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An Economy that Works for Working People
We need an economy that works for working people, not just the wealthy and powerful. To reverse surging inequality and insecurity, we need an Economic Bill of Rights establishing the rights to a living-wage job, guaranteed livable income, housing, healthcare, childcare, lifelong education, secure retirement, utilities, healthy food and clean water, so that all of us are guaranteed the basic security for a good life that can reach our highest potential.
How:
- Guarantee lifelong free public education for all institutions of learning, including trade schools and Pre-K through college and graduate school
- Abolish all student debt for 43 million encumbered Americans
- Increase and equalize public school funding
- End the privatization of public schools
- Ensure that all children in school get free, nutritionally balanced breakfast and lunch.
- Reduce taxes on incomes below the real median income of $75,000 per household
- Strengthen Social Security - remove the artificial cap on the Social Security tax for the wealthy, and apply the Social Security payroll tax to all income, including capital gains and dividends.
- Remove loopholes that allow foundations to hide wealth from taxation
- Institute strongly progressive taxation for incomes and wealth, and increase the estate tax
- Guarantee affordable, efficient utilities through a transition of all utilities to public not-for-profit ownership
- Free high-speed internet across the U.S. with rural broadband via fiber optics
- Put “too big to fail” banks into public ownership as public utilities (currently the four largest banks which own 25% of all banking assets)
- Create nonprofit public state and local banking
- Replace corporate trade agreements with global fair trade agreements
- Prohibit finance capital from buying up single-family homes and rental housing stock
- Ban corporate stock buybacks
- Break up monopolies in big tech and elsewhere
- Tax the ultra-wealthy and giant corporations heavily
Labor and Workers’ Rights
We need a government that works for working people, not elite wealthy donors. It’s time to restore and expand workers’ rights; support unions, cooperatives and worker ownership; and ensure that working people enjoy the full fruits of their labor.
I will work to:
- Pass a $25 minimum wage, indexed to cost inflation and productivity growth, whichever is higher, with special consideration for geographic locations where cost of living greatly exceeds other areas
- Guaranteed Livable Income above poverty
- Guarantee housing as a human right
- Implement universal rent control
- Increase federal support for worker-owned cooperatives
- Expand and defend workers’ right to unionize to include domestic, agricultural, and so-called “gig” workers
- Ensure worker representation on corporate boards (co-determination) at 50%
- Give voting rights in pension funds to the workers
- Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act and end the "right-to-work for less" laws
- Federalize workers' compensation to standardize and ensure full funding for worker’s comp
- Close the pay gap and end wage discrimination based on race, gender, or other factors
- Pass a Federal jobs guarantee to end unemployment
- Pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights
- Pass the Wage Theft Prevention and Recovery Act
- End the Landrum-Griffin Act restrictions that bar unions from hiring some formerly incarcerated people
- Eliminate the sub-minimum wage loophole in the Fair Labor Standards Act
- Create a National Solidarity Fund, funded by a one cent ($0.01) per worker-hour tax, paying stipends to workers who are striking or locked out
- Encourage Sectoral bargaining through the Department of Labor and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
- Utilize civil asset forfeiture against companies guilty of violating workers’ protections (standards to be determined)
- Federally mandate and fund three weeks of paid sick leave, eight weeks of paid vacation per year, and one-year parental leave for all new parents.
- Ban “at-will“ employment by requiring just cause to terminate employment.
- Unionize all federal employees
- Commit to oppose any legislation that breaks strikes
Single-Payer Healthcare/Healthcare as a Human Right
Our healthcare system is in crisis. The United States spends more on healthcare than any other high-income country but has worse health outcomes, including the lowest life expectancy at birth and the highest rate of people with multiple chronic diseases. 25 million people were uninsured in the US in 2023. Many of those who are insured still can’t afford healthcare due to huge out-of-pocket costs. Researchers estimate this lack of adequate healthcare led to over 330,000 excess deaths from Covid-19. The Wall Street parties are funded by the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and other big healthcare profiteers to perpetuate this failed system that puts profits over people.
Healthcare is a human right. We need a universal healthcare system that is equitable, comprehensive, free at point of service, and accessible to every single person in the US.
I will work to:
- Immediately implement National Improved Medicare for All as a precursor to establishing a UK-style National Healthcare Service which will replace private hospital, private medical practice, and private medical insurance with a publicly-owned, democratically controlled healthcare service that will guarantee healthcare as a human right to everyone in the United States
- Advance reproductive rights and codify Roe v. Wade
- Ensure the U.S. healthcare system operates with full protection, respect and inclusion of human rights for all, including women and 2SLGBTQIA+ people, people with disabilities, Black, Indigenous, and people of color
- Restore public trust in the government’s medical agencies and institutions by enforcing audits, transparency and oversight in their internal processes
- Restore confidence in the FDA, CDC and other regulatory boards by 1) closing the revolving door between corporations and regulatory boards and 2) getting corrupting big money out of politics by adopting public financing of elections.
- Expand public funding - and phase out private/corporate funding - of medical and pharmaceutical research, conducted in public health agencies, public universities and medical schools
- Ban patents where the research and development has been paid for by taxpayers via public colleges, the NIH, the CDC and other governmental entities
- Restore funding to all medical governmental agencies including Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Institute of Health (NIH), and the Center for Disease Control
- Take the pharmaceutical industry into public ownership and democratic control. Big pharma has failed to serve the public interest in an industry awash in private profit as it gouged consumers with monopolistic pricing in a business model centered on addictive opioids and patent-protected medicines. It’s time to ensure the production of life-saving medicines that millions rely on with their production as public goods.
- Eliminate healthcare inequities and gaps in all disadvantaged communities by investing in local clinics and community hospitals
- Establish a Federal Community Care Agency to provide community-based support, long-term in-home and in-community care, and visitation care to seniors and to people with disabilities
- Ensure fair compensation for home caregivers
- Guarantee long-term care for all patients in their home and community.
- Prohibit the keeping of people’s possessions by assisted living facilities after death
- Eliminate Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) and other burdensome and discriminatory compliance requirements and enact protections against healthcare surveillance
- Offer responsible and transparent end-of-life care to those who want it
- Respect bodily autonomy and personal freedom and choice in medical treatments, including the right to dignified assisted death
- Fund and support research and development of treatment for rare diseases
- Federal legalization and funding of cannabis medicinal research
Housing as a Human Right
There is a housing crisis across the United States. Over 600,000 people were experiencing homelessness in 2023, a record high. Millions more are housing insecure. Rental and housing costs have skyrocketed in recent years. Corporations are buying up land and housing, while developers prioritize luxury housing unaffordable to most people. The Wall Street parties and the developers that fund them have completely failed to meet our housing needs.
Housing is a human right. We need to end homelessness, support tenants and home buyers, and massively invest in public housing to provide high-quality, affordable homes for all.
I will work to:
- End homelessness and housing insecurity with a Homes Guarantee
- Nationally adopt “Housing First” practices
- Fund social housing as part of the Real Green New Deal to build at least 15 million green, union-built, publicly-owned homes over the next 10 years
- Support a Universal Tenant's Bill of Rights
- Help direct the Department of Labor to assist with the establishment of a National Tenants Union
- Implement universal rent control and a prohibition on excessive rental deposits
- Eliminate credit checks from rental applications
- Impose taxes on unoccupied homes (vacancy tax) and investment rental “homestay” properties to curb speculation
- Expand House Choice Initiatives, and provide full funding to all existing project-based rental assistance contracts
- Repeal the Faircloth Amendment so that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) can build public housing again
- Prohibit predatory lending, require clearly listed mortgage costs and risks, and no fine print
- Expand HUD and US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development Programs for first-time home buyers, with down-payment assistance, direct guaranteed loans, and pre-purchase housing counseling
- Reinvigorate federal housing programs that build publicly-owned housing for families, for the elderly, and for people with disabilities
- Expand and protect the homeowner mortgage interest benefit, and eliminate the “second home” and “yacht” loopholes
Democracy
Our democracy is on life support. Belief in our political system is at historic lows and the number of Americans who feel that neither establishment party represents them is at a record high. Researchers have found that today’s US government is an oligarchy where policies are determined not by the will of the people but by the demands of corporate elites. The Wall Street parties have systematically concentrated power in the hands of their wealthy donors, locking out the people from our rightful place at the decision-making table.
Full and meaningful participation in democracy is a human right. We need to revive our democracy with a full spectrum of reforms to empower the people, including real choice on the ballot - because without freedom of choice in elections, there is no democracy.
I will work to:
- Replace the exclusionary two-corporate-party system with an inclusive multi-party democracy through ranked-choice voting and proportional representation
- Implement Ranked-Choice Voting for all elections nationwide
- Implement proportional representation for all legislative elections
- Work to overturn Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo and abolish corporate personhood by Constitutional Amendment
- Institute full public financing of elections. Get the corrupting influence of private money out of politics and put the people back in.
- Abolish the Electoral College, and elect the president via national popular vote using ranked-choice voting
- Support a modern Voting Rights Act, including non-partisan redistricting commissions and same-day voter registration nationwide
- Restore the Preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act
- Ensure a Constitutional right to vote and restore voting rights to all felons
- Pass Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) nationwide
- Make Election Day a federal holiday
- Expand polling locations and make free vote-by-mail an option for all elections, and expand polling locations
- End all discriminatory voting laws and the purging of voting rolls; repeal Shelby County v Holder
- Allow those who are under supervision or incarcerated to vote in elections, and be counted in the districts they resided in before incarceration
- Eliminate gerrymandering by enacting proportional representation
- Repeal discriminatory, anti-democratic ballot access restrictions designed by the establishment parties to suppress competition
- Expand initiative, referendum, and recall powers to every state and nationally
- Ensure open debates on public channels including all ballot-qualified candidates
- Provide free public airtime for all ballot-qualified candidates
- Oppose censorship by both the government and big tech corporations, and defend press freedom by applying antitrust laws to media conglomerates
- Expand Freedom of Information laws and whistleblower protections
- Protect the free Internet and net neutrality
- Safeguard election integrity with hand-counted paper ballots and routine post-election audits
- Lower the voting age to 16
- Grant immediate statehood for the District of Columbia
- Ensure self-determination for Puerto Rico and other colonial territories still under US rule
- Replace partisan oversight of elections and the presidential debates with independent, non-partisan election commissions
- Increase the number of Supreme Court justices from 9 to 18, with 18-year term limits staggered so that one seat opens per year
- Require a supermajority of ⅔ of the Supreme Court for judicial review of federal laws
- Enact a binding code of ethics for all judges, including Supreme Court justices
- Prohibit lobbying of any kind by former members of Congress.
- Ban stock trading by legislators
- Ban government contractors from donating to political campaigns
- Prohibit Congress from giving themselves any benefits they do not give to the people
- Support and fund participatory budgeting projects to engage the public in policy decisions
- Help create a Federal Department of Equity to ensure that design and implementation of all policies (including climate policies) are equitable, as opposed to the historic victimization of poorer and marginalized communities.
Prisons & Policing
We call the United States the “land of the free” but we have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, with over 2.3 million people in federal, state, and local prisons and jails. Instead of addressing root causes of inequality and injustice, today’s systems of policing, prisons, and criminal justice have been designed by the Wall Street parties and their wealthy elite backers to enforce a socioeconomic hierarchy that is systemically racist and classist.
We need to end mass incarceration, police brutality, and systemic injustice. I will work towards a restorative criminal justice system that treats every one of the over 2.3 million people in federal, state, and local prisons and jails with respect, dignity and compassion with the primary goal of reengaging them with their families and communities.
I will work to:
- Ban private prisons and detention centers.
- Abolish the Death Penalty.
- End mass incarceration and build a system centered on restorative justice.
- Fully legalize cannabis for recreational and medicinal use with similar restrictions to alcohol.
- Release nonviolent drug offenders from prison, remove drug offenses from records, and guarantee both pre- and post-release support
- Ensure drug treatment on demand
- Begin the process of legalizing hallucinogens (LSD, psilocybin and other related substances) and fund studies on their medicinal benefits.
- Begin the process of decriminalizing personal possession of hard drugs - treat drug misuse as a health problem, not a criminal problem
- Increase the number of public defenders and ensure a reasonable caseload and good pay
- Ban mandatory minimum sentencing and ‘three strikes’ laws.
- Abolish unpaid and underpaid prison labor
- Mandate and enforce higher standards for living conditions in prisons
- Establish community control of police with oversight boards empowered to audit police departments, issue subpoenas, remove officers, and block rehiring of offending officers
- End cash bail, fines and fees that disproportionately impact poor and working class people.
- Eliminate all ‘Cop City’- type police training facilities that militarize policing and teach dangerous and abusive policing practices.
- End qualified immunity for police and prosecutorial immunity.
- Federalize all police misconduct investigations.
- Fund state and national police misconduct data collections systems.
- End the militarization of police (end the 1033 program).
- End training of US police on occupation-style policing by Israeli Defense Forces.
- End Civil Asset Forfeiture for private citizens
- Ensure the funding of community-based youth programs as a deterrent to both petty and violent crime and to reduce
interactions with police.
- Investigate and prosecute sexual violence, kidnapping, and human trafficking
- Fight corporate white-collar crime with resources proportional to its economic impact
- End warrantless mass surveillance
- Pardon whistleblowers and political prisoners
- End the epidemic of gun violence with common-sense gun safety laws:
- Ban the sale of assault rifles and establish a buyback program
- Establish mandatory waiting periods and background checks for firearm purchases
- Pass red flag laws for individuals who pose a danger to themselves and others
- Create standardized digital records of gun registrations and sales
- Require firearm owners to own a high-quality gun safe to store their firearms
- Require firearm owners to purchase liability insurance of no less than $1,000,000
- Hold adult firearm owners criminally liable for minor children accessing firearms and using them in the commission of any crime or accidental injury or death
Social Justice
Americans cherish ideals of liberty and justice, yet countless millions are still fighting for basic rights. US economic and political systems still have pervasive, systemic discrimination against women, Black and Brown people, Indigenous people, immigrants, people with disabilities, the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, and other marginalized groups. The Wall Street parties, funded by economic elites who seek to divide and conquer the people, pay lip service to ideals of justice while perpetuating the structures of systemic injustice.
We need to work towards equity and honor the human rights of every individual. It’s time to come together to ensure true justice for all.
Reparations and the Agenda to Facilitate Black Liberation
I will work to: guarantee as a human right reparations to the descendants of African slaves for the historic crime of enslavement. Reparations is a cornerstone of the Black Agenda, but reparations is far from the only policy needed to begin to redress what has been stolen from the Black community over 400+ years.
In addition to supporting Reparations, I will work to/for:
- Help direct all federal agencies to consider and include race and ethnicity as part of all of their initiatives and other programs implemented with federal dollars
- Promulgate a moratorium on all proposed Cop Cities and end federal investments in such facilities
- Help establish a National Office for Civilian Oversight Committees to ensure greater transparency and accountability for civilian law enforcement departments
- Help establish a multi-agency federal Returning Citizens Task Force to assist and provide resources for the formerly incarcerated in an effort to expedite their journey back to full citizen status including, but not limited to, immediate restoration of voting rights in most cases
- Increase investment in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and leverage the power of the federal government to force states to compensate state run, land grant HBCUs the more than $13 Billion they are owed
- Increase investments in programs that support Black-owned businesses.
- Ensure that a universal single-payer healthcare system addresses and resolves the health outcome disparities for the Black community, and in particular for Black women
- Eliminate ‘food deserts’ where fresh produce and food sovereignty is largely unavailable, a condition which disproportionately impacts Black communities.
- Codify the Justice for Black Farmers Act
- Eliminate white nationalists from police forces by Federal law, and ensure white nationalist groups’ activities are routinely monitored, due to white nationalist violence being the greatest single source of domestic terrorism.
- Ensure the Office of Civil Rights is fully funded, staffed, and fulfills its obligation to protect the civil rights of marginalized communities.
- Restore Section 4(b) and Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and permanently certify the entire law
- Address and ameliorate the legacy of redlining through programs that deliver recompense for Black homeowners whose home values are adversely and disproportionately impacted to this day by this systemically racist practice
- Support Federal moratorium on new construction of fossil fuel infrastructure and other polluting operations in or proximate to Black and other environmental justice communities
- Massive reinvestment from policing and prisons into social, economic, and other programs that lead to direct community benefits
- Establish a federal commission to eradicate the lead pipes and tainted water crisis impacting cities like Camden, NJ
- Help draft and pass the Justice for Cancer Alley Act that will include compensation and free healthcare in perpetuity for victims in this region who have been subjected to environmentally racist practices for decades
Tribal/Indigenous Sovereignty
I will fight to guarantee as a human right the sovereignty of the Indigenous people of Turtle Island (today’s U.S.A). We recognize the history of broken treaties, stolen and occupied lands, and the desecration of the indigenous way of life, so our policies aim to redress harm through restorative justice.
I will work to:
- Honor all existing treaties with Indigenous nations
- Ensure free, prior, and informed consent for any and all activity on tribal sovereign land
- Create a task force of Tribal nations leaders to assess their needs for infrastructure, resources, education and economic development
- Support a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a reparations plan to address Indigenous people’s economic dispossession
- Amend the federal regulations to streamline the recognition process of Tribal Nations, Native Hawaiian Nation and other Pacific and Caribbean Islanders
- Increase appointments to Tribal liaison positions, boards and commissions to ensure representation on all policies impacting Tribal Nations
- Enforce the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People to require tribal consent for granting construction permits on treaty lands, waterways, and usual and accustomed areas
- Prohibit all activities on sovereign territories without Free, Prior, and Informed Consent
- Defend Tribal rights to regulate and manage their environment’s natural resources
- Mandate all property tax revenues from tribal (reservation) lands be shared with the tribes
- Remove policies and practices that create barriers in upholding Native voting rights at all levels of government
- Protect Native religious freedoms
- Declare the second Monday in October as the Federal holiday “Indigenous Peoples Day”
- Fund the Indian Health Service and establish at least one IHS clinic in each state
- Increase and expand community health centers and behavioral and mental health services for Native youth
- Establish an adequately funded medical facility in all reservations
- Ensure the Department of Education fully funds and includes Tribal Sovereignty Curriculum developed by Tribal leaders in all states
- Provide funding for judicial training on the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 to eliminate the loss of Native children’s ties and identities to their families, cultures and homelands
- Improve and align government policies and efforts, including data collection, to appropriately identify and classify American Indian/Alaska Native and multi-racial students
- Expand funding for Tribal Compact Schools and address the disproportionate rates of drop-out, expulsion and suspension rates of Native students at the K-12 level
- Expand access to Tribal Colleges and Universities, Native Studies programs in mainstream Colleges and Universities
- Officially recognize children lost to adoption under the Indian Relocation Act of 1952, tribal members who were dis-enrolled during the U.S. Indian Tribes termination policies (1940 to mid-1960), prior to the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 and reunify them with their tribes and families
- Ensure the rights of Tribal Nations to investigate and exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Native citizens who commit domestic or sexual violence on Tribal lands in accordance with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)
- Maintain and authorize the VAWA to fund and expand the specific Tribal Nations’ provisions, such as judicial training
- Improve and fund Native lands’ justice systems to facilitate prosecution of non-natives accused of serious crimes
- Ensure correct Native classification of Missing and Murdered Native women in the federal records
- Increase tribal, federal, state and local cooperation to end the crisis of Missing and Murdered Native women
- Improve state-federal-tribal relations to avoid bias and discriminatory policing through law enforcement cross-cultural education with Tribal Nations
- Expand funding of Urban Indian health organizations to enable them to address the health needs of Native Americans in urban areas who may not have access to Tribal health facilities
- Fund Indian Health Service’s (IHS) trust responsibility for Urban Indians so IHS funds can never be taken from the Federally Recognized Tribal allotment to fund Urban Indian Healthcare
- Address the disproportionately high rates of homelessness among Urban Indians
- Halt gentrification in Tribal and poor communities that prices people out of their communities
- Help States develop and fund Urban Indian Liaison Offices to improve community relations
2SLGBTQIA+ Rights
I will work tol guarantee the human rights of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
Violent attacks on transgender women (particularly Black and other transgender women of color), recent stripping of state protections, lack of legal protection after negative court rulings, and long-standing historical inequities continue. We will end the acceptance of a violent culture that devalues the humanity of our 2SLGBTQIA+ siblings. We will fight for the liberation of 2SLGBTQIA+ people around the world.
Here’s how:
- Support the Equality Act, the PRIDE Act, the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, and other bills to prohibit discrimination by the U.S., the military, state or local governments, or private industry
- Support the PrEP Access and Coverage Act (until universal healthcare is implemented).
- Develop and implement 2SLGBTQIA+ inclusive public education to combat bullying
- Include 2SLGBTQIA+ history in school curricula, provide school and community trainings and 2SLGBTQIA+ specific school counseling
- Federally prohibit the harmful practice of “conversion therapy”
- Fund housing relief programs for 2SLGBTQIA+ youth, who are disproportionately represented in unsheltered populations
- Remove punitive and cumbersome legal name change requirements and fees
- Declare trans murder and suicide rates a national emergency
- De-gender or add nonbinary gender options to all Federal public documents
- De-gender school dress codes, and guarantee protection from discrimination as a result of dress in workplaces
- Publish the original Equal Rights Amendment in the National Archives, effectively bringing it into law.
- Prohibit insurance companies from denying trans-affirming procedures
- Remove “transmedicalist” language from all educational materials relating to trans individuals
- Specifically prohibit disciplining or firing trans employees for acknowledging their gender/pronouns with customers, clients, or other individuals in the workplace
- Legally prohibit mutilative surgeries on intersex infants
- Pass legislation to mandate that police adopt policies to ensure fairer interactions with transgender people, especially transgender women of color, who are disproportionately impacted by disparities in policing
- Outlaw misgendered imprisonment nationwide and end “gay panic” and “trans panic” defenses for violent crimes
- Prevent and repeal any legislation that purports to protect religious liberty at the expense of the rights of others
Disability Rights
As a physically diabled individual, myself, I will work to guarantee as a human right that every person with visible or invisible disabilities is free from ableist policies that harm and isolate them. We commit to ending disparities in pay, benefits, housing, healthcare, and education, and commit to disability inclusion and representation to ensure that all people can contribute their talents and skills as full members of a diverse and thriving society.
Here’s how:
- Work towards economic security for people with disabilities by ensuring opportunities to partake fully in the economy at a fair wage and to enable financial security for all
- Make sure that technology is accessible and supports the goals of the diverse lives of people with disabilities
- Help children with disabilities and their families by providing life-changing early interventions and getting them valuable access to education
- Defend the civil liberties of people with disabilities in areas like criminal justice, voting, physical and mental health, parental rights, and marriage equality
- End all exceptions in wage laws and workplace protections for individuals with disabilities
- Expand Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Social Income (SSI) to a living wage of greater than 10% of regional Cost of Living calculations
- Expand access to Social Security/SSDI/SSI, including assistance of public lawyers in SSDI application.
- Eliminate SSI waiting periods and disability proof requirements
- Update the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), with updates to be informed by people in the disabled community.
- Fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
- Pass the Disabilities Integration Act
- Expand funding for Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs)
- Ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
- Ensure that disabled immigrants are afforded the same immigration rights as non-disabled immigrants
- Federally invest in upgrading all existing public housing and public schools to ADA accessibility standards
- Provide Federal funding to meet ADA accessibility and accommodation requests by individual residents, students and faculty
- Create a federal “Disability Education Services Agency” to offer public schools resources and training to support students with disabilities
- Pass a permanent Money Follows the Person (MFP) program to resist institutionalization and ensure a Right to Return to homes and community
- Eliminate small business exemptions to the ADA; Appropriate federal funds to achieve compliance by small businesses
- Establish federal marriage equality to eliminate marriage penalties for individuals with disabilities
- Ensure opioid pain management protections for those with chronic and debilitating pain
- Ensure a federal jobs guarantee covers people with disabilities, particularly with respect to limited work schedules and nontraditional job roles
Women's Rights
Women’s rights are human rights. As women's freedoms, protections and rights are continually under assault by extremist groups, we will defend and codify women’s full rights once and for alI
I will work to:
- Push passage of the Equal Rights Amendment
- Pass the Paycheck Fairness Act (HR 7) to end pay discrimination and ensure equal pay for equal work
- Pass the 2021 Violence Against Women Act
- Ensure that domestic abusers cannot own or buy a gun
- Federally fund and expedite all rape kit testing
- Ensure full reproductive rights and bodily autonomy for women
- Repeal the Hyde Amendment
- Fund free birth control and menstruation products
- Repeal FOSTA/SESTA which puts sex workers at risk
- Expand the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
- Protect and enforce Title IX
- Ensure prosecution of sexual harassment and violence in the workplace and the military
Immigration
Immigrants’ rights are human rights. For hundreds of years immigrants have contributed immensely to the United States despite facing constant exploitation, discrimination, xenophobia and scapegoating. For decades, US foreign policies of war, intervention, and the “war on drugs” have driven many immigrants to leave their homes under duress to arrive here in dire need. The Wall Street parties and their wealthy backers use immigrants as essential labor, while denying them the human rights and dignity that everyone deserves.
It’s time to completely overhaul this broken and abusive immigration system, as well as the unjust policies driving people to leave their homes. We need a comprehensive immigration policy and properly funded institutions to ensure a timely, ethical, transparent, and dignified path to citizenship for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Border policy should move away from detention and enforcement response toward humane and effective asylum processing. This includes full support and funding for coordinated civil society response including social and legal service providers. Instead of jailing migrants and asylum seekers, we will create non-custodial, humanitarian reception centers at the border. Migrants should be processed rapidly to screen for significant criminal records. Once processed, migrants should have papers to begin work immediately, making them an invaluable resource for communities.
I will work to:
- Reduce the tide of migration by ending the crises driving people to migrate in the first place - ending US wars and military interventions (250 in the past 30 years, per the Congressional Research Service), reducing climate migration through an emergency Green New Deal and eliminating fossil fuel emissions within a decade; ending US economic sanctions driving migration from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua; legalizing marijuana in the US and supporting legalization in Latin America to undercut drug cartels whose violence is a major driver of migration.
- Abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and establish an Office of Citizenship, Refugees, and Immigration Services under the Department of Labor. Redirect all ICE funding to processing centers that provide immigrants and refugees with resources for housing, work, and healthcare upon arrival
- Prosecute all ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who have committed human rights violations
- Repeal the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
- Repeal the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
- Grant amnesty to every undocumented person in the United States, and implement a path to citizenship with expediency
- Provide whistleblower visas for immigrants who report labor violations or exploitative work conditions
- Expand refugee programs and improve the housing conditions for all refugees during resettlement
- Remove stringent requirements for linguistic assimilation and employment, and expand mental health services for refugees
- Expand the number of visas available to immigrants
- Greatly increase humanitarian aid to struggling Latin American economies, especially for countries that have been devastated by U.S. intervention
- End US sanctions in general, which are illegal in any event. They should most immediately be ended where they devastate economies in Latin America and fuel immigration, as in Cuba and Venezuela
- Take immediate action to locate separated children and reunite them with their families
- Direct the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and provide them resources to adjudicate visa petitions within 30 days, instead of the current 2 years or more, to shorten the duration of Family Separation for legal immigrants and citizens
- Fully staff and fund immigration courts
- Hire more asylum officers and provide exclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate asylum cases
- Ensure all immigration judges have civil service protection
- Ensure that due process and constitutional protections are available to undocumented immigrants when it comes to deportation issues
- Repeal section 212(a)(9)(B)(ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act concerning Accruing Unlawful Presence
- Support DACA by updating the registration date of the 1929 Registry Act to 1/1/2022, and restoring Section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which expired in April 2001. This will allow people who have approved petitions to apply for their Green Card upon payment of a fine for the filing fee.
- Reduce the record number of detainees currently under DHS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) control.[2]
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