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Green Party of Colorado Platform
Electoral Reform - Direct Democracy
GPCO advocates direct democracy as a response to local needs and issues, where all concerned citizens can discuss and decide questions that immediately affect their lives, such as land use, parks, schools and community services. We would decentralize many state functions to the county and city level and seek expanded roles for neighborhood boards and associations.
We mean to make it easier for us all to propose and vote for the laws we want, modernizing the initiative power now enjoyed in 24 US States. We would extend initiatives to the local level, to the other states and to the federal level, and institute quarterly voting as the Swiss have for their initiative process. A top priority is modernizing the Initiative and Referendum process to make it easier to use and allowing internet and telephone voting, as well as Internet and telephone signature-gathering.
Mission - The corporate market system is based on a competitive struggle to exploit people and nature for profits and growth. We reject this system because it creates a dynamic of endless growth that is incompatible with ecological sustainability and fosters greed and domination in society.
Short Term
1. Oppose trade agreements (North American Free Trade Agreement - NAFTA
- and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - GATT, WTO) which would jeopardize
U.S. environmental, public health and safety, worker safety, and/or fair
labor standards.
2. Establish a minimum "living wage" (perhaps starting at $10.00/hr
= $20,000/yr for 40 hrs/wk) and adequate safety net for workers.
3. Develop expand, and implement safe working conditions, whistle blower
protection and a worker's right to know.
4. Support medical, maternity and paternity leave for workers.
5. Ban policies aimed at weakening the bargaining power of unions,
i.e. replacing full-time employees with temporary and part-time employees
in order to reduce union membership reducing employee benefits, closing
plants and exporting jobs, etc
6. Support on-site daycare for the children of workers and students
7. Endorse and support agriculturally based organizations to enable
farm workers to organize to negotiate fair wages and humane working conditions.
8. Elimination of mandatory drug testing for non-safety jobs.
9. Creation and strict enforcement of policies that protect the health
of farm workers at all stages of crop production and harvesting as well
as their right to fair wages and safe working conditions.
Medium Term
1. Establish a workers superfund that would provide income and retraining
to workers displaced by corporate flight, military conversion, and technological
change. This program should be funded by a variable taxation on production;
a value-added tax according to the social and ecological priorities society
chooses.
2. Where practical, promote housing near workplaces and focus work
within the community so people feel connected and have a sense of purpose.
3. Allow employees time off during election days.
4. Promote policies that limit the amount of agricultural land that
can be owned or controlled by any one person, corporation, government entity,
or organization ideally resulting in more family farms and people living
on the land
5. Work towards decreasing the number of hours in a standard workweek
in order to encourage the creation of stable, permanent jobs.
Long Term
1. Encourage employee-controlled work cooperatives instead of big corporations
with highly paid, hierarchically organized managers, supervisors and CEO's.
2. Within these cooperatives, have employee associations agree on wages,
working conditions, benefits, etc.
3. Public job banks should be established so that people who cannot
find work in the private sector can take a publicly funded job that fulfills
community-defined needs.
Mission - The wasteful and high consumption style of living in the U.S. is most exemplified by the production and use of energy. At the same time, nowhere is major change more possible and practical than in our production and use of energy. We call for a fundamental and focused effort to decentralize energy production and switch to renewable forms of energy to promote self-reliance, local control, efficiency and protection of the environment.
Short Term
1. Inform citizens of energy impacts and alternatives available now
in order to help them lower their impacts.
2. Encourage alternative transportation modes such as carpooling, bicycles,
and mass transit to reduce the use of single occupancy fossil fuel powered
vehicles.
3. Encourage Public Service Co. to carry through with plans to install
photovoltaic power supply at Fort St. Vrain.
4. Convert coal plants to natural gas until renewables can supply more
electricity.
5. Require governments to examine renewable energy for any public development
and use it if it is cost effective over the long term.
6. Decisions about how to produce our energy should be based on total
projected lifetime costs rather than initial capital costs as is now the
standard practice.
7. Government energy research funding for nuclear power development
should be stopped and these funds redirected to renewable energy research
and development.
8. Change utility pricing methods to encourage efficiency and conservation
rather than consumption.
9. Utilities should provide assistance for efficiency retrofitting
of old equipment and buildings and use energy savings to pay for the cost
so that new power plants do not need to be built.
10. Encourage more active implementation of co-generation to recapture
otherwise lost energy.
Medium Term
1. Speed up renewable energy use by having energy costs reflect environmental
and social costs; factoring in externalities to determine energy costs.
2. Bring investor utilities, such as Public Service Co., under municipal
control to reduce costs.
3. Make sure that building codes require maximum energy efficiency
in construction.
4. Colorado should pass a no emission vehicle law (as in California)
to encourage new technology development.
5. Colorado should develop a program to lower greenhouse gas emissions
by 25% in ten years and up to 70% over the next 40 years.
Long Term
1. Energy production should be decentralized so that communities have
more control.
2. Energy production and use should match the bioregion; for example,
wind power where it is windy and solar where it is sunny.
3. Change land use planning to create communities that require less
transportation. That is, communities where people live near the places
where they work and shop.
4. No new fossil fuel or nuclear plants - switch to renewables.
Mission - Our environment is our home, our provider of life itself - food, air, raw materials, fellow creatures - as well as our spiritual and physical refuge and aesthetic inspiration. If our environment is degraded enough, human life will end. If our environment is disregarded and weakened by constant pollution and mindless exploitation, we and our descendants and other living things will suffer a diminished existence plagued by needless disease and premature death, unnecessary extinctions of animals and plants, and missed opportunities to grow and prosper. Here the need for long-term thinking and protective policies is very great. Other platform issues bear on the environment - see Energy, Technology, etc.
Short Term
1. Shift subsidies to environmentally sound economic enterprises.
2. Stop strip mining and open-pit, cyanide heap-leaching.
3. Protect wildlife corridors.
4. Repeal the 1872 Mining Act.
5. Include environmental impacts as part of all planning decisions.
6. End cutting of old growth forests on federal lands.
7. Require high water and energy efficiency standards for all new construction.
8. Enact tough environmental regulations with enforcement, with criminal
penalties for individuals responsible for violations.
9. Promote good neighbor agreements to allow residents to negotiate
the discontinued use or safe handling of hazardous materials and wastes
generated or stored by nearby facilities
10. Protect endangered species and their habitat.
Medium Term
1. Protect and restore healthy local stream flows.
2. Preserve riparian areas and wetlands.
3. Promote the development and use of renewable energy and fuel sources.
4. Government policy should use ecosystem management in addition to
endangered species protection.
Long Term
1. Create a non-toxic economy.
2. Long-term planning and decision-making should include as criteria
the indirect, intangible and complex environmental and social impacts,
such as impacts on biodiversity.
Mission - Access to health care should not be based on income. The U.S. system has become primarily motivated by profit which has led to high costs, limited access, more chronic disease and a health care system which feeds on sickness. We must shift to a system designed to prevent disease rather than treat its symptoms, and a system which provides health care to all.
Short Term
1. Access to health care for all people including prenatal care, starting
with a single payer health care insurance system similar to Canada's.
2. Colorado should reinstate the 20% Medicaid co-payment for Medicare
patients so that elderly and disabled people can afford health care.
3. Health care should place a greater emphasis on preventive care,
for example, more emphasis on prenatal care and proper nutrition and exercise.
4. A coherent plan to deal with AIDS that depoliticizes the disease
and lets treatment, prevention and research be determined by the reality
of the disease.
5. Although recognizing that abortion may represent a moral dilemma
for many people, we support reproductive choice and the improvement of
education and alternatives so that abortion will be needed less often.
6. We support family medical leave.
7. All people should have the option to specify wishes for their death
through living wills and the right to die.
8. We support right to know" laws which provide employees all information
about hazardous materials that they may be working with.
9. We support "whistle blower" protection for employees who expose
health hazards in the workplace. They should be protected from punishment
with back pay, damages and possible reinstatement.
10. Education on food issues should be based on health needs, not the
political and economic power of the food industry.
11. All Colorado counties should establish a health care program for
indigents.
12. Denver General Hospital should receive payments based on costs
incurred from any Colorado county which sends their indigent patients for
treatment to DGH, with the state paying for out-of-state patients.
13. The Colorado Department of Health (CDH) should provide easy access
to all public health-related statistical information, while respecting
patient confidentiality.
14. The CDH should compile and analyze health statistical data on disease
incidence rates of Colorado communities and release the results to the
public immediately.
15. The Colorado legislature should authorize and adequately fund a
state birth defects registry and adequately fund the existing tumor registry.
16. Improve the quality of our food supply by reducing and eventually
eliminating the use of hormones, antibiotics and toxic additives. Encourage
the use of organic agricultural methods.
Medium Term
1. Health insurance should permit all people to choose the health care
system they want.
2. Substance abuse and addiction should be treated as a medical problem,
not as a criminal issue.
3. Health care should de-emphasize the use of strong drugs and high
tech methods.
4. We support a new and expanded midwife certification program.
5. If a national universal single payer Canadian-style health care
system is not quickly implemented, Colorado should try to establish a state
universal health care system like those in the Canadian provinces.
Long Term
1. The dominance of the "big players", such as the AMA and the pharmaceutical
companies should be broken so that people have more choice and control
of their health care decisions.
2. Mental health care should move away from large-scale institutionalization.
3. Health should be viewed as a right, not solely as a profit-making
enterprise.
4. Create a health care system where health care providers are rewarded
for maintaining health rather than simply treating disease and injuries.
Mission - We acknowledge that we all live on land conquered by Europeans and that we all need to begin to heal the pain and grief of the last 500 years of domination and exploitation of indigenous peoples in the western hemisphere, while learning from them how to live in harmony with the earth.
Short Term
1. Establish early education of children of the "true" history of the
conquest of the Americas; changing the story to accurately inform them
of the lives and cultures that existed before Europeans arrived and the
holocaust that ensued from European presence and their activities against
Native Americans.
2. Protect Native fishing and hunting rights as defined by treaties.
3. Promote the efforts of Native American nations to establish and
maintain community controlled, sustainable enterprises - away from non-sustainable,
extractive and exploitative operations that have been imposed by the U.S.
government via the tribal council system.
4. Develop and promote early education and prevention of alcoholism
among reservation and non-reservation Native Americans.
5. We call for the release of internationally recognized political
prisoner Leonard Peltier.
6. We oppose the targeting of Native American lands for the siting
of hazardous, radioactive or municipal waste disposal and or storage facilities.
The targeting is abetted by the tribal council system imposed by the U.S.
Government.
7. We oppose negatively stereotypical Indian names and trademarks like
the "Redskins".
Medium Term
1. We support the self-determination and sovereignty of indigenous
peoples
2. Preserve cultural and spiritual heritage of Native Americans rather
than denigrate them.
Long Term
1. Promote the enforcement of treaties with Native American peoples.
2. When in accord with the desires of the North American nations involved,
exchange land belonging to state and federal governments with "reservation"
land that may not have the potential for supporting native populations
such as the land in Oklahoma reserved for the Western Band of the Cherokee.
3. Replace the tribal council system with the traditional decision-making
structure that existed prior to the imposition of tribal councils by the
Indian Reorganization Act (1933).
Mission - Non-violence is one of the Ten Key Values of the Greens. The Greens are working for a world where violence in all of its forms - abuse in personal relationships and families up to global nuclear war - is lessened and eventually eliminated or held to very low levels.
Short Term
1. Learn consensus process, teach to others to avoid confrontational
decision making.
2. Artistic grants towards artists that work to lessen violence in
the home, streets, on media, etc.
3. Support shelters/domestic violence centers and related educational
programs.
4. Support education to combat sexism, ageism, homophobia, racism,
etc., as a means of reducing hostility, injustice and possible resulting
violence and to enhance mutual understanding.
5. Promote mediation, non-violence training, and peace education programs.
6. Promote self-defense training for high school students, especially
girls.
Medium Term
1. Tax credit for voluntary non-military public service as an incentive
for peaceful service to community.
2. National "security" programs reduced to absolute minimum -- no domestic
surveillance, no setting up guerrilla movements, etc.
3. Non-military foreign policy, based on diplomacy only, except in
extreme emergencies threatening U.S. borders or self defense.
4. Create a Peace conversion plan as military bases are closed down
and other military activities phased out.
Long Term
1. Content of art and entertainment much less violent and more harmonious
by changed consciousness of artists, not censorship 2. Expand consensus
decision making process to public and community 3. Nuclear disarmament.
Mission - Communities, in order to live in peace with equal opportunities for all members to grow, work and prosper, must guarantee not only equal protection before the law, but also at a minimum, the tolerance of differences among members, and at best a celebration of the differences among our sisters and brothers of the human community, while recognizing the common bonds of sharing our lives and our communities and on the Earth in mutual respect, peace and mutual aid. As Greens, we support the principles and protections of civil and human rights expressed in the Constitution of the United States, including its amendments, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations.
Short Term
1. Greens stand for equal rights for all. In particular Greens oppose
Colorado Amendment 2, the initiative to strip equal rights from gays, lesbians
and bisexuals. We support an amendment to the Colorado Constitution prohibiting
any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
2. Increase immediate short term aid to the homeless, while investing
in subsidized housing for a longer term partial solution.
3. Create a Superfund for victims of toxic contamination.
4. Increase Spanish translations of public documents and signs.
5. Create and enforce policies that protect the health of farm workers
and their right to fair wages and safe working conditions.
6. Support education to combat sexism, ageism, homophobia, racism etc.
7. Oppose state violence against individuals such as torture, police
brutality, and capital punishment.
Medium Term
1. Change public events, holidays, symbols and names that are offensive
and demeaning to ethnic and other groups while encouraging public events
that will create greater contact, mutual understanding and respect among
all groups.
2. Encourage community discussions and events that help people understand
the subtle forms of racism and oppression that are a part of society.
3. Support community-based leadership in solving local problems, such
as in inner city neighborhoods.
Mission - Technology should be used to preserve life - human and non-human - and serve the expansion of moral and ethical consciousness, rather than merely promoting non-sustainable destructive consumption and further poisoning of the earth. There should be public input and control over the introduction and use of new technology. There should be an emphasis on democratic local control, while recognizing the need for appropriate national standards.
Short Term
1. Encourage the use of telecommunications in the workplace so that
the need for commuting and paper can be lessened
2. We support vote by phone plans which make citizen participation
easier. Current weekday voting is difficult for many working people.
Medium Term
1. Permit people full access to computerized records about themselves
such as credit records and the right to challenge errors in the records.
Long Term
1. Encourage decentralized technology and technology that helps to
decentralize power structures.
2. Encourage technology, such as home computers, the Internet,
and computer billboards, that help to spread knowledge and information.
Mission - Equal access to, and ecological sustainability of, all modes of transportation for the public good is necessary for free exchange of goods, services and ideas that will promote the advancement of human society in harmony with the Earth.
Short Term
1. Implement a "true cost" tax on gasoline -- some of which should
be used to fund alternative modes of transportation.
2. Allocate a portion of increased gas tax revenues for the purchase
of rights-of-way as a first consideration for public use in mass transit
and educate the public as to the advantages of these transportation modes.
3. Promote and develop clean and efficient public transportation including
rapid transit, rail/bus hybrids, a linked mass transit system for metropolitan
areas including, but not limited to, the Front Range communities and the
Denver International Airport.
4. Improve, promote, and expand bicycle trails and lanes, allowing
bikes on more city buses.
5. Encourage carpooling through the establishment of variable tolls
and parking fees based upon the number of passengers per vehicle.
6. Replace some lanes along existing congested corridors with high
occupancy vehicle lanes, de-emphasizing the promotion of major new highways
like W-470.
7. Ban the transportation of hazardous wastes on dangerous roads.
8. Establish emergency response plans for toxic spills on highways
and rails.
9. Raise the CAFE standard to 40 mpg by 2005 and to 60 mpg for cars
and 45 mpg for light trucks by 2010
10. Establish fuel efficiency standards for heavy trucks, with gas
guzzler taxes for those that do not meet this standard and gas sipper tax
breaks for heavy trucks that do.
11. Eliminate general tax subsidies for automobile transportation.
12. Encourage monetary incentives from employers for commuters to use
alternative and mass transportation.
Medium Term
1. Expand private and governmental research and development of hydrogen
and other alternative-fueled vehicles.
2. Establish disincentives for private auto use such as the elimination
of free parking for those areas (other than residential) that are well
served by public transit.
3. Accomplish mixed use development in conjunction with public transit
development, so that public transit solutions can provide ready access
to
and from business, commercial and entertainment population centers.
Last updated 19 Oct 2001