Independent Electoral Program

The National Congress for an Independent Electoral Program (held on May 7 and May 14 2022) unanimously adopted the following program of demands expressing the needs of the working class, which we call for independent candidates to take up. Activists attended the Congress from Red Republicans, International Luxemburgist Network, Jobs and Equal Rights for All Campaign, and United Front Committee for a Labor Party (as observer). Most participants were also members of Democratic Socialists of America.

We have set up a website for this effort: https://nciep.org/

This program should be endorsed as objectives by candidates for the working class and supported in all those legislative contexts in which they may vote. However, we recognize that political representatives cannot achieve these ends under the present distribution of power, and so a primary purpose of our electoral campaigns is criticizing the undemocratic institutions of power and to calling for mass movements and workers' unions to create opportunities to exercise power outside the electoral sphere. The working class must gain a much greater extent of power to fully achieve and preserve the changes we require, and as such our demands for democratic reforms must be used as points of leverage toward removing the ruling classes from their positions of power.

1. All who live here have equal rights. End all deportations, all detentions, mass incarceration, prison labor, all violations of due process rights. End all limits on the right to vote, to unionize, to organize and to strike. End all limits on reproductive rights. Equal votes for all. Freedom of movement for all. Without equal rights, we can’t unite to defend our lives.

2. All who live here have the right to quality free education at all levels, free health care, free transportation, free housing and free clean, sustainable, energy. All have the right to clean air, clean water and clean, healthy food. The government must provide democratically-controlled quality services for all through a massive infrastructure program, paid for by taxing the rich and corporations, slashing weapons spending, converting war industries to civilian production and ending all US wars, occupations and military aid. To provide a source of cheap, clean, safe and unlimited energy to replace fossil fuels, the government must fund a crash program to develop fusion energy.

3. All who live here have the right to sustainable, socially-productive and rewarding jobs at just wages. Providing quality free education, health care, transportation, housing and clean energy globally will also provide good jobs for all with direct government employment.

4.Workers’ Global Reconstruction, not Capitalist Militarism. Initiation of a democratically-controlled, sustainable global reconstruction program to urbanize, re-forest, modernize agriculture, clean up environmental damage and prevent future pandemics. Agricultural industries and land holdings must be restructured, under democratic control, in the interests of workers, the climate, food availability and sustainability. This global reconstruction program can only be enabled by a coordinated global workers’ campaign to dismantle the war machine and its titanic waste of resources and destruction of life everywhere. This includes withdrawal of all foreign troops to their home countries, dismantling of first nuclear, but as well conventional armaments, conversion of arms production to civilian needs, retraining of military personnel for civilian jobs, the cessation of the arms trade, and ending all military alliances. As the, by far, most heavily armed nation, the United States must initiate such actions unilaterally, but a coordinated global workers movement will demand them of all governments. Domestically, this means demilitarization of the police and transfer of all possible roles to expanded, civilian social services. A global reconstruction program must be financed by, in addition to demilitarization, coordinated global expropriative taxes on capitalist wealth, by the wiping out of international debt and by the abolition of the IMF and World Bank.

5. Socialization of finance. Federal ownership of all finance—banks, insurance, investment companies –with democratic control. The Federal government has bought the financial companies twice over with bailouts— it must not fund capitalist bailouts without exercising control and must not restore ownership to shareholders. Immediate sale of all government-held private bonds. Immediate cancellation of student and consumer debts. Phased reduction of payments of mortgage interest and rent for residents of properties financed through government support. At least 50% increase in Social Security. Government ownership of finance must also lead to ownership under democratic control of the largest corporations, which are already owned by financial corporations. Ending massive government financial subsides for the rich, together with a massive global infrastructure program, will end both shortages and inflation.

6. Real democratization. Equal votes for all: abolition of the US Senate and Electoral College, direct election of the President. Election of all judges for short terms, including all federal Judges and Supreme Court Justices. and provision for recall elections at all levels and branches of government. Prohibition of all corporate contributions to all electoral campaigns, strict limits on individual contributions—no purchases of votes or elected officials! Equal, easy access to ballot lines. Defend and expand voting rights, end gerrymanders, and end government surveillance.