CORE POLICY PRINCIPLES

Download One Nation’s Core Policy Principles (pdf)

Note: This document was developed by the national One Nation Working Together policy committee. Opportunities to engage in dialogue about how ‘One Nation’ manifests in California is part of what the work beyond October 2 is all about. Join us in shaping it.

Everyone in America deserves a just and fair chance to achieve the American Dream. Our national identity is rooted in the ideal that all people – regardless of race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, or ability – should have the opportunity to fulfill their potential and contribute to an economy that works for everyone.

Yet today our nation remains in crisis. We face serious challenges, including: a deepening jobs crisis caused in part by a bubble economy of low wages and exploitative credit. We continue to struggle with a broken immigration system; crumbling infrastructure; too many failing public schools that help some, but not all, children; increased levels of division and discrimination; economic and energy peril; and environmental catastrophe. And, in this time of crisis, too many voices offer only a choice between doing nothing, and turning against one another.

Today, more than ever, we need to break the gridlock in Washington, and we need decisive leadership and policy that will move all in Congress, especially the Senate, forward. A committed public is also needed more than ever, to advance inclusive solutions that will overcome these challenges, put Americans back to work, and pull us all back together as one nation.

One Nation Working Together is about a better future for all of us here in America – a future of justice at home and peace abroad, where we create good jobs for all of us and take on the great challenges we face as a nation: rebuilding our economy; respecting all families; educating all our children in safe environments; transforming how we use energy; ensuring safe, vibrant, diverse communities; and providing for an economic future built on the principles that America has always aspired to achieve.

One Nation Working Together will chart a bold, pragmatic path toward a more unified, sustainable, prosperous future.

We will build support for the following core principles and policy ideals that taken together will advance an economy that works for everyone:

Working together for the creation, protection, and advancement of good jobs

Create new jobs in every sector, so that everyone in our country who wants to work can find a job. There should be a job in America for everyone who wants to work.

Provide immediate relief for those who are currently unemployed

• Extend the federal unemployment program, COBRA, mortgage assistance, and other targeted initiatives helping those who are currently without a job
• Target help for populations and communities in the greatest need, including youth summer jobs and training initiatives

Provide immediate action to stimulate job growth and retention; and consumer demand

• Provide aid to states and cities—including direct job creation at local levels—especially in education, health care, social services and first responder workforces
• Increase the ability of small businesses to obtain assistance and support, including short term loans, grants and other forms of assistance
• Fund infrastructure investment that spurs higher economic growth, clean energy enterprises, and green jobs

Provide a fair chance for every worker in our country to succeed and advance in the workplace

• Everyone who works in America should have the right to join with their co-workers to have a voice on the job
• Pay all workers a living family wage
• Increase and index the minimum wage
• Close the race-, gender-, and all other unjust pay gaps
• End all forms of workplace discrimination and expand anti-discrimination law to be inclusive of everyone
• Protect, honor, fully apply, and expand equal opportunity and diverse business inclusion practices
• Create employment pathways and training opportunities for workers who want to advance their careers
• Make every job a safe job
• Provide paid sick days and paid family leave for all workers

Rebuild the U.S. economy for the 21st Century

• Reorient our country’s trade and tax policies to tackle job loss and currency manipulation, and promote the creation of good jobs at home
• Create a national industrial policy to transform our economy into a sustainable one that provides good jobs and a good quality of life for America’s families
• Provide greater national investment in new jobs, improved infrastructure, and public education instead of escalating military spending
• Prevent the repeat of the economic crisis by addressing the problem of financial institutions, including those deemed “too big to fail”
• Put an end to the exploitative practices that contributed to the economic crisis; increase watchdog powers of institutions such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and prohibit and punish predatory lending and mortgage scams

Working together for justice and equal opportunity for all

Advance and implement policy principles and practices that prohibit and prevent discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or ability.

Enhance, strengthen and preserve voting rights for all Americans

• Enact policies that expand access to the polls for everyone, including former felons
• Preserve policies that established to address systematic voter disenfranchisement, including the elimination of deceptive practices
• Secure voting representation in Congress and full democracy for the residents of the District of Columbia, so that our pledge of “liberty and justice for all” will apply equally to all who live in our nation’s capital

End discriminatory practices within the criminal justice system

• End racial profiling by law enforcement officials
• Eliminate statutes, such as mandatory minimums, which have had a disparately devastating impact on the poor as well as racial and ethnic minorities
• Restore trust between police officers and the communities they serve by establishing competent civilian review boards with real authority to identify and address misconduct
• Establish policies to help ex-felony offenders reintegrate into society, including job training, educational opportunities, and voting rights that reducing recidivism rates

Preserve and honor our history as a nation that is inclusive of immigrants and maintain respect for the rule of law

• Fix our broken immigration system in a way that provides for due process; protects workers and our national security; quickly reunites families, holds employers accountable, and provides a fair path to citizenship.
• Avoid or end ineffective, costly, and dangerous proposals or provisions that seek to round up, detain, and deport 12 million unauthorized workers, split families, encourage racial profiling, and divert scarce resources away from crime fighting.
• Provide for a path to citizenship for individuals who are completing an education and/or serve in their community, or in the military

Working together to protect and strengthen the safety net, and create opportunity for all

• End the foreclosure epidemic and save the homes of America’s families
• Require principal write downs in exchange for government aid for mortgage lenders or services
• Reform bankruptcy laws to protect families, working people, seniors, and students
• Prioritize safe, secure and affordable housing for all
• Provide adequate resources to end all forms of discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing
• Protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare
• Repair private pension systems
• Complete the promise of accessible and affordable health care for all people, including the public option and other effective means to provide coverage for all; and implementation of anti-discrimination provisions

Working together for quality public education for all

• Ensure that all people have equal access to affordable, adequately resourced, high quality public education throughout their lives, from preschool through college
• Provide for quality teaching jobs with training, and support necessary to continuously improve classroom practice and safety, and serve students better
• Increase federal support to institutions of higher education that provide opportunities for underserved communities, including women’s institutions, community colleges, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Hispanic Serving Institutions
• Increase access to higher education by increasing affordability and decreasing dependency on student loans
• End the school-to-prison pipeline by investing in public education systems not prisons, and provide more education opportunities for incarcerated youth
• Create systems and structures which maximize diverse community input to assist in ending all policies and actions that directly or indirectly lead to re-segregation by race or ethnicity of our public schools

Conclusion

As One Nation Working Together we will work for policy principles that restore the inclusion of all communities striving to achieve the American Dream. One Nation Working Together will push for an economy that works for everyone by advocating for policy principles that result in good jobs, and well trained work forces. We will work for quality public education and training for our children, who are tomorrow’s work force. We will work for principles and laws that provide for equal opportunity for everyone, so that all have a chance to achieve the American Dream. Finally, we will support policy principles that create a path toward economic and environmental sustainability for today and for generations to come.