2021 Democratic Party of Oregon
Priority Legislative Action Items
- Healthcare is a human right and we call for the adoption of an equitable, high quality, comprehensive, universal, publicly funded healthcare system including general, preventative, reproductive and emergency care plus vision, dental, hearing, prescription drugs, long term care, substance abuse, hospice care, and behavioral health services at the state and or federal level.
- Classify internet service providers (ISPs) as public utilities; create laws that allow state and local governments to implement community owned ISPs; allow common access to publicly owned infrastructure, public rights of way, and utility easements, and provide funding for rural communities to access broadband internet.
- Prohibit privatized law enforcement, prisons, jails, detention facilities, immigration detention facilities, juvenile detention facilities, probation, parole, and the outsourcing of food, phone, and all other criminal justice related services to for-profit corporations.
- Enable Oregon students to attend public college regardless of ability to pay. Fund post-secondary public education for Oregon’s students, including community colleges, career/vocational training, colleges, and universities.
- Fund the Oregon Global Warming Commission to ensure the development of scientifically-sound greenhouse gas methodology from all sources, including but not limited to land use, land use change, water ways, agriculture, and forestry.
- Enact National Vote by Mail.
- Remove the current maximum taxable earned income cap for Social Security to ensure sufficient funds for the continuation and robust expansion of the Social Security program.
- Enact "Universal Legal Representation" legislation to stop unlawful deportations and detentions, create pathways to work authorization and economic participation for immigrants (including undoccumented immigrants), refugees and asylees, build stability in immigrant communities, enable family unification, and incentivize legal talent to stay within the state through partnerships with Oregon law schools.
- Implement and fund non-emitting and non-carbon public energy infrastructure projects, replace fossil fuel and carbon-based infrastructure, utilizing publicly-funded retrain-to-hire programs, paid at union scale, and union project labor agreements, prioritizing Oregon-sourced materials and community-based projects, to prevent worker displacement, greatly reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and promote a Just Transition.
- The Equal Rights Amendment, The Equality Act, and both The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act and The For the People Act, are necessary to achieve true equality and human rights and we call on Congress to pass them.
- Reinstitute the timber severance tax to support counties, incentivize better stewardship logging and longer rotations, protect drinking watersheds, and pay for firefighting. Legislate a corporate tax on private equity landholding firms (e.g. REITs and TIMOs) to limit speculation and fund ecological science-based forestry education opportunities for all Oregon schoolchildren.
- Fund quality mass transit systems including high-speed rail, using American made goods and services, within and between Oregon cities and a system that serves within and connects smaller towns to the larger transportation grid, incorporating improved safe bike infrastructure, public vehicle sharing and intercity bus and rail systems.
- Eliminate all police-based SROs and move instead to having behavioral interventionists, mental health providers, and connections to other resources that reduce crime without over-disciplining students of color and perpetuating the school-to-prison pipeline.
- Eliminate all future attempts to privatize the Veterans Health Administration. Reassess and reevaluate previous contracts and revoke private contracts that negatively impact the veteran’s health fund. Funding Veterans Hospitals and clinics should take precedence over for-profit providers and hospitals. Fully fund and staff the Veterans Affairs Healthcare system.
- Fully implement and fund management of Coastal Regions, identify and establish additional marine reserves to protect biodiversity, habitats and ecosystem health to ensure the sustainability of our ocean resources and long-term success of our fisheries.
- Enact legislation that protects an individual’s right to privacy including regulations on facial recognition technology and drone use. This legislation should provide meaningful protections of individual’s personal data and strong requirements to inform and obtain consent from individuals regarding processing and storage of personal data and meaningful punishment for non-compliance.
- Adopt Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), deferred action for veterans of the U.S. military and those married to U.S. citizens, and/or other programs, including comprehensive immigration reform, to keep families together.
- Repeal Dickey amendment; resume and fully fund research into gun violence and suicide prevention at national, state and local levels. Pass legislation allowing gun owners to easily transfer locked firearms to a trusted party for storage purposes only. Fund publicly available offsite storage for firearms.
- Congress must pass the Women's Health Protection Act, to protect abortion rights through an act of Congress.
- In accordance with Article II D Section 2 of the Oregon Constitution, purchase or control, or otherwise fund the modernization of our electrical power grid system to accommodate the flow of renewable energy and to provide security, reliability, efficiency and flexibility for our electrical power system.