehensive quality health care to all our people by enacting SCHP coverage for all children in California;

• Oppose efforts to privatize Strengthen Medi-Cal and Medicare by opposing further funding cuts, reversing recent funding cuts and reducing privatization of the industry;

• Require health plans to maintain a medical loss ratio of 90%;

• Disallow denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions;

• Ensure that loss of employment does not cause a loss of health care.

• Until such time as all Californians are covered by publicly funded health care, we shall support a requirement that all HMOs and health insurers obtain prior approval from the state before rates can be increased.

• Expand and strengthen respite care and in-home support services including adequate background checks prior to licensure, and promote an in-home support services system;

• Ensure economic and physical access to multilingual health care services;

• Support the full funding of community clinics and health centers that serve low-income and homeless populations;

• Enforce the Patient's Bill of Rights;

• Affirm that medical decisions must be made with respect for patients' rights to privacy and freedom to have control over their lives with fully informed consent; and

• Lead the fight against diseases by supporting and expanding stem cell and other groundbreaking research.;

• Invest in education, incentives and other measures that prevent disease; and

• Identify and analyze public health variables and community deviations in health care costs from state norms.

Labor, Economic Justice and Poverty Elimination

California Democrats have always been close partners with Labor and strong supporters of workers’ rights. The ‘glass ceiling’ for people of color and women must be shattered and there must be equal pay for equal or comparable work. Our strong workforce, coupled with a work ethic second to none, us among our nation’s most valuable resources.

California’s prosperity depends on ensuring a minimum standard of living for all its residents. Food, shelter, clothing, health care and education are among the basic human rights of all individuals. We are determined in our commitment to safeguard these basic human rights and to support public services designed to eliminate poverty, hunger and homelessness among the poor, the elderly, the blind and disabled in order to strengthen all California communities.

To meet the basic human needs of all Californians, Democrats will:

• Make the minimum wage a living wage;

• Support a living wage, especially in areas where the increasingly high cost of living and rising inflation renders it impossible to afford the basic necessities of life even through working a full-time job, to lift the working poor out of poverty and achieve self-sufficiency;

• Fight for public assistance programs which allow individuals to support themselves and their families, including job retraining in order to upgrade job status in keeping with technical advancements;

• Guarantee Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) for CalWorks and Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Program (SSI/SSP) recipients in state and federal budgets;

Support the full funding of food stamp programs to relieve hunger and full funding for healthy families programs;

• Promote expansion of emergency food networks, senior and school meal programs to end starvation;

• Encourage require business and preference for firms that employ California workers whenever public funds finance bridges, highways and other public works construction;

• Pay prevailing wages to protect the economic base of the communities on where government-funded projects are undertaken to protect the economic base of the communities, thereby ensuring that government is not lowering the standard of living;

• Support the 8-hour workday and daily overtime and fight any efforts to repeal the 40-hour workweek;

• Enhance guarantee the strong workers’ safety programs with adequate and appropriate penalties for injurious and unsafe working conditions, and ensure that Cal-OSHA is adequately funded and staffed;

• Boycott employers who have permanently replaced strikers and protect the collective bargaining rights of workers in both the public and private sectors; and

• Fight anti-worker initiatives that seek to undermine the ability of union leaders to carry out the will of