Electoral Justice

In order for us to be able to implement ANY legislation that will benefit the American people, we must acknowledge that our campaign and electoral systems are in a state of severe disrepair. There is a reason that while most Americans want single-payer healthcare, we do not have it. There is a reason why fossil fuel companies are still drilling for oil while most of us want to transition to renewable energy sources. Our government has been purchased by corporate interests. In order for us to reclaim our country from the hands of corporations, we must ensure a level playing field for political candidates, and demand election integrity:

• Ensuring automatic voter registration for every citizen over 18.
• Introducing a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.
• Reviving the Voting Rights Act to authorize the Department of Justice to apply renewed scrutiny over states and districts with histories of voter suppression and disenfranchisement.
• Abolishing Super PACs.
• Transitioning to publicly-financed elections.
• Redrawing gerrymandered political maps.
• Restoring the voting rights of the more than 6 million Americans who have lost the right because of felony convictions.
• Abolishing the use of proprietary election software/machines that are not subject to public oversight.

Economic Justice

The United States currently has the greatest level of wealth inequality since the “Gilded Era.” The three richest people in this country have more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population. We cannot expect to have a thriving economy when our “consumers” do not have any disposable income. We need an economy that values and respects its labor force by treating workers fairly. We need an economy that works for all of us:

• Closing tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy and large corporations.
• Social Security expansion and elimination of the cap.
• Substantially increasing the top marginal tax rate on incomes above $10 million.
• Capping interest rates at 15% to curb exploitative lending practices that cripple working people and disproportionately affect communities of color.
• Offering basic and affordable banking services through the postal system to curb the racial and socioeconomic disparities regarding access to banking.

Environmental Justice

Climate change is the single greatest threat facing our planet. Yet, despite the abundance of scientific evidence, multi-national fossil fuel corporations continue to profit at the expense of our environment. Between lax regulations and our crumbling infrastructure, there are communities in this country that have not had clean water in more than ten years. We need policies that guarantee our right to clean air, clean water, and clean soil.

• Investing in infrastructure and programs to protect the communities in this country that are most vulnerable to the impact of the climate crisis. This is especially critical in South Florida where we are “ground zero” for the climate effect of sea-level rise.
• Reducing carbon pollution emissions from our transportation system by investing in high-speed passenger rail and public transit.
• Banning fracking. 
• Banning fossil fuel leases on public lands in order to keep oil, gas, and coal in the ground.
• Ending exports of coal, natural gas, and crude oil.
• Protecting and growing America’s public lands and waters, and natural monuments, for future generations.
• Ensuring clean water for our citizens by holding industrial polluters accountable and retrofitting our outdated water infrastructure. This should be done starting with the most vulnerable and neglected communities.

Reparations

Approximately 4 million Africans and descendants thereof were enslaved in colonial America and the United States from 1619 to 1865. From 1789 through 1865, the institution of slavery was constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned by the United States government. Although slavery ended in 1865, federal, state, and local governments continued to perpetuate, condone, and profit from the systemic, institutionalized disenfranchisement of African-Americans, while neglecting to compensate the freedmen. We cannot progress as a society while we are being haunted by the past. We must PAY OUR DEBT to the American Descendants of Slaves (ADOS) in order to establish real justice in this country.

Criminal Justice Reform

We have a two-tiered “justice” system in this country. The likelihood that a person will be indicted, prosecuted, and sentenced too often depends on factors such as race, gender identity, and socio-economic status.  Not one banker was prosecuted after Wall Street greed crashed our economy, while millions of black men have had their lives ruined over non-violent drug offenses.  We must create a system of criminal justice that doesn’t favor the rich and criminalize poverty:

• Abolishing for-profit prisons
• Ending the federal prohibition on marijuana
• Commuting sentences, expunging records, and releasing all people currently incarcerated, paroled, or on probation for nonviolent drug offenses.
• Reducing our incarcerated population by eliminating mandatory minimums and excessive sentences.
• Prohibiting the exploitation of prison labor by applying the federal minimum wage laws to  incarcerated individuals.
• Prohibiting the use of predatory prison phone, computer, and commissary rates.
• “Banning the Box” requires job applicants to disclose their criminal records for employment.
• Banning the prosecution of children (under 18) in adult courts.

Police Reform

Policing is a social relationship made up of a set of practices that are empowered by the state to enforce law and social control through the use of force.  Reinforcing the oppressive social and economic relationships that have been central to the US throughout its history, the roots of policing in the United States are closely linked with the capture of slaves, and the enforcement of Black Codes.  Similarly, police forces have been used to keep new immigrants “in line” and to prevent the poor and working classes from making demands. In addition, since the 1970s, rollbacks in the social safety net, growing income inequality and deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill have meant that police officers are tasked with responding to an ever-growing list of social problems. In many communities the police have become first responders for issues connected to poverty, lack of housing, mental illness and addiction, further stigmatizing people who need help. We need to recreate a system of justice and safety that protects ALL of us:

• Mandating criminal liability for civil rights violations resulting from police misconduct.
• Ending qualified immunity for police.
• Demilitarizing municipal law enforcement agencies by ending federal programs that provide military equipment to local police forces.
• Restricting the use of deadly force.
• Renegotiating police contracts to establish responsible accountability and transparency measures.
• Supporting the establishment of local civilian oversight boards of law enforcement.

Despite a military budget of just under $1 trillion, America’s pattern of military imperialism has been a complete failure. From Central America to the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the entire world bears scars of U.S. imperialism. Without provocation, and without formal declarations of war, the United States has been on a global warpath since the end of World War II. These wars have been for profit, not the defense of our nation and our people. If our nation has any chance of thriving on this planet, we must rein in the destructive tentacles of our empire and pursue a peaceful coexistence with the world:

• Invoking the War Powers Act to end our support for the Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen.
• Ending ALL monetary aid and military assistance to ANY nation acting in violation of international law.
• Reestablishing U.S. accountability to the International Criminal Court
• Significantly cutting the military budget (at least 50%).
• Increasing foreign aid in areas that have been ravaged by U.S. imperialism.
• Veterans Affairs – We spend an obscene amount of money on war, yet so many of our veterans suffer from PTSD, homelessness, substance abuse, and high suicide rates. In addition, the VA being massively underfunded is a prime example of how our for-profit healthcare system simply no longer works for us. Veterans have sacrificed so much for our country, many of whom lost their lives. The least we could do is make sure they are taken care of with dignity & respect. It is time for us to realize that our defense budget is only serving to benefit the military industrial complex and not our brave service members.

Despite the vast gulf between the two major political parties on many issues, regarding our economy both parties have adhered to a neoliberal agenda of deregulation, reliance on market-based solutions, and a devolution of the role of government in ensuring a social safety net. Austerity politics is literally killing our people. It is time for us to build an inclusive economy that works for all of us, enshrining a national obligation to provide every American with economic security and opportunity. We want to resurrect a bold idea, FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights for all Americans—more specifically, a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/02/23/call-all-progressive-candidates-and-officeholders-embrace-21st-century-economic) – that will guarantee these, as well as other rights:

Healthcare

• The guarantee of healthcare to all people as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program.
• Mandating that Medicare cover prescription drugs, primary care, maternity care, vision, dental, reproductive healthcare, preventative care, and lab services.
• Eliminating premiums, deductibles, and copays.
• Authorizing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies.
• Allowing patients, pharmacists, and wholesalers to buy low-cost prescription drugs from Canada and other industrialized countries.

Housing

• Providing federal loans and grants to municipalities and counties for the construction of affordable housing.
• Expanding the Fair Housing Act to protect marginalized groups including LGBTQIA, Native Americans, and Section 8 recipients.
• Quadrupling the Public Housing Capital Fund to address all existing and anticipated capital needs of the public housing stock
• Providing federal funding incentives to states for enacting “Housing First” policies
• Permanently authorizing and increasing funding for the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness
• Expanding legal services for unjust evictions and providing funding for eviction protection
• Creating a renter’s tax credit
• Providing incentives for state rent control policies
• Providing federal incentives to communities that end exclusionary zoning
• Removing barriers to federal housing assistance for people with criminal records
• Increasing Fair Housing Act enforcement

Education

• Providing tuition-free four-year public university or trade school.
• Canceling the $1.6 trillion of student debt.
• Increasing pay for public school teachers so that their salary is commensurate with their importance to society.
• Providing free pre-Kindergarten for all children between the ages of three and five years old.
• Offering free school lunch and breakfast for all children attending public school and pre-K.
• Prohibiting the use of public funding for for-profit education institutions.
• Providing free childcare for children aged six months to three years that would be run by local school districts and overseen by the federal government.

Jobs

• Federal Job Guarantee – “A Federal Job Guarantee would provide every person with an enforceable legal right to a quality job on projects that meet long-neglected community needs in housing, education, child care, elder care, arts and culture, community infrastructure, environmental preservation, and more. Funded by the federal government and implemented locally in partnership with communities, the program would provide public jobs for all adults seeking employment and public services for the community.” https://jobguaranteenow.org/why
• Ensuring all workers receive paid family and medical leave, paid sick leave, and paid vacation.
• Repealing “Right to Work” laws through federal legislation.
• Strengthening the power of labor by making it easier for workers to join unions, and supporting policy that requires labor representation on corporate boards.
• Eliminating the provisions in our current trade and tax agreements that make it easier for multinational corporations to ship jobs overseas.
• Making sure that strong and binding labor, environmental, and human rights standards are written into the core text of all trade agreements.

Civil Rights & Civil Liberties

It is long past time for us to take a long hard look in the mirror and acknowledge that “liberty and justice for all” is more of a catch phrase than a reality. It has been 100 years since women were given the right to vote, and yet we are still fighting for control over our own bodies. It has been 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation and yet the disparity in our system against black people is blatant. We have been lying to, and cheating our native brothers and sisters since we arrived on Turtle Island. We finally granted the LGBTQIA community the right to get married, but yet the transgender community has been subjected to unprecedented levels of violence. Finally, we are a country of immigrants, and yet we turn our backs on immigrants and asylum-seekers. These are some of the ways we can ensure that the protections and rights afforded by our Constitution apply to everyone:

• Repealing the Hyde Amendment.
• Appropriating federal funding to clear the backlog of untested rape kits.
• Ensuring that African-American cultural traditions, such as hairstyles, are embraced, rather than policed in schools and the workplace.
• Combating the school-to-prison pipeline by targeting federal funding increases for public schools in underserved communities.
• Protecting and fighting for the rights of the LGBTQIA community in regards to employment, housing, healthcare, gender-affirming care, banking, education, and the criminal justice system.
• Protecting the treaty/sovereign rights of Native American nations, and supporting a transition from a system of paternalism to a system of deference and support.
• Prohibiting the construction of pipelines that could negatively impact indigenous communities.
• Enacting comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path towards citizenship.
• Abolishing for-profit immigrant detention centers.
• Increasing funding for legal services and translators for undocumented individuals and asylum-seekers.
• Ensuring that ALL migrants are treated in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.