*a similar release went out to targeted districts across the country*
In the midst of Erik Paulsen’s Republican Party kicking off its weeklong Trump-mania in Cleveland yesterday, convention delegates also voted to adopt the GOP’s platform, “a startlingly backward” and downright reckless vision for our country. This fall, Erik Paulsen will not only be sharing a ticket with Donald Trump and the dangerous policies he promotes, but will be running on a Republican Party platform that includes numerous proposals that are out of step with Minnesota’s 3rd District.
The Republican Party’s newly-adopted platform includes provisions to: defund Planned Parenthood and limit Minnesotans’ access to women’s health care and cancer screenings, block common sense legislation to keep suspected terrorists from getting deadly weapons, keep hardworking Americans from getting a raise, and advance Trump’s reckless, costly, and unworkable border wall proposal.
If Trump were to become president, this platform reveals what he would ask Republican House members to pass.
“Erik Paulsen put his Republican Party over the good of our country when he stood by as Donald Trump became the Republican Party’s reckless standard bearer,” said Sacha Haworth of the DCCC. “Now, Paulsen is silent as his Party adopts a ‘most extreme,’ ‘retrograde,’ and out of touch statement of priorities, which would be as disastrous in action as it is offensive. This November, Minnesotans will reject Erik Paulsen, Donald Trump, and a Republican brand that puts their extreme party politics over people.”
Lowlights of Paulsen’s party platform include:
- Opposed To Women’s Healthcare: The Republican platform builds on what was included in the 2012 platform, calling for completely defunding Planned Parenthood and establishing a so-called “personhood” amendment to the Constitution: “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.” The Republican platform mentions abortion some three dozen times and the anti-choice Susan B Anthony List called it the “strongest pro-life platform in the Republican Party’s history.”
- Anti-Equality & Insulting Single Parents: The Republican platform embraces notions of “traditional” heterosexual marriage, shockingly referring to it as “natural” marriage. The platform falsely claims children not of “traditional two-parent households” are less healthy, more likely to use drugs and more likely to commit crimes. While clearly out of step with the public, party activists and the social conservative wing of the Party continue to exert their influence to make sure that language included in the platform rejects a more open, inclusive approach to LGBT equality.
- Anti-Workers: The Republican platform opposes a federal minimum wage.
- Pro-Discrimination Against Single Moms, LGBT Individuals: The Republican platform includes support for the First Amendment Defense Act, an extreme bill that would legalize discrimination, opening the door to allow employers to fire single moms or LGBT individuals without cause. The editorial board of the Des Moines Register slammed the bill as “ridiculous” legislation that “would create a mess.”
- Discriminatory Practices Like Conversion Therapy: Included in the platform’s opposition to gay marriage is another insertion that affirms the right of parents to prescribe “therapy”, a clear allusion to conversion therapy and an addition that was strongly advocated for by Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council.
- Opposing Commonsense Gun Safety Measures: The Republican platform was written to oppose commonsense no fly, no buy legislation that would prevent suspected terrorists from buying firearms. The platform also explicitly defends the types of weapons used in recent shootings, including Newtown, Aurora, San Bernardino and Oregon.