Supporters want Bernie to make an independent run. He appointed five members of the 15-member Platform Drafting Committee.
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His promise to vote Clinton sheds light on reports that the Sanders campaign is truly doomed. That it is now in the platform shows that Sanders’ campaign and economic worldview have had a real impact on party doctrine and priorities.
In a Friday press release Sanders said he was pleased with language added to the platform that would call for breaking up too-big-to-fail banks and enacting a modern-day Glass-Seagall Act, as well as a unanimous vote for a proposal to abolish the death penalty. The Clinton delegates also voted down definitive language to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
She said in a long statement that went down the Democratic laundry list of proposals: “We were able to unite around many progressive issues including the need to make sure all Americans earn at least $15 an hour and can join a union; asking the wealthy pay their fair share through a multi-millionaire surtax; breaking up too big to fail financial institutions that pose a systemic risk to the stability of our economy; expanding social security; helping those in poverty, in part through an expansion of the earned income tax credit for childless workers and expanding the child tax credit to lift more children out of poverty; increasing resources for community health centers; declaring our opposition to the Hyde and Helms amendments which restrict women’s access to safe abortions at home and overseas; and abolishing the death penalty”. “It also calls for the elimination of the “tipped” wage and for the right of workers to form or join a union”, Ms. Clinton’s Senior Policy Advisor Maya Harris said in a statement.
“The current draft calls for ending the era of mass incarceration, shutting down private prisons, ending racial profiling, reforming the grand jury process, investing in re-entry programs, banning the box to help give people a second chance and prioritizing treatment over incarceration for individuals suffering addiction”.
Nonetheless, Sherman criticized Sanders for seeming to pick a fight on Israel. But even though a number of top liberal priorities made it into the platform, Sanders says the fight over the party’s policy positions is not over yet-and, by extension, neither is the political battle for the support of the party’s left flank.
“The Mideast planks of the previous platform were carefully crafted and have served us well”, wrote Sellers, a Clinton supporter.
“The Vermont senator wants the party’s platform to make its opposition clear on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which the White House is trying to push through Congress before President Obama leaves office”.
And we are proud the draft 2016 Democratic platform sets forward progressive principles and high standards on trade, including calling for trade agreements to be more protective of workers’ rights, labor rights, the environment, and public health.
I am going to do everything that I can to do to defeat Donald Trump.But a lot of that responsibility about winning the American people over to her side is going to rest with Secretary Clinton. Party officials approved the draft early Saturday. Instead, the document takes Clinton’s position on the issue, advocating for a “two-state solution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict” that guarantees Israel’s security under recognized borders “and provides the Palestinians with independence, sovereignty, and dignity”.
Sanders, who lost the NY primary but won many upstate areas including Albany, had harsh words for the state’s regressive laws on voter registration, which include a long lead-time of several months for registering to vote in a primary.
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Since this new poll occurred after Sanders’s partial endorsement of former Secretary of State Clinton, it’ll be interesting to see if more of his supporters will ditch Trump for Clinton if he chooses to fully endorse Clinton for president.
