Supporters of presumptive party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama were able to beat back attempts to adopt language opposing the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact. Among Democrats and people who lean toward the party, 85 percent of those who supported Sanders in the primary said they planned to vote for Clinton. “The good news is that virtually everyone who spoke during the debate on trade made it clear that they opposed this unfettered free trade agreement”.
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But Sanders supporters on the panel voiced their displeasure with jeers and angry shouts.
New Zealand’s National-led government has pushed strongly for the trade deal and Prime Minister John Key signed the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement in Auckland in early February.
That’s one of the main issues Sanders said he was looking for Clinton to shift on in order to give an endorsement.
Sanders self-assuredly stated: “My job right now as a candidate is to fight to make sure that the Democratic Party not only has the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party, but that that platform is actually implemented by elected officials”. Instead, Sanders has sought to extract concessions on policy issues central to his campaign.
Sanders has avoided endorsing Clinton for weeks as he focused much of his energy on shaping the platform to mirror his liberal campaign, citing his millions of supporters as motivation to keep pushing his agenda.
She’s also reaffirming her support for a public-option insurance plan and for expanding Medicaid by letting people 55 years and older opt in to the program. Aside from agreeing to support a $15 federal hourly minimum wage, Benjamin Crump, the attorney for the family of Trayvon Martin, and former NAACP president Ben Jealous united the party to support a police-reform amendment that calls for the use of body cameras, the end of racial profiling and stopping “the use of weapons of war that have no place in our communities”.
Both Clinton and Sanders oppose the TPP, which has been a major priority of the Obama administration.
“If he continues to declare his full faith in the Democratic party, it will leave many of his supporters very disappointed”, she said. “Our bold statement in support of fair trade standards for working people passed overwhelmingly, by a count of 117 to 64”.
“We did everything we could to win that vote”, Sanders policy adviser Warren Gunnels said. She added that Clinton believes TPP “fails the test that is now laid out in the platform as a result of this amendment”.
It was a win-some, lose-some moment for Sanders, whose team went into the meeting with a long list of demands for additions or changes to the 35-page draft that emerged from drafting sessions in St. Louis in June.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has announced a proposal to expand mandatory healthcare funding by $US40 billion ($A53.5 billion) over the next 10 years, highlighting the influence of rival Democrat Bernie Sanders on her campaign. This past weekend’s Platform Committee meeting in Orlando might determine if Clinton can resolve them before the July 25 convention in Philadelphia.
During a convening of the Democratic National Committee’s draft platform committee in Orlando, Clinton’s backers said such additional language to the current language in the party’s platform would further inflame tensions and deter from future USA efforts in peace talks.
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Dr Stein’s website boasts that she earned a record number of votes for any female presidential candidate in the general election, at 470,000 – a record Ms Clinton is certain to break come November.
