Before My Official #DemExit, I Gave It One More Try: My Democratic Party Platform Testimony Submitted June 18th, 2016
First, thank you to Anoa Changa (The Way With Anoa) for encouraging me to submit testimony to the Democratic Party Platform Committee, to share it with others, and more specifically, to publish it here on Medium. Anoa introduced to Medium as a public outlet for my inner thoughts. Things have never been the same.
Below is the enumerated heart of my testimony. It includes excerpts from speeches, articles, and links that I have shared with my Facebook Family over the past year, so it is a bit long.
Regarding Democratic National Party Policy & Processes
1. I’d like to see proportional allocation of delegates based on percentage of votes in each state continued.
2. I want the DNC to do away with the Superdelegate system, as I find the idea and practice of superdelegate voting to be hostile to democracy.
3. I would like to see the DNC fight to overturn Citizens United, and in the meantime, adopt an official Party policy disallowing Super PACs/lobbyists. Again, both seem antithetical to democracy.
4. I want the DNC to get rid of caucuses and implement one consistent primary electoral system. One person, one vote. The debacle that was Nevada’s primary caucus offers much on why the caucus system should be abolished.
5. I want the DNC to fight to make all primaries open. Every registered voter should be allowed to vote for whomever she/he/they finds to be the best candidate for the position at every level of every race regardless of official party affiliation. Such a stance would go a long way toward making elections more democratic. I’d also like to see the DNC push for early voting in every state, with same day registration. Ultimately, I strongly believe that the DNC needs to make a choice: 1. Open the primary elections to all the taxpayers who support it, or 2. Keep the primary elections closed and only have registered Party members pay for them. The DNC should not be allowed to have it both ways.
6. Citizens should not be required to do something special to register to vote. It is a right, and it should be granted automatically when a citizen turns 18. Again, this would go a long way in creating a more inclusive democracy.
7. Returning citizens should receive full restitution of all rights, including the right to vote, once they have “paid off their debt” to society. I want to see the DNC fight to restore voting rights to all formerly incarcerated.
8. In addition to launching investigations and suing, the DNC needs to have an infrastructure in place to redo an election (real-time) when evidence of election irregularities and fraud emerge.
9. Finally, the DNC should get out of the business of raising money for candidates at the primary level. It’s a conflict of interest.
Democratic National Party on the Issues
1. Racial Justice — I would like to see the DNC pick up the unfinished work of MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign The Urban League recently rearticulated the value of this movement in its Main Street Marshall Plan. Related, I want to see the DNC support Democrat Rep. Conyers’ Reparations Study Bill. The fact that this bill reportedly has a 1% chance of being enacted is totally unaccepted to me as a citizen of this nation and person of enslaved African descent. I want to see the DNC fight for special prosecution of criminal cases involving police across the nation. I also want to see the DNC fight to overturn Stand Your Ground Law in states where it exists, and to prevent its passage in states where it does not currently exist. Finally, I want the DNC to adopt the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing as part of its official platform.
2. Economic Justice — My standpoint on economic justice is well articulated by Senator Bernie Sanders’ platform and the following statements included in an article in The Nation:
TAXING WALL STREET TRADING
“The Sanders program includes the Inclusive Prosperity Act, a bill that was originally introduced into Congress in 2012 by Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a leading figure in the Congressional Progressive Caucus (disclosure: I worked with Ellison’s staff in drafting this bill). This bill is, effectively, a sales tax on all financial market trades in the United States — that is, all stock, bond, and derivative (including options, futures, and swap) trades. It would be the equivalent of sales taxes that Americans have long paid every time they buy an automobile, shirt, baseball glove, airline ticket, or pack of chewing gum, eat at a restaurant, or have their hair cut.
The tax rates supported by Sanders includes 0.5 percent on all stock trades, 0.1 percent on all bond trades, and 0.005 percent on the underlying values of derivative trades, such as the value of a stock in a stock-option asset. These tax rates amount to $5 on the trading of a $1,000 stock; $1 on the trading of a $1,000 bond; and 5 cents through trading, for example, a stock option in which the value of the underlying stock itself is worth $1,000. By contrast, the average US consumer currently pays an average of 8.4 percent in overall sales taxes.
This Wall Street tax can be used to address two distinct but equally important concerns. First, it discourages financial market speculation because it raises the costs — and thus reduces the profit opportunities — for speculators. But assuming the tax rate is not set high enough to shut down trading altogether, the tax can also be a large new source of government revenues.
In a recent study that I co-authored with James Heintz and Thomas Herndon, we estimated that the Inclusive Prosperity Act could generate around $300 billion per year in new federal tax revenues (amounting to 1.7 percent of US GDP). This is after allowing that Wall Street trading would decline by an implausibly large 50 percent due to the tax. The Sanders campaign has estimated the cost of his free-college-tuition program at $75 billion per year. The $300 billion per year from the Wall Street tax could therefore cover this college-tuition program in full four times over. The Wall Street tax revenues could then provide something like another $225 billion to finance, for example, public investments in clean energy and infrastructure. Channeling this amount of money out of Wall Street and into education, clean energy, and infrastructure investments would, in turn, generate millions of middle-class jobs for educators as well as manufacturing and construction workers, as well as related support industries, rather than a relatively small number of high-paying Wall Street jobs.
Contrary to our findings, a recent study by Leonard Burman and co-authors at the Tax Policy Center (a collaboration between the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute) asserts that a Sanders-type financial transaction tax could provide, as a maximum, no more than about $60 billion in annual revenues as of 2017. But their conclusion depends on the assumption that financial market trading would fall by between 80 to 90 percent after the tax is enacted, a claim which is not supported by the weight of evidence, including the evidence they themselves cite. Rather, as my co-authors and I show, our revenue estimate at $300 billion per year corresponds with the experiences of other countries that currently operate with this type of tax, including the UK, France, Italy, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.” -From The Nation
3. Health Justice — My standpoint on healthcare is also well articulated by Senator Bernie Sanders’ Platform
4. International Relations/Foreign Policy — My standpoint on foreign policy is again well articulated by Senator Bernie Sanders’ Platform and the contents of this speech on Democratic Socialism and Foreign Policy given at Georgetown University Fall 2015:
“No one understood better than FDR the connection between American strength at home and our ability to defend America at home and across the world. That is why he proposed a second Bill of Rights in 1944, and said in that State of the Union:
“America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”
I’m not running to pursue reckless adventures abroad, but to rebuild America’s strength at home. I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will never send our sons and daughters to war under false pretense or into dubious battles with no end in sight.
And when we discuss foreign policy, let me join the people of Paris in mourning their loss, and pray that those who have been wounded will enjoy a full recovery. Our hearts also go out to the families of the hundreds of Russians apparently killed by an ISIS bomb on their flight, and those who lost their lives to terrorist attacks in Lebanon and elsewhere.
To my mind, it is clear that the United States must pursue policies to destroy the brutal and barbaric ISIS regime, and to create conditions that prevent fanatical extremist ideologies from flourishing. But we cannot — and should not — do it alone.
Our response must begin with an understanding of past mistakes and missteps in our previous approaches to foreign policy. It begins with the acknowledgment that unilateral military action should be a last resort, not a first resort, and that ill-conceived military decisions, such as the invasion of Iraq, can wreak far-reaching devastation and destabilize entire regions for decades. It begins with the reflection that the failed policy decisions of the past — rushing to war, regime change in Iraq, or toppling Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, or Guatemalan President Árbenz in 1954, Brazilian President Goulart in 1964, Chilean President Allende in 1973. These are the sorts of policies do not work, do not make us safer, and must not be repeated.
After World War II, in response to the fear of Soviet aggression, European nations and the United States established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — an organization based on shared interests and goals and the notion of a collective defense against a common enemy. It is my belief that we must expand on these ideals and solidify our commitments to work together to combat the global threat of terror.
We must create an organization like NATO to confront the security threats of the 21st century — an organization that emphasizes cooperation and collaboration to defeat the rise of violent extremism and importantly to address the root causes underlying these brutal acts. We must work with our NATO partners, and expand our coalition to include Russia and members of the Arab League.
But let’s be very clear. While the U.S. and other western nations have the strength of our militaries and political systems, the fight against ISIS is a struggle for the soul of Islam, and countering violent extremism and destroying ISIS must be done primarily by Muslim nations — with the strong support of their global partners.
These same sentiments have been echoed by those in the region. Jordan’s King Abdallah II said in a speech on Sunday that terrorism is the “greatest threat to our region” and that Muslims must lead the fight against it. He noted that confronting extremism is both a regional and international responsibility, and that it is incumbent on Muslim nations and communities to confront those who seek to hijack their societies and generations with intolerance and violent ideology.
And let me congratulate King Abdallah not only for his wise remarks, but also for the role that his small country is playing in attempting to address the horrific refugee crisis in the region.
A new and strong coalition of Western powers, Muslim nations, and countries like Russia must come together in a strongly coordinated way to combat ISIS, to seal the borders that fighters are currently flowing across, to share counter-terrorism intelligence, to turn off the spigot of terrorist financing, and to end support for exporting radical ideologies.
What does all of this mean? Well, it means that, in many cases, we must ask more from those in the region. While Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, and Lebanon have accepted their responsibilities for taking in Syrian refugees, other countries in the region have done nothing or very little.
Equally important, and this is a point that must be made — countries in the region like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE — countries of enormous wealth and resources — have contributed far too little in the fight against ISIS. That must change. King Abdallah is absolutely right when he says that that the Muslim nations must lead the fight against ISIS, and that includes some of the most wealthy and powerful nations in the region, who, up to this point have done far too little.
Saudi Arabia has the 3rd largest defense budget in the world, yet instead of fighting ISIS they have focused more on a campaign to oust Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Kuwait, a country whose ruling family was restored to power by U.S. troops after the first Gulf War, has been a well-known source of financing for ISIS and other violent extremists. It has been reported that Qatar will spend $200 billion on the 2022 World Cup, including the construction of an enormous number of facilities to host that event — $200 billion on hosting a soccer event, yet very little to fight against ISIS. Worse still, it has been widely reported that the government has not been vigilant in stemming the flow of terrorist financing, and that Qatari individuals and organizations funnel money to some of the most extreme terrorist groups, including al Nusra and ISIS.
All of this has got to change. Wealthy and powerful Muslim nations in the region can no longer sit on the sidelines and expect the United States to do their work for them. As we develop a strongly coordinated effort, we need a commitment from these countries that the fight against ISIS takes precedence over the religious and ideological differences that hamper the kind of cooperation that we desperately need.
Further, we all understand that Bashar al-Assad is a brutal dictator who has slaughtered many of his own people. I am pleased that we saw last weekend diplomats from all over world, known as the International Syria Support Group, set a timetable for a Syrian-led political transition with open and fair elections. These are the promising beginnings of a collective effort to end the bloodshed and to move to political transition.
The diplomatic plan for Assad’s transition from power is a good step in a united front. But our priority must be to defeat ISIS. Nations all over the world, who share a common interest in protecting themselves against international terrorist, must make the destruction of ISIS the highest priority. Nations in the region must commit — that instead of turning a blind eye — they will commit their resources to preventing the free flow of terrorist finances and fighters to Syria and Iraq. We need a commitment that they will counter the violent rhetoric that fuels terrorism — rhetoric that often occurs within their very borders.
This is the model in which we must pursue solutions to the sorts of global threats we face.
While individual nations indeed have historic disputes — the U.S. and Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia — the time is now to put aside those differences to work towards a common purpose of destroying ISIS. Sadly, as we have seen recently, no country is immune from attacks by the violent organization or those whom they have radicalized. Thus, we must work with our partners in Europe, the Gulf states, Africa, and Southeast Asia — all along the way asking the hard questions whether their actions are serving our unified purpose.
The bottom line is that ISIS must be destroyed, but it cannot be defeated by the United States alone. A new and effective coalition must be formed with the Muslim nations leading the effort on the ground, while the United States and other major forces provide the support they need.” — From In These Times
5. Environmental Justice — My desires for the DNC platform in the area of environmental justice are also well articulated by Senator Bernie Sanders’ platform
Thank you again for providing individual members of the party with this opportunity to offer their testimony and vision for the DNC.
Respectfully,
Nyasha Grayman-Simpson
Baltimore, MD
While the party and media herald this platform the most progressive in the history of the Democratic Party, from my perspective, the platform falls too short in too many areas for me to remain with the party. Hence, #DemExit.
