Texas Democratic Party Platform the Finest in History

Saturday last week in Fort Worth the Texas Democratic Party (TDP) overwhelmingly passed the finest platform in its history. Among other important planks the platform calls for legalization of marijuana like Colorado, a moratorium on new fracking wells and shutting down existing fracking wells by 2026, as well as enacting sensible gun laws to curtail the availability of weapons with extended ammunition magazines, including rapid-fire, magazine-fed weapons.

I had the honor and privilege to be appointed to the Chair’s Advisory Committee on the Platform. My appointment allowed me to have extensive input on both the topics and positions recommended to those who were elected from each of the 31 senate districts at the Texas Democratic Party convention in Fort Worth last week.

Criminal justice reform is a big topic and was placed at the beginning of the platform to emphasize its importance. Due to the high number of Texans jailed for non-violent crimes we the taxpayer are burdened with those costs while it fails to accomplish one of the presumed goals of rehabilitation. The TDP platform calls for big reductions in incarceration starting with bail reform so that being poor doesn’t mean an automatic jail sentence even if found innocent. We also call for eliminating incarceration for many non-violent crimes in favor of probation and other programs which are much more cost effective. We also demand a quick end to private prisons as there should never be a profit incentive for jailing people.

There are a rare few items with which we agree or nearly agree with the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) such as marijuana reform which we believe should involve full legalization similar to Colorado while they only call for making possession of small amounts equivalent to a speeding ticket. The TDP platform also calls for the immediate release of anyone incarcerated for possession of marijuana and expunging their convictions. I’m don’t smoke and I don’t drink so I don’t have much of an axe to grind but if alcohol consumption is legal then I can see no reason to ruin someone’s life over their choice to get inebriated via cannabis.

While the RPT suggests allowing counties to use paper ballots, something the can already do, Democrats call for a return to paper ballots statewide on the ground that it is the only truly auditable and unhackable method of recording our votes. If our democratic republic is to survive it is imperative that we have confidence in the results of our elections. So far there is no evidence that Russian or Chinese hackers succeeded in changing actual ballot counts we know that they did indeed gain access to the election systems of several states and counties we should take steps to insure that it can’t ever happen.

The TDP platform differs in significant ways from the RPT platform passed just a couple of weeks ago in that we support the federal Voting Rights Act and the Texas Voting Rights Act, and restoration of the federal preclearance policies that were overturned by the Supreme Court while they want to repeal those protections. The TDP supports extended early voting periods that the RPT wants to shorten.  Our platform calls for creating a nonpartisan redistricting commission to end racial and political gerrymandering in our redistricting process. We also call for a constitutional amendment to eliminate the electoral college and award the presidency to the winner of the nationwide popular vote so that candidates have to campaign in all states not just swing states.

To see the entire platform enter “texas democratic party platform 2018” in your favorite search engine.

Published in the Seguin Gazette June 29, 2018