O‘ahu County Democratic Party Platform, 2010

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O‘ahu County Convention
May 1, 2010- Honolulu Country Club

O‘AHU COUNTY PLATFORM

[adopted May 1, 2010]

Preamble
Agriculture
Arts & Culture
Economics & Commerce
Education
Environment & Energy
Foreign Policy
Government & Political Reform
Healthcare
Human Rights and Civil Rights & Economic Justice
Housing
Immigration
Labor
Native Hawaiian People
Safety & Security
Technology
Transportation
U.S. Military

The O'ahu County Committee of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i, as the party of the people, reaffirms our values of liberty and justice. Those core values compel us to incorporate these democratic ideals in all aspects of the economic, social, educational, and cultural life in our communities, O'ahu, and our nation.

Agriculture in our state must be preserved and its future strengthened. Sufficient agricultural lands must be maintained for the health, economic well-being and sustenance of the people. We believe in an integrated approach of agricultural innovation and sustainability. We encourage the development of ocean resources in order to achieve sustainability in our state.

This includes, but is not limited to, the adoption of the native Hawaiian concept of Ahupua'a, an integrated approach to land management. This could also include development of economic, land and ocean use policies that foster sustainable crops both for local consumption and for export, policies to foster infrastructure such as coolers and freezers at our harbors, and better inspection to protect against invasive species and speed up time in port holding. We need to ensure food safety, strive towards food security and strive to set the highest standards for food quality and nutrition.

We will promote efficient and safe production of livestock, dairy products, poultry and eggs. Recognizing the importance of the ocean as a life-sustaining resource, we must protect its ecological balance while promoting the cultivation of ocean resources as a step toward greater self-sufficiency.

Fresh water free of pollutants and shall be available to all. To ensure wise use and equitable distribution of precious fresh water, we must stress water conservation and alternative patterns of water treatment and consumption such as the use of recycled water for irrigation.

Our community is enriched by the encouragement of diverse arts and cultural activities that communicate both a regional and universal vision. Through multi-cultural and multi-generational participation in the arts, we strengthen our ohana, promote tolerance, and add vitality to the economy through cultural tourism. To this end, we support adequate funding for the arts, individual artists, arts and cultural organizations, and educational enterprises.

ECONOMICS & COMMERCE

Availability of financial support and a capable educated people are critical to our economic expansion and diversification. The management of businesses should be ethical and responsive to the community with transparency for investors and shareholders guaranteeing sound, healthy management. Innovation through the generation of intellectual property should be the goal of our economic diversification.

We need to simplify government processes to encourage beneficial business development. We need to give priority to the development of "green" sustainable industries and business. We need financial literacy and asset building programs to strengthen our Ohana. We need to pursue relationships with the information technology industry. We need to invest in world class higher education to stimulate our economic resources. We need to reduce our dependence on tourism, real estate development, and military. A diversified economy will help to create diversified jobs.

We believe that the future of our State as well as our country depends upon an educated and knowledgeable citizenry. We need to re-think the structure of our educational system. We need to reform and upgrade our public schools and create a flexible education system. We support the prioritization of our resources towards providing quality education and library services to every student regardless of learning capacity in an environment conducive to the learning process. These resources should be made available at every level, from pre-school through higher education, including life-long learning, and should provide autonomy of the relevant educational institutions and competitive compensation for teachers, administrators, and professors. Educational policies should also include cultural learning, the arts and physical education so that we may preserve our health and rich cultural history.

We need to ensure that our students are safe in our schools, free from bullying and discrimination. This includes, gender bias, weight, ethnicity, sexual orientation and/or religion.

We support the strengthening of our early childhood educational programs and the establishment of life skills education throughout our academic careers.

We support independent funding for the D.O.E.

Education shall be respected as a valuable resource and those pursuing a profession in education shall be compensated with a competitive wage based on national standards while taking into consideration the state's cost of living

We cannot support the practice of unfunded mandates from the federal government such as the "No Child Left Behind Act".

ENVIRONMENT & ENERGY

The conservation, preservation and restoration of Hawai‘i's natural resources are connected to the health and welfare of our people; therefore, we support the conservation and protection of our natural environment, which includes reducing our carbon footprint. We believe in integrated approaches, practices, and support for public policies that create and maintain a sustainable way of life in Hawai‘i. Specifically, we need to support policies that foster the development of energy production methods that deemphasize carbon based fuels and promote renewable sources such as wind, solar, wave, geothermal and otec. It is of paramount importance that we protect our fragile environment from further damage due to residential overdevelopment and the depletion of prime agricultural land.

We support the protection of our 'aina against destruction by corporate, government, or military usage and expect full restoration and reparation of environmental damage.

We support a strong foreign policy that promotes peace, human rights, international cooperation and the rule of law. We believe that war should be a last resort but, when deemed necessary, should occur only within the confines of international law and international cooperation.

GOVERNMENT & POLITICAL REFORM

We believe in a government that will adequately, efficiently, courteously, openly and fairly administer to the needs of the people. We support the integrity of Hawai‘ing process and ethics in government, with a fair, voter-verifiable, fully transparent and auditable voting system. We also support enforcement of sunshine laws and transparency in sessions and meetings that discuss and make policy.

This includes the protection of funding for the televising of public hearings at the State and County levels, as well as the funding of the public access room at the legislature.

We cannot support the recent Supreme Court Ruling that allows Corporations unlimited campaign donations under the guise of "free speech". We support legislative efforts to change this manipulation of the Constitution to suit special interests. To that end, we promote the practice of public financing for all state elections.

We must ensure the security of our electoral process with regards to electronic infiltration and manipulation.

Access to quality health care is a basic human right. We support the development of long-term care, better pay and working conditions for all health care providers, parity of mental and physical health coverage, and appropriate regulation of health care delivery systems. We also support the development of empirically validated prevention programs targeted at major public health issues.

We support national healthcare reform via single payer universal healthcare.

We cannot support the provisions that continue the practice of denying women coverage for abortion services. Women who are the most in need of these services will continue to be denied access to these services.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND CIVIL RIGHTS & ECONOMIC JUSTICE

The inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all human beings are the foundations of freedom, justice, and peace. We are committed to ending institutionalized discrimination in all aspects. We support affirmative action, the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the rights of senior citizens. We support full equality, benefits and responsibilities regardless of sexual identity, orientation, or expression.

We believe in the equality of women and their right to privacy. This includes the rights of women to access birth control, the right to coverage of pregnancy services, the right to shelter and counseling for victims of domestic violence and the right of rape victims to emergency contraception in the emergency room to name a few.

We support the rights of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transexual (GLBT) community to equality before the law, including the right to equal relationship recognition.

We support restorative justice which repairs the harms caused by criminal behaviors as well as reintegrates the offenders as contributing members of society.

Housing is a basic human right. Affordable housing that is fair in proportion to individual income is the basis of prosperity for our citizens and stability in our economy. Recent and past real estate bubbles have fueled disproportionate rent increases-a key contributor to homelessness. Therefore, we support efforts to promote truly affordable housing for all citizens who rent. We need economically affordable housing and encourage increased support that leads to this end. To this end we support policies which re-think the current formula to determine "affordability" as this formula puts both rentals and sales out of the reach of most working families in Hawai‘i.

We believe that our nation should have a fair immigration policy that recognizes the diversity of our country and the contribution that immigrants make and have made the sciences, arts, and culture. We support an immigration policy that provides a reasonable path to citizenship for immigrants who follow the rule of law. We encourage polices that avoid the militarization of our borders or that would deny education and health and human services to immigrant children. We need to ensure that immigrant children are treated with fairness and respect in our schools and in our healthcare system.

As the party of working men and women in Hawai‘i, we work to protect labor rights and social security; to institute fair labor practices, fair pay and fair taxation; to protect employees' rights to organize and bargain collectively with their employers; to oppose the outsourcing of Hawai‘i's jobs; to promote employment opportunities and sustainable growth; to assist the economically disadvantaged and advocate for sound trade and economic policies; to train our workforce in green industries, in renovation and green construction so that their jobs are not dependent on ever-expanding real estate development.

NATIVE HAWAIIAN PEOPLE

The Native Hawaiian people are the indigenous people of the state of Hawai‘i and deserve a just relationship with the state and federal governments. We support Native Hawaiian self-determination, consistent with federal policy for native self-determination extended to other indigenous peoples of the United States. We support the growth of Native Hawaiian farming, agricultural and healing practices. We value and wish to foster the preservation of our host culture. We deplore any attempt to exploit or export Hawaiian bio products without the consent of the Native Hawaiian community.

SAFETY & SECURITY

We support safety and security in all dimensions as a basic right of all residents of the state of Hawai‘i. We support just law enforcement and enhancement of crime prevention, without compromising civil liberties. This includes the full protection of the law against domestic violence and hate crimes.

We recognize that the responsible use and development of technology in all its manifestations offers unlimited potential for our community. We encourage research, development, and educational programs to promote technological proficiency and innovation. In particular we support STEM initiatives in our public, private and charter schools as these prepare the next generation to address the needs our state.

We maintain that state and local government databases should be integrated to promote efficiency in government.

We support county, state, and federal efforts to provide more efficient and punctual methods of public transportation. We endorse efforts to promote less reliance on the automobile by employing private and public use of alternative modes of travel. We encourage efforts to provide better vehicle and pedestrian safety. In particular we support those initiatives that will provide our state with more fuel efficient vehicles, better mass transit and well-developed safe bike paths.

The Armed Forces in Hawai‘i and their families sacrifice to serve and defend our country, help us in time of need. We encourage the continuation of efforts to coordinate military activities with affected communities. Hawai‘i should honor their service by strongly supporting the best possible care of wounded and disabled veterans.

We oppose war profiteering and the privatization of combat through employment of paramilitary contractors.

We support the protection of our ‘aina against destruction by military usage.

We support our Veterans and our Veterans organizations and efforts to keep our Veteran's Hospitals fully funded.

We support the efforts of our Congressional Delegation to extend benefits for our Reservists and National Guard who have suffered brain injury and/or PTSD.

We support efforts to protect our troops from sexual predators within their service branches and support specialized treatment for victims of such crimes.

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