WASHINGTON — Four days before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the party platform nominates the wrong candidate for president.
The Democratic platform — essentially a document outlining the party’s goals and policy positions — has not been updated since a draft was released on July 13, eight days before President Joe Biden took office gave up his re-election bid and supported Vice President Kamala Harris.
The committee responsible for putting together the platform has been working on it for more than a year, including allowing key voices to comment and make changes earlier this summer. But the language that must go to the convention floor for delegate approval has not been changed since then. Biden left the race. And the governing body will not meet to update the platform before the convention begins Monday.
Harris has not released a detailed list of her policy positions since taking over as the top of the Democratic ticket, though her campaign staff have suggested she is no longer adhering to some of the more liberal stances she took during her first presidential race in 2020, including supporting a ban on hydraulic fracturing. The policy platform, which typically lays out a party’s positions with heavy input from the presidential candidate’s allies, also does not currently provide insight into her direct positions on major issues.
The platform is non-binding. However, some Democrats criticized Republicans for not being more transparent while approve their party’s 16-page platform during the GOP convention last month in Milwaukee — including revising the document to better align with former President Donald Trump’s positions on abortion and other key issues.
“The Democratic Party Platform will embody our party’s values and build on the historic accomplishments Democrats have made during the Biden-Harris administration,” the Democratic National Committee said in a statement Thursday. “The Platform Committee has worked diligently with stakeholders from all corners of our party to create a bold, progressive agenda for the next four years, and the platform delegates will vote on at the convention will reflect that process.”
Yet the introduction to the July draft platform states, “President Biden, Vice President Harris, and the Democrats are standing with us to get the job done” — which, of course, is no longer true, since Biden is no longer running.
The Democrats’ proposed platform is 80 pages long and focuses on spelling out the differences between Biden and Harris and Trump. That language could still be applied even if the party’s ticket is now different.
It mocks the former president and current Republican presidential candidate as “focused not on opportunity and optimism, but on revenge and retribution; not on the American people, but on themselves.” It accuses Trump and his party of planning “to take away our fundamental personal freedoms, dictate what health care decisions women can make, ban books, and tell people who they can love.”
Most of the platform’s core conclusions support the work of the Biden administration. In the weeks since she launched her presidential campaign, Harris has spoken broadly about supporting the Biden administration’s key goals.
That means the remaining draft platform aligns with many of her positions. The fact that the candidates’ names haven’t been changed, however, suggests the new ticket hasn’t had as much input as it normally would into crafting the slate of things it will fight for if it wins the White House.
The Democratic platform draft calls for restoring abortion rights nationwide, continuing to advance green energy initiatives that can create jobs and help slow climate change, capping child care costs for low-income families, and urging Congress to approve a pathway to U.S. citizenship for people who are in the country “long-term” illegally.
It also says Israel’s right to defend itself is “ironclad” while supporting the Biden administration’s efforts to broker a lasting ceasefire agreement that would fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
