Justice Democrats

Justice Democrats
Motto "Democrats that represent people, not corporations"
Formation January 23, 2017 (2017-01-23)
Founders Cenk Uygur
Kyle Kulinski
Saikat Chakrabarti
Zack Exley
Founded at Los Angeles, California
Type Political action committee
Registration no. C00630665
Headquarters Los Angeles, California
Website justicedemocrats.com

The Justice Democrats are a political action committee[1] founded on January 23, 2017, by Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk, and former leadership from the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. The organization, formed as a result of the 2016 United States presidential election, has a stated goal of reforming the Democratic Party by running "a unified campaign to replace every corporate-backed member of Congress and rebuild the Democratic Party from scratch" starting in the 2018 Congressional midterm elections.[2][3]

The Justice Democrats have been described as attempting to create a left-wing populist movement analogous to the right-wing Tea Party movement.[4] Co-founder Kyle Kulinski describes Justice Democrats (and himself) as pushing for social democratic ideas, particularly a system similar to the Scandinavian model. In a segment about an international poll on happiness, Kyle says, "Notice anything about [the countries on the top of the list]? First of all, the overwhelming majority of them are the Scandinavian countries, the Nordic countries. Which, I don't know, we talk about on this show maybe more than anybody else talks about them on the planet. [...] It turns out social democracy is wildly popular. [...] In other words, it's a healthy mix of socialism and capitalism, and you regulate the capitalism to make sure there's no abuses, and you have a rising standard of living and everybody's happy."[5]

The Justice Democrats claim to hold views that are agreed upon by most Americans, but deemed 'politically impossible' by the current political establishment because of systemic political corruption.[6][7] They claim that as all campaigns need donations, the candidates who hold policies viewed as unfavorable by corporate interests and wealthy individuals will be denied funding, and that thereby the system in actuality ends up forcing politicians to change their policies to suit the current business environment.[8][9]

History

After the 2016 presidential election resulted in the victory of Donald Trump, some critics of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party pointed to the perceived loyalty of politicians to large donors as a major contributing factor to Clinton's loss to Trump. These critics contend that a campaign model more similar to Bernie Sanders, whose 2016 presidential campaign was funded by small individual donations, will increase public trust in politicians and accountability to constituents.

On January 23, 2017, Cenk Uygur and Kyle Kulinski founded the Justice Democrats with ten others, including former staffers from the Sanders campaign such as its Director of Organizing Technology, Saikat Chakrabarti, and MoveOn.org fundraiser Zack Exley.[10][11][12] They seek to create a left-wing populist movement similar to the right-wing Tea Party movement,[10][4][13] and to support alternative Democratic candidates beginning with the 2018 mid-term elections, in order to either defeat the incumbent Democrats or cause them to become accountable to their constituents. They require their candidates to take a pledge to refuse financial contributions from billionaires and corporations.[2] They also hope to rebuild the Democratic Party nationally, and to defeat President Trump if he runs for re-election in 2020.

"The Democrats used to represent something wonderful – voters. We want you to represent just us, not your donors."
— Cenk Uygur, known for his affection of puns, explaining the name of the group[14]

In March 2017, Justice Democrats announced that they teamed up with Brand New Congress to further their goals.[12]

As of March 20, 2017, Justice Democrats have reported they have received 8,300 nominations and raised $1 million.[15]

On May 9, 2017, House Representative Ro Khanna of the California 17th district announced that he would become a Justice Democrat, making him the first sitting member of Congress to join.[16]

Candidates

As of June 9, 2017, there are ten candidates officially endorsed by both Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress.[17][18]

Candidate State District or Senate Campaign
Cori Bush Missouri Missouri's 1st congressional district brandnewcongress.org/cori-bush
Paula Jean Swearengin West Virginia U.S. Senator of West Virginia brandnewcongress.org/paula-jean
Michael A. Hepburn Florida Florida's 27th congressional district brandnewcongress.org/michael-a-hepburn
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez New York New York's 14th congressional district brandnewcongress.org/alexandria-ocasio
Adrienne Bell Texas Texas's 14th congressional district brandnewcongress.org/adrienne-bell
Anthony Clark Illinois Illinois's 7th congressional district brandnewcongress.org/anthony-clark
Sarah Smith Washington Washington's 9th congressional district brandnewcongress.org/sarah-smith
Ryan Stone Texas Texas's 10th congressional district brandnewcongress.org/ryan-stone
Letitia Plummer Texas Texas's 22nd congressional district brandnewcongress.org/letitia-plummer
Chardo Richardson Florida Florida's 7th congressional district brandnewcongress.org/chardo-richardson

As of May 9, 2017, there is one sitting member of Congress: Ro Khanna of California's 17th congressional district.[19]

Platform

The Justice Democrats' highest priority is to effectively eliminate the role of money and conflicting interests in politics. They wish to pass a constitutional amendment to "put an end to Washington corruption and bring about election reform".[2] They support the idea of publicly funded elections, banning Super PACs as well as banning private donations to politicians and campaigns. In addition, they advocate the reinstatement of provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and a ban on gerrymandering for partisan gain. As a core policy, any candidate running with the Justice Democrats must pledge to refuse any donations from billionaires or corporations.[2] They plan to call a constitutional convention.[13]

In addition, their stated platform contains many progressive priorities,[2] such as:

Summer for Progress

Several progressive organizations, including Our Revolution, Democratic Socialists of America, National Nurses United, Working Families Party, and Brand New Congress, announced in July 2017 a push to encourage House Democrats to sign on to a #PeoplesPlatform, which consists of supporting "eight bills currently in the House of Representatives that will address the concerns of everyday Americans."[20] These eight bills and the topics they address are:

  1. Medicare for All: H.R. 676 Medicare For All Act[21]
  2. Free College Tuition: H.R. 1880 College for All Act of 2017[22]
  3. Worker Rights: H.R.15 - Raise the Wage Act [23]
  4. Women’s Rights: H.R.771 - Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH Woman) Act of 2017 [24]
  5. Voting Rights: H.R. 2840 - Automatic Voter Registration Act[25]
  6. Environmental Justice: Climate Change Bill - TBD
  7. Criminal Justice and Immigrant Rights: H.R. 3227 - Justice is Not For Sale Act of 2017[26]
  8. Taxing Wall Street: H.R. 1144 - Inclusive Prosperity Act[27]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Details for Committee ID: C00630665". Campaign Finance Disclosure Portal. Federal Election Commission.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Platform". Justice Democrats. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
  3. ↑ McKay, Tom (January 23, 2017). "Cenk Uygur, Bernie Sanders staffers team up to take over the Democratic Party". Mic. Retrieved January 27, 2017.
  4. 1 2 Ellis, Emma Grey (January 23, 2017). "The Bernie Sanders Wing of the Democrats Wants to Move the Party Left—With YouTube". Wired. Retrieved March 3, 2017.
  5. ↑ Kulinski, Kyle (March 21, 2017). The Happiest Country In The World Is... Secular Talk. Retrieved August 1, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Progressives Are the New Silent Majority – BillMoyers.com".
  7. ↑ Tesfaye, Sophia (5 July 2015). "5 'Radical' Bernie Sanders Ideas Many Americans Strongly Support" – via AlterNet.
  8. ↑ Schwarz2015-07-30T16:23:50+00:00, Jon SchwarzJon. ""Yes, We're Corrupt": A List of Politicians Admitting That Money Controls Politics". The Intercept.
  9. ↑ "One graph shows how the rich control American politics".
  10. 1 2 David Weigel (January 23, 2017). "Progressives launch 'Justice Democrats' to counter party's 'corporate' legislators". The Washington Post.
  11. ↑ Scott Hough (January 23, 2017). "Justice Democrats: Cenk Uygur, The Young Turks, Progressives Launch Party Takeover". Inquisitr.
  12. 1 2 Tom McKay (January 23, 2017). "Cenk Uygur, Bernie Sanders staffers team up to take over the Democratic Party". Mic.com. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
  13. 1 2 Eduardo Suárez. "'Debemos salvar el alma de los demócratas', dice el hombre que quiere crear el Tea Party de la izquierda" (in Spanish). Univision.
  14. ↑ "Cenk Uygur Launches A "New Wing" Of Democratic Party: Justice Democrats". RealClearPolitics.com. Retrieved March 25, 2017.
  15. ↑ Alex Seitz-Wald (March 20, 2017). "Democrats Beware: Sanders 'Movement' Turns to Midterms". NBCNews.
  16. ↑ "Ro Khanna on Twitter".
  17. ↑ "Candidates". JusticeDemocrats.com. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
  18. ↑ "Candidates". BrandNewCongress.org. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
  19. ↑ "California politics updates: Gov. Brown's adds cash to budget; McClintock calls for independent prosecutor for Russia investigation" – via LA Times.
  20. ↑ "Summer for Progress Petition". Retrieved 23 July 2017.
  21. ↑ 115th Congress (2017) (January 24, 2017). "H.R. 676 (115th)". Legislation. GovTrack.us. Retrieved July 23, 2017. Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Act
  22. ↑ 115th Congress (2017) (April 4, 2017). "H.R. 1880 (115th)". Legislation. GovTrack.us. Retrieved July 23, 2017. College for All Act of 2017
  23. ↑ 115th Congress (2017) (May 25, 2017). "H.R. 15 (115th)". Legislation. GovTrack.us. Retrieved July 23, 2017. Raise the Wage Act
  24. ↑ 115th Congress (2017) (January 31, 2017). "H.R. 771 (115th)". Legislation. GovTrack.us. Retrieved July 23, 2017. Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH Woman) Act of 2017
  25. ↑ 115th Congress (2017) (June 8, 2017). "H.R. 2840 (115th)". Legislation. GovTrack.us. Retrieved July 23, 2017. Automatic Voter Registration Act
  26. ↑ 115th Congress (2017) (July 13, 2017). "H.R. 3227 (115th)". Legislation. GovTrack.us. Retrieved July 23, 2017. To improve Federal sentencing and corrections practices, and for other purposes.
  27. ↑ 115th Congress (2017) (February 16, 2017). "H.R. 1144 (115th)". Legislation. GovTrack.us. Retrieved July 23, 2017. Inclusive Prosperity Act of 2017
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