Committed to the “four pillars” of environmentalism, non-violence, social and economic justice, and grassroots organizing, Greens are renewing democracy without the support of corporate donors.

Our nation was born as one of the first great experiments in modern democracy.

Therefore we call for a certain percentage of all signatures gathered to come from volunteer collectors.

We advocate that all no persons convicted of felonies crimes shall regain full lose citizenship rights upon completion of their sentence, including the right to vote and to run for elected office. except where such loss of rights is a direct consequence of their crime or their punishment, such as a prohibition on running for office for bribery or because unable to perform the duties of the office due to incarceration.

We call for implementation of all recommendations of the Brennan Center’s report, “The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic World” by July 1, 2008.

16. As legislatures are updating voting equipment in response to the federal Helping America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2001, we support the growing movement of citizens calling for a strict requirement of a voter-verified paper audit trail for all voting machines installed across the United States. Electronic voting machines must include a verifiable paper trail that allows every voter to verify that his or her vote was recorded and counted accurately, coupled with random audits based on the paper trail. Technology must be used that incorporates a voter-verified paper trail that is accessible to vision-impaired voters.

17. Vote-counting software codes manufactured by private corporations have been deemed proprietary, banning public review of the means by which elections are determined. Therefore, to protect against fraud, voting machine source code must be open for public inspection and verification before and after an election.

A basic income guarantee shall be provided to everyone, as a matter of right, sufficient for every person to purchase necessities not otherwise provided, including shelter, food, utilities, transportation, and health care.

5. Family assistance such as the earned income tax credit, available to working poor families in which the parent supports and lives with the children, should be maintained and increased to offset regressive payroll taxes and growing inequalities in American society.

6. A living family wage is vital to the social health of communities.

Our government does not have the right to justify pre-emptive invasion of another country on the grounds that the other country harbors, trains, equips and funds a terrorist cell for any reason.

Our defense military budget has increased out of all proportion to any military threat to the United States, and to at the expense of our domestic social, economic and environmental needs. The United States government must reduce our defense military budget to half of its current size the size needed to defend our borders against military invasion.

The U.S. must not be a conduit for defense military contractors to market their products abroad and must shift our export market from arms to peaceful technology, industrial and agricultural products, and education.

We support the funding and expansion of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in their missions to educate and train people of less developed nations in initiating local business and economic development, and in providing health care and family planning, where requested by grassroots democratic groups in those nations, and in the manner requested by those groups.

Early America was based on a plurality of cultures that lived largely in harmony with the natural environment. European settlers committed genocide against those cultures, brought slavery with them, and otherwise practiced forms of expression now considered extreme. But they also established the first industrializing nation to formally declare allegiance to democratic principles. This gradually led to relative equality of opportunity.

Historically, America led the world in establishing a society with democratic values such as equal opportunity and protection from discrimination.

More than 43 46 million Americans have no medical insurance coverage, and many more lack adequate coverage.

The Green Party strongly believes that the quality of life is determined not only by material aspects that can be measured and counted but also by elements that cannot be quantified. We firmly support the separation of church and state, but we also acknowledge the spiritual dimension of life, and we honor the cultivation of various types of spiritual experience in our diverse society. We self-aware human beings, all other pulsing beings, our incredible planet, and the vast unknowable universe are all totally awesome!

We are committed to establishing relationships that honor diversity; that support the self-definition and self-determination of all people; and that consciously confront the barriers of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, class oppression, ageism, and the many ways our culture separates us from working together.

Since the beginning of what we call civilization, when men's dominance over women was firmly established until the present day, oOur history has been marred with oppression of and brutality to women.

Commission should actively investigate and prosecute sexual harassment complaints. Women who file complaints must not be persecuted and should be protected under federal and state law. We must enshrine in law the basic principle that women have the same rights as men, and promote gender equality and fairness in the work force to ensure that women receive equal pay for jobs of equal worth. We consider that work generally done by women IS of at least equal worth to work generally done by men.

[following section on trafficking of women...]

The Green Party supports all reasonable and democratic efforts to eradicate this extreme abuse of human rights, including but not limited to enforcement of existing laws and passage of tough new ones, punishing traffickers, aiding victims, increasing public awareness, reforming immigration laws, supporting existing programs and creating new ones.

After the present “c”, add a new paragraph, “d”, and move the following paragraphs up one letter each. The new paragraph:

Spanking, slapping, pinching, and any other physical contact with children by parents or other adults whose intended purpose is to cause pain should be prohibited by law. All children deserve discipline that is protective and nurturing.

Military veterans deserve the same rights to needed medical and other care and support granted to everyone else. The best way for us to support those presently in the military or who may decide to join is to work like hell to assure that our military does nothing except 1) protect our national borders against violent invasion, and 2) participate beyond our borders only in actions fully and freely approved by the United Nations.

Support for men and women in the armed forces must go far beyond the rhetoric used to discredit the peace movement in the U.S. today. We believe that the ill-advised and illegal actions of the U.S. administration have unnecessarily put our troops in harm's way. We further believe that the dangerous burden of fighting the unnecessary war in Iraq, and the wars that may follow, due to the administration's overly narrow and militaristic response to terrorism is disproportionately borne by families of lesser means. Those who are required to carry out militaristic policies, often with great hardship to themselves, their families, and even the risk of their lives, deserve our respect and our commitment to adequate compensation and benefits.

a. Increase the current pay levels, monthly imminent danger pay, and family separation allowances for those risking their lives in combat zones.

f. Ensure a smooth transition from active military service life to civilian life by providing counseling, housing, emergency management, job protection, and other support systems.

h. Request Congress to enact a new GI Bill, similar to the one that began after World War II and ended in 1981, to provide the following benefits:

• Tuition grants for four years of college or other educational opportunities.
• Low interest loans for housing or business start-ups.
• Free medical care for military personnel and their families for ten years following separation from the armed forces—until universal health care becomes a reality.

At least in context of the present USA role in the world, the phrase “military service” is a contradiction in terms. Such phrases should not be used.

We support the creation of independent consumer advocacy agencies in order to protect the interests of consumers against corporate lobbyists who have too often successfully argued before regulatory agencies against consumer rights. We would require legal monopolies and regulated industries (including electric, gas, water, and telephone utilities) to set up statewide consumer action groups to act on behalf of and advocate for consumer interests.

We call for better information for consumers about the products they buy, and where and how they are made. The full social, environmental, and economic effects of production of all products should be readily and freely available to all potential consumers. We endorse truth in advertising, including the clear definition of words like “recycled” and “natural.”

Welfare: A Commitment to Ending Poverty

1. All people have a right to food, housing, medical care, jobs that pay a living wage, education, and support in times of hardship.

3. We call for restoration of a federally funded entitlement program to support children, families, the unemployed, elderly and disabled, with no time limit on benefits. This program should be funded through the existing welfare budget, reductions in military spending and corporate subsidies, and a fair, progressive income tax.

4. We call for a graduated supplemental income, or negative income tax, that would maintain all individual adult incomes above the poverty level, regardless of employment or marital status.

5. We advocate reinvesting a significant portion of the military budget into family support, livingwage job development, and work training programs. Publicly funded work training and education programs should have a goal of increasing employment options at finding livingwage jobs.

6. We support public funding for the development of living-wage jobs in community and environmental service. For example, environmental clean-up, recycling, sustainable agriculture and food production, sustainable forest management, repair and maintenance of public facilities, neighborhood-based public safety, aides in schools, libraries and childcare centers, and construction and renovation of energy-efficient housing. We oppose enterprise zone give-aways which benefit corporations more than inner-city communities.

8. Forcing welfare recipients to accept jobs that pay wages below a living wage drives wages down and exploits workers for private profit at public expense. We reject workfare as being a form of indentured servitude.

9. Corporations receiving public subsidies must provide jobs that pay a living wage, observe basic workers' rights, and agree to affirmative action policies.

We also oppose charter schools unless set up with adequate public interest safeguards or the administration of public schools by private, for-profit entities.

1. Any attempt to combat crime must begin with restoration of community. We encourage positive approaches that build hope, responsibility and a sense of belonging. Prisons should be the sentence of last resort, reserved for violent criminals. Those convicted of non-violent offenses should be handled by other programs including halfway houses, electronic monitoring, work-furlough, community service and restitution programs. Those programs must not expand the scope of control of the criminal justice system over persons convicted of crimes. Substance abuse should be addressed as a medical problem requiring treatment, not imprisonment, and a failed drug test should not result in revocation of parole. Incarcerated prisoners of the drug war should be release to the above programs.

2. Prisons are presently serving some of the population formerly held in the mental health system. Ninety-five percent of those who commit suicide in jail or prison have a diagnosed mental disorder. Mentally ill prisoners need separate psychiatric facilities providing psychological and medical care, rehabilitation, and release to appropriate community mental health facilities. Care must be taken to limit who may be designated as "mentally ill." Those so designated should be kept in the community, or returned to the community quickly, and provided adequate support to help them avoid a repeat of any criminal acts.

The aging of our prison population will lead to huge needless expenditures in the next decade. Prisoners too old and those too infirm to be a threat to society should be released to less expensive, community-based facilities.

We call for more funding for rape and domestic violence prevention and education programs, and stiffer sentences for people convicted of domestic violence.

Work systematically toward the abolition of prisons, following ideas advocated by Ruth Morris, Fay Honey Knopp, Angela Davis, and others who have provided insights and practical measures for doing so.

Freedom on bail must be the right of recognizance should be assumed, absent specific indications of likely flight risk or danger to the community, for all defendants charged with non-violent crimes.

We call for decriminalization of victimless crimes. For example, the possession of small amounts of marijuana. These crimes include but are not limited to: possession or sale of drugs (which should be handled through regulation), consensual sex acts between adults including prostitution, sitting, lying, sleeping, or being in public places if homeless, "loitering," exercising First Amendment speech rights in places, public or private, where the public is invited.

Consumption-oriented lifestyles that have evolved in the industrial world have resulted in a minority of people consuming a majority of resources. This is as significant a far greater threat to the Earth's carrying capacity as than the high birth rates in low-consumption countries.

Those living in the more industrialized world must end the habits of waste and over-consumption that place as much more stress on the environment as than does population growth in developing less industrialized (and generally more oppressed) nations.

Free speech and free press are constitutionally and politically guaranteed rights. Democracy requires a wide variety of opinions and information, which is not currently provided by corporate controlled media outlets. The Green Party calls for the establishment of accountable citizen initiated and controlled radio and television stations. These citizen-managed media networks would be financed by requiring corporations to pay for the right to use our publicly owned air waves. Mechanisms must be established to prevent political manipulation and exploitation of this essential and valuable resource, so that all citizens are adequately informed. Citizen controlled and publicly funded newspapers, modeled on the former Los Angeles Municipal News, should be established everywhere. Advertising-free internet communication and other means of communication must be established or, as applicable, remain fully under accountable citizen control.

Taxing advertising wherever it occurs to fund democratic media in those outlets, which include all means of electronic communication, newspapers, magazines, billboards, signs, etc.

Taxing electronic advertising sales to fund democratic media outlets.

Crack down on landlords who refuse to maintain their properties in habitable condition, or who engage in illegal evictions, with hefty fines and, in extreme cases, jail terms or confiscation of their housing.

Greatly expand community land trusts, such that they become available to anyone who chooses that type of home ownership.

Homelessness is a national disgrace and crisis. Declare a national emergency. Take unused or underused properties suitable for housing and immediately provide some of them, with supportive services where necessary, to all those who are presently homeless. Keep the others for those who are expected to become homeless, until such time as adequate affordable housing and security of tenure exist for everyone.

Expand community-based services for homeless persons and make them more readily available.

We call for the rapid destruction of all existing nuclear weaponry worldwide. We must take the lead, working under the auspices of the United Nations.

Make airports accessible by local transit systems.

General

24. Phase in full-cost pricing of transport, to fully include the presently externalized environmental and social costs

We generally support the Principles of Environmental Justice as outlined by the 1991 National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit (www.ejnet.org/ej/platform.html).

Labels should address the presence of GMOs, use of irradiation, pesticide application (in production, transport, storage, and retail), labor conditions, and the country of origin.