The Democratic Party Platform Process Must be Public, Transparent and Inclusive
The following post appears courtesy of Michelle Deatrick, Chair, DNC Environment and Climate Crisis Council.
In mid-August, the Democratic Party will convene — perhaps in Wisconsin, perhaps virtually — for our Convention. Amid spotlights, speeches and balloon drops (virtual or real), the Convention’s formal business will take place: the Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates will be formally nominated, and the Party’s four-year platform will be approved.
While the Democratic nominee is a foregone conclusion, the Party’s platform is not. And it matters. A lot.
Platforms are not stale documents. They are visions. They are policy north stars. And they send a clear message to voters about where the party is, where the party is going, and where the party separates itself from Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s warped vision for this nation.
Even in normal times, the platform is hugely important. But these are not normal times, and this platform is more important than ever. By the time Democrats meet in August, more than 100,000 of our fellow Americans will be dead of COVID-19. Tens of million will be unemployed. And the nation — which has lived through three years of the most corrupt administration in America’s history and a president who seeks to divide us with hateful and divisive rhetoric — will be turning to Democrats for a different vision, a different plan, a different path forward.
For this reason, this coming August can not be business as usual for Democratic Party leadership. They must throw out the old playbook. And, most importantly, they must run the most public, transparent and inclusive platform drafting process in the history of the party.
Our party has come a long way from smoke-filled rooms where the nominee and the platform are decided. But we must continue to make progress on opening up the platform process. Doing so will not only create better policy — it is also better politics.
Democratic voters’ interest in this election was intense through fall and winter. The surges in ballots cast and high viewership of Democratic debates testify to voters’ great interest not only in the candidates, but also in the issues at the election’s heart. And the tragedy of the coronavirus crisis underscores the importance of key Democratic issues, in particular health care, increasing inequality, and the other major crisis of our time — climate change.
The platform creation process offers a crucial, highly visible opportunity to focus again on these winning issues for Democrats, draw sharp contrasts with Donald Trump and the Republican Party, and inspire the disaffected potential Democratic voters so urgently needed at the polls up and down the ballot this November
This cycle’s Democratic primary process has too often been messy, dispiriting, and lacking in transparency. In the DNC Environment and Climate Crisis Council’s conversations with Democrats, it’s clear they haven’t forgotten DNC leadership’s broken promise to ensure the debates grappled with the climate crisis. Neither have they forgotten the Iowa Caucus debacle. These failures have sapped the party of potential support — and also of enthusiasm, small dollar donors, and volunteers. All at the worst possible moment.
DNC leadership must rise above the mistakes of the primary season and of the 2016 platform process. That process initially lacked much progressive representation on the key 15-person Platform Drafting Subcommittee. Hearings were held in only four locations. And the 187 members of the actual Platform Committee — who represented their states and could have brought key local policy knowledge to the process — had little input or influence.
It is nearly June, and the Democratic Party has yet to lay out the platform process. That is a troubling sign of what is to come. While no one can dismiss the logistical challenges coronavirus poses to both the convention and the platform drafting process, Democrats can not and must not make that an excuse to retreat behind closed doors or hand the drafting of the platform to a few party elites.
The Democratic Party should create the 2020 Platform through an ambitious, bold process that is:
Transparent.
In 2017, DNC Chair Tom Perez wrote convincingly that in order to regain voters’ confidence and win, the party needed to focus on “Making 2020 Transparent.”
Perez was right. The DNC is a black box to everyone except party insiders — opaque and dominated by unknown players in unseen rooms. We need to open the box and let the sun in. The need for a virtual platform creation process seems almost certain, which means changes relative to earlier cycles will be necessary regardless. The DNC should announce, now, how that process will operate, and should share its timetable for all milestones as well as its guidelines governing appointments to the crucial Platform Drafting Subcommittee.
Public.
Debate, discussion and the drafting of the platform should be done at public (virtual) meetings.
Inclusive.
“A party must listen if it seeks to lead,” Chair Perez also wrote. On this Council’s multi-state listening tour, talking with Democrats about climate and environmental issues — and the federal policies needed to address them — we became keenly aware that diverse local, state and tribal experience and input is crucial to creating good national policy.
There should be many hearings — not just four. And they should be themed: We didn’t get a climate debate, but we can have a climate hearing. And an immigration hearing, a gun violence hearing, a poverty hearing, a justice system reform hearing, and more. Input from Black, Brown, Indigenous, under-resourced, and LGBTQIA+ communities should be intentionally sought out.
But it’s not enough to hold hearings or allow the submission of comments. People need to be listened to and also heard. Mechanisms must be put in place to enable the comments to inform the writing of the platform itself.
Comprehensive.
The process should be intentionally comprehensive and ambitious in intent. The Democratic platform was nearly 30% shorter than the Republican platform in 2016, with a scant three pages devoted to climate, energy and the environment. So much needs to be addressed. Democrats involved with every level of governance and party look to the platform for policy guidance and a vision on which to campaign — and too often do not find what they need.
The Democratic Party’s first platform was created at the 1840 Democratic Convention in Baltimore. That document clocked in at just over 500 words, was written overnight, and adopted the next day — apparently without discussion.
The Democratic Party has traveled a long and winding road since that first party platform, 180 years ago. And over the last four years, through curtailing superdelegate power and transitioning many states from caucuses to primaries, we’ve shown once again that we can step up and carry out reforms in the interest of transparency, accountability and electability.
It’s time to reform the platform process too. Because winning in November, a goal we all share, starts with outlining for a nation, hungry for change, a clear, ambitious and bold party platform.
