Statement of Beliefs

We seek the following goals for a more just society, and we believe the Democratic Party should recommit to these goals:

Democracy

• Fight the influence of giant corporations and powerful moneyed interests, which have diluted the power of the people;
• Empower grass roots Democrats by the establishment of greater democracy in the Democratic Party at all levels of Party structure and processes;
• Achieve greater democracy and empowerment of individuals in all governmental structures and processes;
• Promote election reform and increased access to the political process, and preserve the integrity of voting rights and political processes;
• Increase the participation and empowerment of persons of low income in our Party and our government;
• Terminate Patriot Act I and reject Patriot Act II
• The United States should enact a new foreign policy based on respect for human rights and other governments. We should end the policy of pre-emptive first strike, and work instead to lead global efforts to dismantle nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

Economic Opportunity

• Protect the right of every adult to a useful and remunerative job;
• Enact living wages for all workers;
• Tax credits to enable low income mothers, particularly single mothers to access job training and employment
• Establish universal healthcare for all;
• Protect the rights of senior citizens to thrive without economic fear;
• Protect the rights of small businesses to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies;
• Protect the rights of family farms to raise and sell their products at returns that will afford them a decent living;
• Enact labor law reform to strengthen the rights of all workers, including public employees, to organize unions without interference from employers and to enjoy good faith collective bargaining over wages, hours, and conditions of employment;
• Protect labor unions' bargaining power by abolishing the misnamed "right to work" law, and enact protection from unfair treatment for all workers by abolishing the doctrine of "employment at will" and enacting just-cause protection for all workers, public and private;
• Fund free public education from early childhood through higher education;
• Strengthen environmental protection to ensure preservation of clean air, clean water, wildlife, and natural resources;
• Establish fair trade without loss of democracy or sovereignty;

Equality

• Preserve and advance progress in Civil Rights for people of color and all other historically disempowered and disenfranchised groups;
• Eliminate all legal and economic barriers based on sexual orientation;
• Promote complete equality and empowerment of women in all spheres of society, economic, social, and cultural, including but not limited to equal pay for women in all forms of work and guaranteeing unequivocally and without reservation each woman's right to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, without impediments or interference and regardless of ability to pay;
• Protect the right to decent housing for all;
• Enact a moratorium on the death penalty.