PLANK 1 — DEMOCRACY: GOVERNMENT SHOULD BELONG TO THE PEOPLE
A democracy cannot function properly when the ability to influence government depends on the size of a checkbook.
Corporate political spending, wealthy-donor networks, lobbying operations and the revolving door between government and industry have helped concentrate political power in the same hands that already hold enormous economic power. Ethics rules alone will not fix a system that rewards that concentration.
I support fundamental democratic reform.
Campaign finance and political accountability
- Establish publicly financed federal elections that give candidates a viable alternative to dependence on wealthy donors.
- Prohibit corporate treasury contributions and spending in elections to the fullest extent constitutionally permissible, while pursuing a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and related rulings that have expanded the political power of concentrated wealth.
- Require prompt, meaningful disclosure of political spending, beneficial ownership and the funding behind political advertisements.
- Close campaign-finance loopholes that allow undisclosed money to flow through intermediaries and nominally independent organizations.
- Strengthen enforcement against coordination, corruption, bribery and pay-to-play arrangements.
- End the revolving door between Congress, federal agencies, lobbying firms and the industries they regulate.
- Ban members of Congress and their spouses from trading individual stocks while in office. Require divestment or genuinely independent, diversified investments that eliminate conflicts of interest.
- Protect inspectors general, whistleblowers and independent oversight from political retaliation.
- Restore meaningful congressional oversight of executive power, including the power of the purse and the constitutional authority over war.
- Expand public access to congressional hearings, legislative records and the people making decisions in Washington.
Make representation more representative
- Adopt ranked-choice voting for federal elections where appropriate.
- Support proportional representation and multi-member congressional districts, consistent with constitutional requirements.
- Establish independent redistricting processes.
- Protect voting rights and oppose voter intimidation and discriminatory suppression.
- Expand automatic voter registration and accessible voting.
- Give independent and minor-party candidates fairer access to debates and the electoral process.
- Encourage citizens’ assemblies and public deliberation on major policy questions.
I also support a stronger role for citizens in reviewing corporate conduct and public charters. Corporations that repeatedly violate the public trust should face meaningful consequences, including charter review and, where legally justified, suspension or revocation.
A vote should carry more political weight than a dollar.
PLANK 2 — DEMOCRACY AT WORK: PUT WORKERS IN THE DECISIONS THAT SHAPE THEIR LIVES
Political democracy means little if people spend most of their waking hours under workplace rules they have no meaningful power to influence.
Workers create the goods, provide the services, maintain the infrastructure and keep the economy running. They should share in the economic gains they help produce—and have a say in how production is organized.
Raise wages and restore time
- Establish a federal minimum wage of $21 an hour, indexed to inflation so its purchasing power does not steadily erode.
- Strengthen overtime protections, including time-and-a-half after eight hours a day or forty hours a week, with higher premiums for extended shifts and excessive workweeks.
- Protect workers against wage theft, misclassification and retaliation.
- Expand paid family and medical leave, paid sick leave and affordable childcare.
- Pursue a shorter workweek as productivity rises, without forcing workers to absorb a cut in living standards.
- Strengthen workplace safety enforcement and hold responsible executives accountable for deliberate or reckless conduct that causes serious harm.
- Protect pensions and retirement security, and study a universal public retirement system that would extend the strengths of public-employee retirement systems to workers more broadly.
Restore collective bargaining
- Protect the right to organize and bargain collectively.
- Support card-check recognition where legally appropriate.
- Impose meaningful penalties for union busting, retaliation and illegal interference with organizing.
- Establish effective first-contract procedures so employers cannot defeat organizing by delaying negotiations indefinitely.
- Strengthen sectoral bargaining where appropriate.
- Repeal the Taft-Hartley provisions that undermine workers’ collective power.
- Protect gig workers and independent contractors from sham classification.
- Expand collective-bargaining rights and workplace protections for public and private employees.
Build an economy workers can own
- Expand federal support for worker-owned cooperatives and employee ownership.
- Encourage worker representation on corporate boards.
- Give workers meaningful input when employers plan plant closures, mass layoffs, automation or relocation.
- Support community-owned and cooperative enterprises.
- Use public procurement and federal incentives to reward good wages, union labor and accountable ownership.
- Explore a maximum compensation ratio of 10:1 in publicly subsidized enterprises and other institutions where public policy can legitimately set such conditions.
This is not a demand that every business operate identically. It is a demand that workers stop being treated as disposable inputs.
The people who do the work should have a voice in the workplace.
PLANK 3 — TAX EXTREME WEALTH AND INVEST IN THE COMMON GOOD
The United States has extraordinary wealth and productive capacity. Yet millions of people face housing insecurity, medical debt, inadequate schools and deteriorating infrastructure.
The question is not simply how much wealth the country has. It is how that wealth is distributed, how it was accumulated and what obligations accompany it.
A fairer tax system
- Raise taxes on extreme concentrations of income and wealth.
- Establish a carefully designed progressive wealth tax.
- Close offshore tax shelters, profit-shifting schemes and corporate loopholes.
- Tax capital income more fairly.
- Enforce tax laws against wealthy individuals and corporations with the same seriousness applied to ordinary wage earners.
- End corporate subsidies that provide private benefits without demonstrable public returns.
- Recover money lost through fraud, corruption, wage theft and unlawful corporate conduct.
- Consider substantially higher marginal tax rates on the highest incomes.
- Evaluate maximum compensation policies in publicly supported enterprises.
- Direct additional public revenue toward health care, education, housing, climate resilience, infrastructure and economic security.
I support a robust social safety net, including a serious examination of universal basic income as one way to reduce poverty, homelessness and economic insecurity. Any such program should be designed alongside—not as a substitute for—public health care, housing, disability support, social insurance and accessible public services.
Public money should produce public value. When corporations receive public subsidies, the public should receive enforceable conditions, a fair return or a meaningful ownership stake.
Economic success should not depend on shifting the costs onto workers, taxpayers and the environment.
PLANK 4 — HEALTH CARE, HOUSING AND THE RIGHT TO LIVE
A full-time worker should not have to choose between rent and medication. A medical emergency should not become a financial catastrophe. A child should not go hungry because a household’s wages cannot keep up with basic expenses.
These are public-policy failures, not personal shortcomings.
Health care as a human right
- Establish universal, publicly financed health care through Medicare for All or an equivalent system that guarantees comprehensive coverage.
- Include mental-health care, dental care, vision care, prescription drugs and long-term care.
- Negotiate prescription-drug prices and use public purchasing power to reduce costs.
- Expand public-health capacity and community-based care.
- Protect patients from medical debt and abusive billing.
- Separate access to medically necessary care from employment status and ability to pay.
Housing and basic security
- Expand social, public and nonprofit housing.
- Increase federal support for affordable housing construction and rehabilitation.
- Strengthen tenant protections and address abusive housing-market concentration.
- Support community land trusts and permanently affordable housing.
- Expand housing assistance and programs that prevent eviction.
- Invest in supportive housing and evidence-based approaches to ending chronic homelessness.
- Expand school meals, food assistance and access to healthy food.
- Strengthen Social Security, disability support and retirement security.
The goal is not to make everyone dependent on government. It is to ensure that people have a secure foundation from which they can live, work, raise families and participate in their communities.
PLANK 5 — EDUCATION FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, NOT LIFETIME DEBT
Education should prepare people to think, create, participate in democracy and develop useful skills—not merely to accumulate credentials and debt.
I support publicly funded education from early childhood through higher education, trades and lifelong learning.
Priorities
- Universal pre-kindergarten and affordable childcare.
- Strong, well-funded public schools.
- Free or substantially more affordable community college and public higher education.
- Expanded apprenticeships and union training programs.
- Public investment in trade schools, vocational education and adult learning.
- More accessible retraining for workers affected by automation, industrial change and climate transition.
- Stronger support for special education and students with disabilities.
- Public funding for scientific research, libraries, arts and civic education.
- Relief from unsustainable student debt, with reforms that prevent future generations from being trapped by it.
We need teachers, nurses, electricians, machinists, mechanics, welders, truck drivers, aircraft mechanics, farmers, scientists, artists and people who know how to build and repair the physical world.
A country that needs skilled work should make skilled education accessible.
PLANK 6 — PUBLIC BANKING AND FINANCE THAT SERVES THE PUBLIC
Public money should not be forced to rely entirely on financial institutions whose first obligation is private profit.
Public banking can provide an additional source of patient capital for infrastructure, housing, small businesses, cooperatives and community development. It must be transparent, professionally managed and subject to strong safeguards against political favoritism.
Build a public banking network
- Establish a national infrastructure bank to finance long-term public priorities.
- Support state public banks where local voters and legislatures choose to establish them.
- Enable municipal, county and regional public banking institutions under appropriate state and federal law.
- Encourage public banks to partner with community banks and credit unions rather than simply displace them.
- Provide financing for affordable housing, renewable energy, public transportation, water systems and resilient infrastructure.
- Expand access to capital for worker-owned cooperatives, small businesses and community enterprises.
- Require transparent lending standards, public reporting, independent audits and protections against insider dealing.
- Use public financial institutions to reduce dependence on Wall Street for essential public investment.
Public banking is not a magic solution, and public institutions can be mismanaged. That is why democratic oversight, professional standards and accountability matter.
The purpose is to give communities more control over how their savings and public revenues are invested.
PLANK 7 — SOLARPUNK THE PLANET: MAKE THE PEOPLE THE GRID
I want an energy system that is cleaner, more resilient and more democratic—not simply a centralized monopoly with a different power source.
My vision is straightforward:
Neighborhood by neighborhood. Community by community. Rooftop by rooftop.
Build a decentralized renewable-energy system
- Expand rooftop and community solar.
- Support responsibly sited wind power, energy storage and other renewable technologies.
- Develop neighborhood microgrids that can operate independently when the larger grid fails.
- Install solar and storage at schools, hospitals, fire stations, community centers and critical public facilities.
- Modernize transmission and distribution systems.
- Expand public, municipal, cooperative and consumer-owned utilities.
- Promote energy-efficient buildings, heat pumps and district energy systems.
- Reduce dependence on fossil fuels and phase out fossil-fuel subsidies.
- Ensure that utility rates do not shift the cost of major industrial energy projects onto households.
- Require large energy users to disclose their consumption and contribute fairly to the infrastructure they use.
- Protect workers and communities during the transition away from fossil-fuel industries.
I oppose new nuclear power development and nuclear subsidies. I support a carefully managed transition away from existing nuclear power where it can be accomplished without compromising grid reliability or public safety, with workers and affected communities protected.
Renewables also have environmental costs. Solar panels, batteries, wind turbines and transmission lines require materials, land and responsible disposal. A serious clean-energy program must address mining, recycling, habitat and labor standards rather
than pretend those impacts do not exist.
The objective is not just to change what generates electricity. It is to change who controls it.
The grid should be a public-serving system in which people and communities can become producers, owners and decision-makers—not just customers.
PLANK 8 — CLIMATE, FORESTS AND THE LIVING WORLD
Climate change is connected to nearly every major public responsibility: agriculture, water, housing, transportation, public health, energy, insurance, infrastructure and national security.
Oregon’s forests, rivers, coastline, farms and watersheds are not abstractions. They are living systems that support communities, jobs and future generations.
A federal climate-resilience and restoration program
- Accelerate the transition to renewable energy and energy-efficient buildings.
- Expand public transportation, passenger rail and freight rail.
- Modernize the electrical grid and protect critical infrastructure.
- Restore wetlands, watersheds, estuaries and salmon habitat.
- Protect old-growth forests and mature forest ecosystems.
- Reduce wildfire risk through scientifically informed forest management, prescribed fire where appropriate, home-hardening and community preparedness.
- Protect endangered species and critical habitat.
- Restore degraded landscapes and native plant communities.
- Expand urban tree canopies and heat-resilience programs.
- Protect groundwater, drinking water and coastal ecosystems.
- Strengthen federal climate science and independent environmental monitoring.
- Support farmers in soil conservation, water efficiency and ecological stewardship.
- Create a modern Civilian Conservation Corps—an ArborCorps—to employ and train people in ecological restoration, trail and park maintenance, reforestation, watershed work and climate resilience.
These jobs should pay decent wages, provide training and offer pathways into stable careers.
Defend independent science
Federal science must be allowed to follow evidence rather than political convenience. I support strong, independent work by the EPA, NOAA, NASA’s Earth-science programs, the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and public research institutions.
Protect barred owls and northern spotted owls
The conflict between barred owls and threatened northern spotted owls presents a difficult conservation problem. Federal wildlife managers have authorized lethal barred-owl removal in parts of the Pacific Northwest and California as one strategy to improve spotted-owl survival.
I oppose treating large-scale killing as the default answer to ecological damage. I would press for transparent review of the program, stronger investigation of nonlethal approaches, habitat protection, independent scientific evaluation and public reporting of outcomes.
Protecting the northern spotted owl matters. So does a rigorous examination of the tools we use to protect it.
Conservation must be scientifically serious, accountable and humane—not an excuse to stop asking questions.
The wider mission includes salmon, steelhead, orcas, wolves, beavers, pollinators, bats, native forests, wetlands, prairies and the biodiversity that sustains the living world.
PLANK 9 — TRANSPORTATION, AGRICULTURE AND THE REGIONAL ECONOMY
The transition to a sustainable economy must include the people who build, grow, transport, maintain and repair it.
Transportation for people and communities
- Invest in passenger rail, freight rail and reliable public transportation.
- Expand safe walking and cycling infrastructure.
- Modernize ports, bridges, roads and freight facilities.
- Improve truck parking, safe rest areas and working conditions for professional drivers.
- Electrify transportation where practical and ensure that charging infrastructure is reliable and accessible.
- Build communities where more daily needs can be reached without requiring every trip to be made by car.
- Include transportation workers in planning major changes to the freight and transit systems.
A fair and resilient food system
- Support family farms, independent farmers and agricultural cooperatives.
- Expand public investment in soil and water conservation.
- Protect pollinators and reduce unnecessary pesticide exposure.
- Strengthen antitrust enforcement in agricultural inputs, meatpacking, food distribution and retail.
- Expand regional food processing, storage and distribution.
- Support publicly owned, cooperative and worker-owned facilities where they serve a clear public purpose.
- Strengthen labor protections for farmworkers and food-processing workers.
- Promote sustainable crops, including industrial hemp where appropriate.
- Improve animal welfare and reduce pollution from intensive livestock operations.
I support a transition away from concentrated, vertically integrated factory-farm systems that exploit workers, undermine independent farmers and impose pollution costs on surrounding communities. Public ownership or cooperative conversion should be considered where it offers a practical route to accountable regional food infrastructure—not imposed as a slogan without a workable plan.
Food is essential. The people who produce and transport it should have more power in the system.
PLANK 10 — IMMIGRATION, HUMAN RIGHTS AND A BORDER THAT DOESN’T DEHUMANIZE PEOPLE
I support defunding and abolishing ICE in its current form, replacing its punitive and militarized model with a humane system of immigration administration, due process and lawful adjudication.
That is not a call to abolish all immigration law. It is a rejection of a system that too often relies on detention, fear, family separation and the threat of deportation as instruments of control.
A humane immigration system
- Establish a fair path to citizenship for long-term undocumented residents.
- Protect Dreamers and mixed-status families.
- Preserve access to asylum and refugee protection.
- End family separation and reduce reliance on detention.
- Expand immigration courts, judges, interpreters and access to legal representation.
- Use community-based alternatives to detention where appropriate.
- Protect immigrants against racial profiling and discriminatory enforcement.
- End the use of immigration status to intimidate workers or suppress organizing.
- Strengthen enforcement against employers who exploit undocumented workers, steal wages or use threats of deportation to maintain abusive working conditions.
- Support international cooperation to address forced displacement, violence, corruption and economic instability.
A worker who can be threatened with deportation is a worker whose employer has extraordinary leverage over them. Protecting immigrant workers is therefore also a labor-rights issue.
Replace the wall with a humane, ecologically responsible border policy
I oppose the expansion of a continuous militarized border wall as a default solution to immigration and security challenges.
Border barriers can fragment habitat, disrupt wildlife movement, damage water systems, interfere with Indigenous cultural access and turn complex social problems into a construction project. Border infrastructure should be evaluated for its real effectiveness, financial costs, ecological impacts and human consequences.
I support:
- Ending wasteful wall expansion and reviewing existing barriers for removal or modification where justified.
- Restoring damaged habitats, watercourses and wildlife corridors.
- Protecting endangered species and culturally significant sites.
- Meaningful consultation with affected Indigenous nations.
- Humane, adequately staffed ports of entry.
- Targeted action against human trafficking, weapons trafficking and exploitation.
- Regional cooperation on public safety and emergency response.
- Independent oversight of border-enforcement agencies.
A borderlands conflict-free zone
I want the U.S.–Mexico border to become a zone of cooperation rather than permanent confrontation—a conflict-free borderlands initiative built around safety, ecological restoration, cultural exchange and economic dignity.
That means protecting people from violence and trafficking while avoiding policies that make ordinary migration more dangerous. It means cooperating with communities on both sides of the border to protect watersheds, wildlife, public health and cultural sites. It means safe passage for people fleeing persecution and a process that treats them as human beings.
A border should not be a license for cruelty.
Address the forces that drive displacement
Trade agreements are not the sole cause of migration, and migration has many causes. But trade liberalization, subsidized imports, agricultural restructuring and the displacement of local industries have contributed to economic insecurity in parts of Mexico and Central America.
I support reviewing the effects of NAFTA and its successor, USMCA, on workers, small farmers, Indigenous communities and local economies. Future trade agreements should include enforceable labor rights, environmental standards and protections against corporate practices that undercut livelihoods.
Trade policy should not allow corporations to move capital freely while workers and communities are left to absorb the consequences.
People should not have to choose between staying in an unlivable situation and risking their lives to find safety.
PLANK 11 — INDIGENOUS SOVEREIGNTY, REPARATIONS AND LAND RESTORATION
The history of the United States includes broken treaties, forced removal, land theft, cultural destruction, the suppression of Indigenous languages and traditions, and policies that denied Native nations control over their own lands and futures.
Acknowledging that history is necessary. It is not sufficient.
I support a federal commitment to Indigenous sovereignty, treaty obligations, restitution and the repair of harms that continue to affect Native communities.
Priorities
- Honor treaty obligations and strengthen federal accountability for treaty violations.
- Support the restoration of land to Tribal nations where legally and practically appropriate, including through land-back arrangements, acquisitions and the return of surplus federal property.
- Expand Tribal co-management of public lands, forests, fisheries and watersheds.
- Protect sacred sites, burial grounds, cultural landscapes and access to traditional foods and medicines.
- Support Indigenous-led restoration, conservation and climate adaptation.
- Address contaminated water, abandoned mines, hazardous sites and inadequate infrastructure affecting Tribal communities.
- Provide sustained funding for Tribal health care, housing, education, language revitalization and public services.
- Support truth-telling processes and independent review of federal policies that caused dispossession or cultural harm.
- Improve consultation and consent procedures for projects that affect Tribal lands and resources.
- Strengthen Tribal jurisdiction and self-determination in accordance with treaties and federal law.
Reparations should not be reduced to a single symbolic payment or a public-relations exercise. They should include meaningful land restoration, financial restitution where warranted, institutional reform, cultural protection and the resources Native nations need to exercise their sovereignty.
Indigenous communities should not have to repeatedly prove that their history matters before the federal government honors its obligations.
PLANK 12 — THE COMMONS: PUBLIC OWNERSHIP WHERE THE PUBLIC INTEREST DEMANDS IT
Some things are too important to be governed exclusively by the pursuit of private profit.
Clean water. Public lands. Essential infrastructure. Public health. Energy transmission. Transportation systems. Public
knowledge. Certain digital systems. The natural systems on which life depends.
I support expanding democratic public ownership, cooperative ownership and community control where those arrangements best serve the public interest. That can include public utilities, public broadband, public transportation, community land trusts, public banking, cooperative food systems, worker-owned enterprises and publicly accountable infrastructure.
I do not believe government must own everything. I believe ownership should be chosen according to public purpose, accountability and practical results. Where a private monopoly controls an essential service, where public subsidies create private fortunes, or where competition cannot adequately protect the public, public ownership deserves serious consideration.
Public ownership of AI infrastructure
Artificial-intelligence data centers can consume large quantities of electricity, water and land. Their expansion can affect
household utility rates, water availability and local infrastructure.
I support strong public-interest conditions on major data-center development, including:
- Full disclosure of electricity and water use.
- Fair payment for grid upgrades and other infrastructure costs.
- Protection against shifting industrial costs onto residential ratepayers.
- Enforceable energy-efficiency and water-conservation standards.
- Public-interest access to computing resources for research, education, health care and small enterprises.
- Worker representation and independent oversight.
- Strong privacy and data-protection rules.
- Public ownership or control of infrastructure built primarily with public funds where appropriate.
I would support publicly owned or cooperative AI-computing utilities where they offer a viable, accountable alternative to concentrated private control. Public ownership should be accompanied by professional management, transparent governance and safeguards against surveillance and political abuse.
The goal is to ensure that the benefits of new technology are not captured by a handful of corporations while the public pays the infrastructure bill.
PLANK 13 — PUBLIC SAFETY WITHOUT A CULTURE OF CRUELTY
People deserve to be safe in their homes, schools, workplaces and neighborhoods. Public safety must include preventing violence, responding effectively when it occurs, supporting victims and addressing the conditions that allow violence to persist.
I support a comprehensive approach to gun violence and other forms of harm.
Gun violence prevention
- Universal background checks.
- Closing loopholes that allow prohibited purchasers to acquire firearms.
- Extreme-risk protection orders with due process and meaningful opportunities for review.
- Stronger safeguards against firearm access by domestic abusers.
- Safe-storage requirements and public education.
- Better investigation of gun trafficking and illegal sales.
- Community violence-interruption programs.
- Evidence-based suicide prevention.
- Accessible mental-health and trauma services.
- Domestic-violence prevention and support for survivors.
- Research into the causes of violence and the effectiveness of prevention strategies.
These policies should respect constitutional rights while recognizing that rights do not eliminate the responsibility to prevent foreseeable harm.
I do not regard responsible gun owners as enemies. Rural residents, hunters, sport shooters and firearm owners can be partners
in reducing violence.
Public safety beyond policing alone
- Expand non-police crisis response for appropriate mental-health and behavioral-health emergencies.
- Invest in violence interruption, youth programs, housing stability and community-based prevention.
- Improve accountability for misconduct by public officials and law-enforcement personnel.
- Support victims and survivors.
- Reduce the conditions that allow exploitation, trafficking and organized violence to flourish.
- Reject torture, collective punishment and the dehumanization of entire communities.
A humane society does not ignore violence. It works to prevent it, respond proportionately and hold people accountable without treating cruelty as a substitute for justice.
PLANK 14 — FOREIGN POLICY FOR HUMANITY: END THE WARS, END THE EMPIRE, FUND THE FUTURE
The United States cannot credibly defend human rights abroad while applying them selectively, disregarding civilian lives or shielding allies from accountability.
I oppose the idea that military dominance is a substitute for security. A country can spend enormous sums on weapons while neglecting the health, housing, infrastructure and ecological stability that make its own people secure.
My foreign policy would put diplomacy, international law, civilian protection and human needs at the center of national security.
Palestine and Israel: End the killing and enforce the law
I condemn the mass killing, forced displacement, deprivation and destruction inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza, and I oppose the occupation and settlement policies that deny Palestinians their rights and prospects for self-determination.
Amnesty International concluded in its December 2024 report that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Human Rights Watch and other organizations have documented grave violations and alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Legal findings by advocacy organizations are not the same as a final judgment by a competent court, but their findings demand serious attention and accountability.
I support:
- An immediate and durable ceasefire whenever hostilities continue.
- The release of hostages and unlawfully detained people.
- Unimpeded humanitarian aid, food, water, medicine and reconstruction assistance.
- An end to U.S. military assistance that facilitates serious violations of international humanitarian or human-rights law.
- Enforcement of U.S. and international laws governing arms transfers.
- Accountability for war crimes and other grave violations, regardless of who commits them.
- An end to settlement expansion and forced displacement.
- Palestinian self-determination, equal rights and political freedom.
- Security and human rights for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
U.S. policy should not provide a blank check to any government. The same standards must apply to allies, adversaries and our own actions.
Iran and the wider Middle East: Stop expanding the war
I oppose attacks on Iran that bypass lawful authorization, risk regional escalation or endanger civilians. I oppose military action designed to impose political outcomes through force when diplomatic alternatives remain available.
I support renewed diplomacy, arms-control negotiations, regional de-escalation and respect for international law.
I also oppose U.S. military actions that cause unlawful civilian harm in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere. The United States should not treat civilian casualties as an acceptable footnote to a campaign briefing.
Yemen and humanitarian protection
Years of war have devastated Yemen. I support humanitarian relief, diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, accountability for unlawful attacks and an end to arms transfers that facilitate serious violations.
U.S. military action should be subject to clear legal authority, congressional oversight and public accounting of its costs and consequences.
Reassess military aid and the war economy
- End military assistance that enables grave violations of international law.
- Require transparent reporting of civilian casualties and the full financial costs of military operations.
- End unauthorized wars and strengthen congressional control over the use of force.
- Reduce unnecessary permanent overseas deployments and close bases that no longer serve a demonstrable security purpose.
- Redirect appropriate resources toward diplomacy, global public health, climate resilience, disaster response and domestic infrastructure.
- Protect conscientious objection and support a peace-oriented approach to national security.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his 1953 “Chance for Peace” address about the opportunity costs of war: resources spent destroying lives and cities cannot simultaneously build schools, hospitals and homes.
That choice remains before us.
Nuclear disarmament
I support verifiable international agreements to reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons. Deterrence cannot be a permanent excuse to accept the risk of civilization-ending destruction.
The United States should lead in arms control, nonproliferation, crisis communication and the reduction of accidental or deliberate nuclear escalation.
Establish a Department of Peace
I support creating a federal Department of Peace tasked with developing and coordinating nonviolent conflict prevention, mediation, violence reduction and peacebuilding. Its work should include research, support for local conflict-resolution programs, international mediation, civilian protection and evaluation of strategies that prevent violence before it becomes war.
I also support exploring a Peace Tax framework that would give conscientious objectors a lawful way to direct the portion of their federal taxes associated with military spending toward verified nonmilitary peacebuilding, subject to constitutional and legislative review.
A Peace’agon: A public institution for peace
I propose developing a national Peace’agon—a public center devoted to conflict prevention, the history of atrocities, civilian protection, democratic leadership and the practical work of building peace. It could include a museum and memorial, a conflict-resolution institute, a center for civilian recovery, educational programs and training for community mediators and public leaders.
Peace must be more than a slogan. It requires institutions, expertise, resources and people trained to prevent conflict.
National security should mean protecting human life—not endlessly financing the machinery that destroys it.
PLANK 15 — DISASTER PREPAREDNESS: SHAKY DAY AND STORMY DAY FUNDS
Disaster preparedness is not an optional expense to be considered after catastrophe strikes. It is a public responsibility.
The West Coast faces major earthquake and tsunami risks, including the Cascadia Subduction Zone, the Alaska-Aleutian subduction system and the San Andreas fault system. Climate change also intensifies risks from extreme heat, wildfire, drought, heavy precipitation and flooding. Other regions face hurricanes, tornadoes and severe storms.
I support establishing two dedicated federal resilience funds.
The Shaky Day Fund
A long-term earthquake and tsunami preparedness fund would support:
- Seismic retrofits for schools, hospitals, bridges, ports and emergency facilities.
- Stronger building standards and assistance to retrofit vulnerable homes.
- Tsunami evacuation routes, warning systems and community education.
- Backup power and resilient communications.
- Emergency water, food and medical supplies.
- Resilient transportation and freight infrastructure.
- Regional coordination among federal, state, Tribal, county and municipal governments.
- Scientific monitoring, hazard mapping and public preparedness.
The Stormy Day Fund
A companion disaster-resilience fund would address severe storms and other climate-related catastrophes, including hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wildfire, extreme heat and drought.
It would support:
- Floodplain restoration and flood-control improvements.
- Stormwater systems and drainage upgrades.
- Wildfire preparedness and community protection.
- Heat shelters and cooling centers.
- Emergency shelters and resilient housing.
- Early-warning systems.
- Recovery funding that reaches communities quickly.
- Restoration of wetlands and natural systems that reduce disaster impacts.
Address regional hazards honestly
Mount Rainier’s lahars—fast-moving flows of volcanic debris, water and mud—pose serious risks to communities in river valleys including the Puyallup and Nisqually systems. Communities such as Orting and Puyallup need effective warning systems, evacuation planning and resilient infrastructure.
Lahars are a distinct hazard from glacial lake outburst floods, which can occur in other mountainous regions, including parts of the Himalayas. Preparedness should be based on the actual hazards facing each community, not a one-size-fits-all plan.
Disaster funds should be transparently administered, independently audited and available before the emergency—not only after the damage is done.
PLANK 16 — CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND THE PUBLIC TRUST
Corporations are legal institutions created under public law. Their rights come with obligations.
When corporations poison communities, steal wages, suppress competition, defraud consumers or knowingly expose workers to
serious danger, the response should not be limited to a fine that becomes another cost of doing business.
I support:
- Strong antitrust enforcement.
- Robust consumer and worker protections.
- Meaningful penalties for wage theft and retaliation.
- Criminal accountability when executives knowingly direct or conceal serious wrongdoing.
- Protection for whistleblowers.
- Stronger environmental enforcement.
- Greater transparency in corporate ownership and political spending.
- Review of public subsidies and corporate tax benefits.
- Public-interest conditions on government contracts.
- Stronger oversight of industries providing essential services.
I also support exploring a Citizens’ Charter Review Commission with authority to investigate serious corporate misconduct and recommend remedies, including charter suspension or revocation where legally authorized. Corporate charters should be subject to public accountability. The details must be designed carefully, with due process, clear standards and safeguards against arbitrary political retaliation.
The principle is simple: incorporation should not be a permanent license to harm the public.
PLANK 17 — A PEACE ECONOMY AND A GREEN ECONOMY
The United States has the knowledge, workforce and resources to build a different future. But public priorities matter.
Every budget is a set of choices. Every subsidy has an opportunity cost. Every major public investment tells us something about
whose needs the government considers urgent.
I support a national program that redirects appropriate resources toward:
- Renewable energy and resilient electrical systems.
- Affordable housing.
- Public transportation and rail.
- Water infrastructure.
- Public health and medical research.
- Education and vocational training.
- Climate adaptation and ecological restoration.
- Disaster preparedness.
- Civilian conflict prevention and diplomacy.
- Worker-owned and cooperative enterprises.
- Modernized public infrastructure.
Workers whose livelihoods depend on fossil fuels, military production or other industries undergoing transition must not be abandoned. Transition plans should include wage protection, pensions, retraining, regional investment and meaningful participation by workers and communities. A green economy cannot be built by sacrificing working people. A peace economy cannot be built by pretending that workers in the existing defense economy have no future. The objective is to convert our productive capacity toward work that sustains life rather than endangers it.
PLANK 18 — THE OREGON PRINCIPLE: BIOREGIONAL DEMOCRACY
Oregon should be more than a place represented in Washington. It can be a laboratory for practical democratic solutions.
Our forests, rivers, coastline, farms, cities, small towns and Tribal nations are connected by watersheds, ecosystems, infrastructure and shared economic interests.
Bioregional thinking begins with practical questions: Where does our water come from? Who controls the land? Who grows our food? Who owns the energy system? Who maintains the roads, bridges, ports and rail lines? Who bears the pollution? Who benefits from development? Who gets to decide?
I support federal partnerships with Oregon communities to expand:
- Community-owned renewable energy.
- Public and cooperative infrastructure finance.
- Watershed and forest restoration.
- Public transportation and rail.
- Affordable housing.
- Regional food systems.
- Worker training and cooperative enterprise.
- Earthquake and tsunami resilience.
- Tribal sovereignty and Indigenous-led stewardship.
- Democratic participation in local planning.
Federal policy should give communities the resources and authority to solve problems at the level where those problems can best be addressed—while protecting civil rights, environmental standards and the interests of future generations.