We support policies, programs, legislation and candidates who will work to accomplish the following:
Education
- Fully fund public schools.
- Increase teacher pay.
- Reduce class size and testing.
- Increase pre-K, technical education, and teacher preparation programs.
- Address student educational-emotional-social needs resulting from the loss of schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Environment
- Restore the many essential environmental regulations that the current administration has weakened or rescinded.
- Prohibit offshore oil development activities in the Atlantic.
- Encourage the use of alternative, clean energy including wind and solar.
- Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and be a leader in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change.
Economic and Social Justice
- Maintain policies and programs and pass legislation that promote fairness and equal opportunity.
- Pass legislation for: paid sick leave, paid maternity and paternity leave, and child care subsidy programs for low income families.
- Pass legislation to fight hate crime.
- Extend unemployment benefits during the pandemic.
Women’s rights
- Provide: equal pay for equal work, universal child care, and federally guaranteed paid family leave.
- In the wake of the Dobbs Decision by the Supreme Court, advocate against state and federal legislation that criminalizes abortion prior to fetal viability, and by extension fetal personhood laws.
- Support low or no cost access to all safe and effective birth control.
- Pass the Equal Rights Amendment.
- Pass legislation to fight domestic violence.
Health care
- Expand Medicaid in South Carolina.
- Provide access to affordable health care for all Americans.
- Provide government funding of COVID-19 testing and treatment for those without health insurance.
- Provide necessary Personal Protective Equipment for all medical personnel and facilities and establish a national stockpile for future needs.
Gun control
- Prohibit open carry and arming teachers.
- Ban assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and bump stocks.
- Require universal background checks and red-flag laws that keep guns away from violent offenders.
- Raise the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21.
Foreign Policy
- Cooperate with our allies to maintain peace through diplomacy rather than military intervention.
- Assist countries that promote democratic ideals and the protection of basic human rights.
- Work with the international community to limit the spread of infectious diseases.
- Maintain a military sufficient to defend the U.S. and discourage aggression by our adversaries.
- Carry out programs to improve living standards in developing countries.
- Maintain a strong NATO and advocate for selective engagement.
- Protect the U.S. from terrorism.
- Maintain a secure border without a wall; respect the dignity of unauthorized immigrants and provide pathways for them to achieve legal status.