Jobs and the Economy

We believe that a well-educated, motivated workforce and a level playing field in the realm of employment are key to attracting new business and building a sustainable economy.

We believe that learning the fundamentals early is important. We should not train our children for just one job, but give them the tools to pursue any job opportunity in our global economy. By stressing in our schools the basics of reading, writing and analytical thinking, our workforce becomes not only adaptable, but also highly productive. The basics of schooling should include making post-secondary education available and affordable to all. We support targeted tax cuts that will help make college degrees as common as high school diplomas.

Our Party knows that nothing is more important than creating good-paying jobs that can support a middle-class life—from nurses, firefighters, and teachers to construction workers, factory workers, and small business owners. That is why we are committed to doing everything we can to build a full employment economy, where everyone has a job that pays enough to raise a family and live in dignity with a sense of purpose. Rhode Island Democrats will build strong, sustained, shared economic growth.

Fairness and Economic Opportunity

No one that works full time should have to raise a family in poverty. We support the goal that all Rhode Islanders should earn at least $15 an hour, and are committed to raising the minimum wage and ensuring equal pay, regardless of gender. Democrats also believe that no Rhode Islander should have to choose between a paycheck and caring for their own health or the health of a loved one, and we support the right of all workers to earn a reasonable number of paid sick days. We recognize that 3 since the Great Recession, most new income and wealth in our country has gone to the top one percent. We are committed to reversing this growing inequality, and believe in tax policies that support the middle class and that do not sacrifice working families for the sake of the wealthy few.

As Democrats, we believe the right to collectively bargain is essential so that working men and women have the strength to improve their living standards, provide for their families, and contribute to building a strong and vibrant middle class. We believe that government, at its best, supports and protects the rights of workers and support the rights of all public and private sector workers to organize in order to collectively bargain for livable wages, fair benefits, and safe working conditions. To that end, we believe so-called “right to work” laws are wrong for all workers and oppose any effort to enact such laws in Rhode Island. We vigorously oppose efforts that would eliminate dues check-off procedures, roll-back prevailing wage standards, abolish fair share requirements, efforts to roll back federal overtime rules and other measures designed to restrict workers’ rights.

Education

Every child no matter who they are, how much their families earn, or where they live, should have access to a high-quality education, from preschool to all day kindergarten through high school and beyond. This education should be provided in structurally sound, well maintained buildings with up to date technology. Our party believes all Rhode Islanders should have the opportunity to pursue higher education regardless of ability to pay. Democrats are unified in their strong belief that every student should be able to graduate from college debt-free, and working families should be able to attend public colleges and universities tuition-free.

As we make college affordable for future students, we will not forget about the millions of college graduates and their families who bear unsustainable levels of student debt and who need help right now. Democrats support programs that allow refinancing of that debt to accelerate payoffs and lower interest rates so that college graduates and their families will have more resources available for housing, medical care and consumer spending to help get Rhode Island’s economy moving again.

We recognize and honor all of the professionals who work in public schools to support students' education — teachers, education support professionals, and specialized staff. We know that good teachers are essential to improving student learning and helping all students to meet high academic standards. We will bring stakeholders together to lift up and trust our educators, continually build their capacity, and ensure that our schools are safe, welcoming, collaborative, and well-resourced places for our students, educators, and communities.

A Woman’s Right to Choose

We stand behind the right of every woman to make reproductive medical decisions about her own body in consultation with her doctor, without governmental prohibitions or burdensome restrictions, consistent with Roe v. Wade. We view a woman’s right to choose as a private matter, which is a fundamental liberty protected by the United States Constitution. Therefore we will fight to protect a woman’s right and a family’s right to seek medical care wherever they wish, regardless of ability to pay, and we support laws designed to protect that right. Further, we support efforts to improve contraceptive access and research, family planning and policies that support healthy child bearing and strong parenting skills.

Immigration

Since its inception, immigrants have played the key role in the development of the United States. Today we, as Rhode Island Democrats, believe that those seeking a better life in the United States should be treated with respect and dignity. We support comprehensive immigration reform, which includes improving border security, and prioritizing those who pose a threat to the safety of our communities, not hardworking families who are contributing to their communities. We want to see Congress create a faster path to citizenship for veterans and those who legally seek asylum. We oppose any religious tests to bar immigrants or refugees from entering the United States. Rhode Island Democrats overwhelmingly support programs such as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and we seek to help residents of our state in the path to citizenship who are here with Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

Veterans and Military Families

Our Party believes that our state and our nation have a sacred, moral responsibility to keep faith with all our veterans and wounded warriors. We must take care of those who have put their lives on the line to defend us. That is why we will push for more educational benefits and job training, end chronic homelessness and combat suicide, and reintegration. We will fight for every veteran to have timeless access to high-quality health care and timely processing of claims and appeals. Rhode Island Democrats will support military families with jobs, education, childcare, and health care. We will promote family-friendly policies and champion efforts to care for our military family members, especially for the spouses and children who have to rebuild their lives after the loss of a loved one or life-altering injury or disability.

Support for Senior Citizens

Rhode Island Democrats are committed to endure that seniors do not have to choose between putting food on the table, keeping a roof over their heads, or buying the medication that they need to stay healthy. Rhode Island Democrats are committed to programs that provide income security for senior citizens, including federal efforts to protect and expand Social Security and state efforts to protect pensions when pension plans are in distress.

We strongly support the federal Older Americans Act, which funds critical programs to help seniors remain independent in their own homes and communities. We support policies that strengthen and expand the home care workforce, give seniors and people with disabilities access to quality, affordable long-term care, services, and supports, and ensure that all of these resources are readily available at home or in the community. We are also committed to policies and programs that address the growing problems of elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform

Democrats believe in a fair and impartial criminal justice system that strives to rehabilitate incarcerated individuals and reunite them with their communities in a way that decreases recidivism and promotes positive and lasting lifestyle changes. We understand that our current system of mass incarceration and our excessive probation rate are not effectively achieving these goals, despite great taxpayer expense. We support efforts to reduce the growth in our incarcerated population by prioritizing probation supervision resources and expanding funding to community-based programs with the goal of reducing recidivism.

We also recognize that our current system disproportionately criminalizes communities of color. Rhode Islanders of color face more surveillance in their communities and greater obstacles within the criminal justice system, and we are committed to striving for racial justice at every level of our criminal justice system.

The Rhode Island Democratic Party supports efforts to work with our local law enforcement agencies to foster lasting and quality relationships between the communities they serve and their departments. We believe it is possible to respect and honor our police officers who bravely serve and protect our state while also insisting upon a culture of collaboration, cooperation and respect for those they have sworn to protect and serve.

The Environment

Climate change is an existential threat to our state and a defining challenge of our time. Already, municipalities from Newport to Westerly are impacted by rising seas and flooding is growing more severe across our state. The best science tells us that without ambitious, immediate action across our economy to cut carbon pollution and other greenhouse gases, all of these impacts will be far worse in the future. We cannot leave our children a Rhode Island that has been profoundly damaged.

The Rhode Island Democratic Party has a deep commitment to tackling the climate challenge, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and creating good-paying middle class jobs in the process. We support the goals of the Resilient Rhode Island Act, and believe our state must be running entirely on clean energy by mid-century. We will take bold steps to slash carbon pollution and protect clean air, ensure no Rhode Islanders are left behind as we accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy, and be responsible stewards of our natural resources and our public lands and waters. Our Party rejects the notion that we have to choose between protecting our environment and creating good-paying jobs. We can and we will do both.

In order to achieve these ambitious goals, the Rhode Island Democratic Party is committed to supporting the growth of new renewable energy projects. While we will not get to 100% clean energy overnight, we understand that we will never get there if we continue to invest in massive fossil fuel infrastructure projects that increase our emissions. Our Party believes these projects are the future of energy policy in Rhode Island, and we are committed to prioritizing them over proposals for dirtier and more dangerous fossil fuel investments.

Rhode Island Democrats believe that state government should lead by example, which is why we support taking steps to power the government with 100 percent clean electricity. We also believe that carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases should be priced to reflect their negative externalities, and to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy and help to meet our climate goals. We will work to expand access to cost-saving renewable energy by low-income households, create good-paying jobs in communities that have struggled with energy poverty, and oppose efforts by utilities to limit consumer choice or slow clean energy deployment.

Ethics and Democracy

Our Party believes that public officials should be held to the highest standards of integrity and accountability. We believe that government should be open and inclusive. We know that preserving the public’s trust in government is critically important to the future of our democracy. As such, we support public hearings and other opportunities for citizens to influence the legislative process; developing and utilizing accessible technologies to allow citizens to more directly interface with government and public services; introducing and ratifying a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission; strong Ethics reforms that maintain the integrity of government. We also support ensuring that the public has convenient, inexpensive, and quick access to all public documents, at the executive, legislative, judicial, and local levels of government. In order to achieve this, all public information should be posted on government websites, using a machine-readable format.

We believe that voting is a right, not a privilege, and that every step should be taken to ensure that all eligible citizens vote in every election by eliminating voter participation barriers. This means that registration should be made as easy as possible, polls should be safe and accessible, the voting process should be quick and efficient, and no citizen should be denied access to the polls. We support online voter registration, pre-registration and early voting as tools to making voting easier and more accessible for Rhode Islanders. We believe every vote should be counted and that all ballots cast should produce an independent auditable record.

Civil Rights and Liberties

The Rhode Island Democratic Party believes in equal rights and equitable treatment of all, regardless of race, color, religion, creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, place of birth, age, physical or mental condition, military service, or economic status. Democrats believe discrimination, of any kind, is contrary to the ideals of American equality and freedom and has no place in our society and communities. Since our beginning, Rhode Island has been a leader in civil rights for its citizens from religion to marriage equality. We believe all Rhode Islanders have the unequivocal right to thrive and prosper economically, socially, culturally, and politically within our state and we strive to ensure local and state government works for all.