This article appeared in Massachusetts Peace Action’s Summer 2017 newsletter
The Massachusetts Democratic Party passed its most progressive platform ever at its convention in Worcester June 3. Single-payer healthcare, a $15 minimum wage, paid family leave, forgiveness of student loan debt, a ranked-choice voting system, an independent commission to draw the state’s congressional districts, an end to for-profit prisons, a carbon tax, and accountability for police officers who use excessive force, are among its provisions.
It was the largest platform convention in the state party’s history. Our Revolution Massachusetts (ORMA), the Bernie Sanders-inspired organization, or ganized 700 con vention dele gates and had a substantial presence.
Delegates passed four ORMA-sup ported plat form am endments, on voting reform, criminal justice, climate justice, and student debt relief, and added them to the party platform.
Massachusetts Peace Action (MAPA) and ORMA then proposed two platform planks dealing with questions of war and peace:
“Massachusetts in the World” calls for a foreign policy that relies more on diplomacy than on war and the threat of war; reductions in military spending to fund urgent needs at home; reducing the threat of nuclear war.
“Peace in the Middle East” calls for an end to US military interventions; stopping massive weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and other non-democratic regimes; peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians, while affirming US policy that Israel’s settlements in occupied territory are obstacles to peace; opposition to limits on free speech on questions of Israel and Palestine.
While delegates to the Convention were allowed to debate and vote on various other ORMA platform amendments, the Party leadership ruled that platform planks dealing with foreign policy issues were “out of order”— although there is no such rule in the party charter or convention rules. Yet the previous 2013 party platform had stated in its preamble: “We want strong diplomacy and support nonviolent conflict resolution as a first resort in our domestic and foreign relations and call for a reduced military budget that allows for investment in human needs” — language that was dropped from the 2017 edition.
One can only suppose that behind this undemocratic maneuver was the determination of influential party members to reject any language addressing the Israel-Palestine conflict that included the question of Israeli settlements or failed to place blame on “Palestinian violence” for the failure to reach a negotiated agreement.
MAPA had submitted a resolution on Peace and Security for Israelis and Palestinians to the Democratic State Com mittee last August, but DSC Chair Gus Bickford, through a series of maneuvers, culminating in a 79-42 procedural vote at the Bourne DSC meeting on April 29, had managed to prevent a discussion and vote on the resolution. The controversy was covered in the Boston Globe, Springfield Republican, and other media.
Then, days before the convention, delegates received an email under the heading “United Not Divided” which mischaracterized the Israel/Palestine resolution as “unbalanced and misleading” and “divisive and damaging to our party.”
Party leaders at the convention then blocked debate on policies that – judging from recent opinion polls — have majority support from the party’s grassroots. Blocking debate is what actually divides the party and drives away voters at the ballot box.
The convention chair also ruled out of order an ORMA amendment that would have required Democratic candidates to support at least 50% of the party platform in order to receive support by the party organization.
ORMA plans to organize more local groups and hold a founding conference this fall.
