Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders allies call for climate, policing policies

Both sides say they don’t expect that much drama over the 2020 platform, because progressives feel more included than in 2016.

Allies of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are recommending the Democratic Party support eliminating “carbon pollution” from power plants by 2035 and make it easier to prosecute police for civil rights violations, offering the latest evidence the party is uniting behind a common agenda faster than in 2016.

The recommendations, released on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) by the Biden campaign and compiled by taskforces made up of people chosen by the former vice-president and the Vermont senator, are expected to form the base of the Democrat platform, which will be formally voted on at the convention next month, according to people familiar with the plan.

Mr Biden, the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee, hasn’t promised to adopt all of the taskforce recommendations, and the report does not touch on some key areas of debate in the party, such as expanding Medicare to all Americans or a push to defund police departments.

Many of the policies in the document had already been proposed by Mr Biden, including expanding the Affordable Care Act, offering free college tuition for families making less than $US125,000 and expunging records of those convicted for cannabis use.

“I commend the taskforces for their service and helping build a bold, transformative platform for our party and for our country. And I am deeply grateful to Senator Sanders for working together to unite our party, and deliver real, lasting change for generations to come,” Mr Biden said in a statement.

Sanders ally Sara Nelson, who was co-chair of the taskforce on the economy, said the group did not include any areas of disagreement in its recommendations. She said in many areas, the policies do not go as far as progressives hoped, but she said they had made progress.

“We’re not going to stop advocating for the policies that Bernie Sanders campaigned on, but what this does is take all the power that was generated and actually injects it into some of the policy,” said Ms Nelson, who is the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.

Mr Biden has been aiming for a more unified party than in 2016, when supporters of Senator Sanders and then-nominee Hillary Clinton fought over the minimum wage and US policy towards Israel during platform negotiations.

Senator Sanders’s backers won some arguments, but many said afterwards they felt Mrs Clinton’s team had controlled the process. Some Sanders supporters walked out of the convention hall to express disappointment with her nomination.

“In 2016, disagreements were hammered out. I can’t say everybody was cheerful and happy about it, but at the end of the day, we ended up with the most progressive Democratic platform in the history of this country, ” Senator Sanders said on Wednesday.

He said his longtime relationship with Mr Biden had influenced the process in a positive way this cycle. “We disagree on issues but we have … a sense of trust and respect for each other, and I think those feelings were carried over into the taskforces.”

This year, allies of Mr Biden and Senator Sanders say they expect less drama, not only because the Milwaukee convention has been downsized and delegates encouraged to stay home. Even as Mr Biden struggles to excite some in the party’s left flank, the desire to remove Donald Trump from the White House has given them common cause.

“In 2016, there was a contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump; there was no incumbent. And this time Donald Trump is President,” said Wendy Sherman, a Clinton ally who is on the Democratic National Committee’s 2020 platform committee and was on the drafting committee in 2016.

“People in the Democratic Party very much understand how high the stakes are.”

Senator Sanders suspended his campaign for president on April 8, and endorsed Mr Biden five days later.

In 2016, he waited more than a month to back Mrs Clinton.

The Wall Street Journal