PDA MA Wins with Inside/Outside Strategy at State Democratic Convention
By Bruce Taub, PDA MA State Coordinator and Russell Freedman, PDA MA member
June 10, 2009, Springfield, MA
Working with PDA Director Tim Carpenter, a strong core team of PDA MA volunteers and an ever expanding set of progressive allies in the state, most notably
MassCare and the MA AFL-CIO, PDA MA succeeded in passing a single-payer healthcare and an environmental amendment to the platform of the Massachusetts State Democratic Party.
There was widespread dissatisfaction with the state party apparatus, which had advertised an open, grass roots process for writing a new state party platform. Instead, they produced a document that reflected their big tent philosophy, which removed all of the specific language that was the backbone of the previous document. After barely surviving a vote to throw out the whole platform, the leadership took up amendments that restored specific language from the earlier document. Amendments needed 250 verified signatures for consideration. An energetic team of PDA volunteers worked Friday evening and Saturday morning to collect the signatures.
The single-payer amendment stated: “We believe that high quality health care should be available to all through a single-payer government sponsored program like Medicare.” This restored the pro single-payer language in the platform that was adopted four years ago.
The environmental amendment reflected the growing insistance of the scientific community that CO2 be reduced to 350 ppm in the atmosphere to reverse climate change. The amendment read: “Promoting those strategies which will quickly stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide at a minimum of 350 ppm and protect against further climate change, in accord with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
In addition, PDA MA offered an amendment calling for the conservation of urban wild lands.
All three measures passed by overwhelming majorities.
An Accountability Resolution advanced by PDA was also adopted, instructing the Massachusetts Congressional delegation to support and work for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate, and, where appropriate, to prosecute, any person, at any level of government found to be responsible for willfully violating the laws and the Constitution of the United States, or employing or advocating torture, or waging illegal wars with wanton disregard for truth and for the lives and safety of civilians.
PDA MA members met in advance of the convention to decide which amendments and resolutions they would pursue. During the convention, PDA MA delegates rounded up the needed support for the passage of the amendments and the resolution. Western MA PDA chapter members were especially effective in the lobbying effort on Friday night. Most satisfying was the increased recognition that PDA MA received from the state party leadership and the delegates in attendance.
Efforts and victories such as these, and similar efforts and victories at the
California Democratic Convention in May, confirm that PDA activists are succeeding in carrying out the "inside" portion of PDA's inside/outside strategy.
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