We support candidates who will fight for our progressive agenda, including the following:
Campaign Finance
We support far-reaching Campaign Finance and Political Reforms to renew our democracy. We must reform our campaign finance system by removing corporate and dark money from our politics, and adopting a system of publicly financed elections. Nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court must be required to pass a simple litmus test of committing to overturning Citizens United and other Court decisions that have granted 1st Amendment rights to corporations. We must also reform our elections system to ensure that the integrity of our elections at every level so they are transparent and verifiable. At Progress For All, we have pledged to never take a penny of corporate money, not from any corporate political action committee (PACs) or corporate funded SuperPACs. We rely completely on small donations from people like you, which means you can always count on us to stand with the people and against entrenched corporate interests and the politicians they fund. We believe it’s not enough to talk the talk about political reform, we must also walk the walk.
Climate Change
We support immediate action to address climate change. We support a ban on fracking (hydraulic fracturing) and ending subsidies for the oil and gas industries that extract hydrocarbons and release greenhouse gases into our atmosphere and environment. We also oppose the Sabal Trail Pipeline, a $3 billion 515-mile pipeline that, if completed, will transport a billion cubic feet of fracked gas a day through the Upper Floridan Aquifer which provides 60 percent of Florida’s drinking water. Meanwhile, Big Agribusinesses have been polluting Florida waters with fertilizer runoff, while Big Sugar farms prevent Lake Okeechobee from flowing into the Everglades and recharging the aquifer for South Florida — an aquifer that is now beginning to suffer from salt water intrusion stemming from rising sea levels and global warming. We support mobilizing our resources to convert to an economy based on sustainable and renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, wave, and tidal energy. We opposed the deceptively named Florida Solar Energy Subsidies and Personal Solar Use Initiative, also known as Amendment 1, that was defeated by Florida voters on the November 8, 2016 ballot – an initiative that would have prevented government support for solar power and was funded by the big energy utility companies, led by Florida Power & Light (FP&L). We also supported a real solar initiative, known as Amendment 4, that was approved by nearly 73 percent of Florida voters on the August 30, 2016 ballot. Since those initiatives, FP&L has sought to overturn the will of Florida voters through proposed state legislation.
Fair Trade
We support fair trade deals that help raise living standards for working families. We oppose corporate trade giveaways like the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would outsource millions of American jobs in a race-to-the-bottom to countries with low-wages and weak labor, human rights, and environmental protections. The TPP would also raise prescription drug prices, undermine national sovereignty, and transfer the costs of complying with health, safety, and environmental regulations from big corporate investors to taxpayers. We support reforming the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in ways that enhance and harmonize labor and environmental standards. Likewise, we are critical of the proposed Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) which would liberalize trade between 51 countries and would include the same investor rights provisions as the TPP and NAFTA — an Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision that would allow investors to challenge national, state, and local laws and regulations that seek to protect the environment, health, safety, food labeling. ISDS violates national sovereignty, undermines democracy, and is contrary to the rule of law. It would let investors bring suits before offshore arbitration panels consisting of corporate lawyers masquerading as arbitration judges who could award monetary damages for future lost profit opportunities from the costs of complying with legitimate environmental and other regulations. We must have fair trade agreements that strengthen strategic alliances between democracies.
War on Drugs
We support an end to the war on drugs and mass incarceration, which has been rightly referred to as The New Jim Crow because of its disproportionate impact on people of color. We are working to end felony disenfranchisement which has fallen disproportionately on lower income populations and people of color. We should restore voting rights for non-violent felons who have served their time and otherwise completed their sentences. We oppose private prisons and for-profit policing practices. We should not be locking up people for using the same recreational drugs that have been used by the last three American presidents and a majority of the American people. Hard drug use should be seen as a public health problem, requiring resources for rehabilitation. We have actively supported Medical Marijuana, including Amendment 2, a constitutional amendment that was approved by more than 70 percent of Florida voters on the November 8, 2016 ballot. We continue to advocate for sensible regulations to implement Amendment 2.