A Call to Action
Participate in Creating the 2023 Democratic Party of Oregon Platform
The Democratic Party of Oregon adopts a governing platform every two years at a statewide convention.This year, the biennial Platform Convention will be held August 18-20 at Western Oregon University in Monmouth.
The Platform is a statement of our values. It is composed of Articles and Planks. Articles are broad areas of interest, or topics (such as “Education,” “Environment,” or “Social Justice”). Planks are the specific value statements within each Article, and they build the Platform (e.g., “We believe all workers have the right to collectively bargain for fair working conditions and compensation”).
Anyone may attend the convention, but Delegates are the voting members of the Convention. They are elected or appointed from each County in Oregon and the DPO Special Group Caucuses. Officers of the Democratic Party of Oregon and some Democratic Elected Officials (statewide office holders, members of the Congressional delegation and Democratic members of the Oregon legislature) are automatically Delegates to the Platform Convention.
Besides adopting a Platform, Delegates to the Convention also create a list of Legislative Action Items (LAIs) that call for action on some of the agreed upon planks. This list is prioritized, through a democratic process, and the most important LAIs are sent to elected state and federal Democratic leaders to gain their support.
On the first full day of the Convention, Delegates work from a draft of a proposed Platform that has been developed by the Democratic Party of Oregon’s Platform Committee, integrating feedback received from Democrats across Oregon before the convention begins. Delegates meet in subject committees that correlate to each of the Articles, accepting, rejecting, modifying or adding planks. They also propose LAIs relevant to that subject. On the second day, Delegates discuss, debate and adopt a Platform and prioritize the LAIs.
We want to be sure you are aware of the opportunity to serve as a Delegate to Oregon’s Democratic Party Platform Convention, representing Clackamas County Democrats. Attending the state convention will let you help shape the Platform of the Democratic Party of Oregon. The sole requirement for becoming a Delegate is that you must be a registered Democrat. The process for applying to become a Delegate from the DPCC will be announced shortly.
Beginning in early May and continuing until just before our June Central Committee meeting, the Democratic Party of Clackamas County will begin helping our members become familiar with the current (2021) Democratic Party Platform. We will do this through a series of nine meetings, one for each of the Articles in the 2021 Platform. At these meetings, we will explore the content of the Article under consideration and make tentative decisions about accepting or rejecting existing Planks, as well as suggesting ideas for potentially new Planks. We will not edit or wordsmith the existing document, because it no longer exists.
These training sessions will be hybrid meetings. You may attend in person at the DPCC office (609 Main St, Oregon City) or join via a Zoom link. We will also prioritize the Planks in each Article by their relative importance to those in attendance.
A report of the findings of each meeting will be presented to our Central Committee at the June 15th meeting (and mapped to a draft of the 2023 Platform, if one is available). We will ask the Central Committee to prioritize these Planks so all Delegates will know which ideas we want to work together to enact. We will present these priorities to the Central Committee in July.
The biennial convention will take place this year from August 18-20 at Western Oregon University in Monmouth.
Schedule of Meetings:
May 8 - Economy & Labor
May 10 - Education
May 19 - Infrastructure
May 22 - Foreign Policy & National Security
May 24 - Healthcare & Public Health
May 26 - Human Rights
May 28 - Environment
May 30 - Protecting Democracy
June 1 - Science & Technology