2004 Washington State Republican Party Platform

“In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government might not to interfere.” Abraham Lincoln

Preamble

Republicans believe that good government is based on the individual and family, that each person’s ability, dignity, freedom and responsibility must be honored and recognized. Our basic freedom, the value that makes our country unique in the world is rooted in Free Enterprise and the basic right to private property. The role of government is to preserve and defend our ability to live in a free and peaceful society. We reaffirm the words of our founding fathers as written in the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights. Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the Governed.”

Our Republic was founded as one nation under God on principles clearly set forth in the Declaration of Independence and codified in our Constitution.

Platform

Our Republican vision for Washington State is as follows:

SECTION 1: ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY -Jobs, Growth, and Prosperity

Government must practice fiscal responsibility, while individual citizens should enjoy an atmosphere of free enterprise, unfettered by burdensome government regulation. Excessive taxation is a loss of personal freedom. Allowing people to keep more of what they earn allows opportunity and wealth created in the private sector to give hope and relief to those ill-served by government and gives families and communities the resources to confront wider social problems.

Economic opportunity should include:

* Reducing taxes and fees on businesses and individuals.
* Reducing excessive regulation on businesses in Washington State.
* Examining government regulations to ensure they reflect the intent of the law.
* Enhancing international trade.
* Establishing and maintaining secure, broad based, energy resources within our nation’s borders.
* Making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

Labor Unions

We recognize the historical importance of labor unions and the protection of workers’ health and general welfare. Union members should be given flexibility in regards to the political use of their Union dues and informed of their rights with respect to those dues.

SECTION 2: NATIONAL DEFENSE/WINNING THE WAR ON TERROR- Superior military strength is vital to our national security.

“We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.” George W Bush

We believe in a strong and free America, a nation leading the work in the expansion of peace, freedom and human rights. We commend our courageous President, and our armed forces, for all they have done to make us safer since September 11, 2001.

National defense should include:

* Supporting President Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive self defense.
* Preventing the subjugation of the national sovereignty of the U.S. to any foreign or international body.
* Ensuring that U.S. military personnel remain only under U.S. command.
* Continuing the development of the Strategic Defense Initiative.
* Continuing to honor all past and current obligations to our troops and veterans.
* Gaining control of our borders and adopting a firm immigration policy for homeland security.
* Supporting the historical doctrine of pre-emptive in U.S. conflicts.

In Defense of Israel...
Israel, as a sovereign state, has the right to self-defense against foreign enemies and state sponsored terrorism. The Bush Doctrine clearly defines supporting Israel, which is being targeted by terrorists. For a peaceful Palestinian state to exist, we must support Israel in winning their war against terror in their homeland.

SECTION 3: TRANSPORTATION

Recognizing that resolving the highway congestion is a major economic issue in the state of Washington, we call upon the governor to solve this as a priority issue.
The Department of Transportation should focus on highways, ferries, county roads, and city streets and minimize need for further increases. This focus will concentrate the efforts of such refocused “Highway Department” to such a degree as to minimize the need for further tax increases. Conducting a thorough review of how we administer our transportation system will provide greater economic opportunities for business and value to consumers.

We support:

* Prioritizing highway projects and using public money efficiently to reduce congestion and maintain infrastructure.
* Placing the Department of Transportation in the Governor’s Cabinet.
* Subjecting the Department of Transportation and Sound Transit to thorough and continuous independent financial and performance audits.
* No sales tax being levied on materials and labor used on publicly funded transportation projects.
* The gas tax being used only to expand and maintain the same highway system.
* The creation of regional transportation improvement districts for each region’s voter approved projects.
* Funding for Sound Transit only by those who live in the Sound Transit district.

SECTION 4: Republicans believe in the reduction of our dependence on foreign energy and:

* Support President Bush’s Energy Bill to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign crude oil.
* Support drilling for oil on the ANWR reserve.
* Support incentives for the use of renewable
fuels.
* Support the development of alternate energy sources.
* Support reducing regulations and costs that may hinder re-licensing of many of our State’s dams.
* Support resumption of safe nuclear power plant construction.
* Oppose removal of dams used for hydroelectric, irrigation, and transportation.

SECTION 5: RESPONSIBLE STEWARDSHIP- Recognizing the primacy of people and the importance of our Northwest way of life.

“We share this common goal: we must foster economic growth in ways that protect our environment. We must encourage growth that will provide a better life for citizens, while protecting the land, the water, and the air that sustains life.” George W Bush

We can achieve a healthful environment and continued economic growth and prosperity when government works with property owners in a positive cooperative fashion. Property owners implementing environmental practices that are supported by sound, peer-reviewed scientific method are a model of responsible natural resource stewardship:

* Reasonably limit environmental regulations to insure that legislative intent is followed.
* Private timber owners deserve a set of responsible, reliable, and consistent government rules under which to operate.
* Growth management and shoreline rules are best determined at the local level.
* Save our dams by funding improvements in fish passage, improvements in spawning habitat, and ocean survival.
* Support the Washington State Republican Party Contract with Rural Washington [October 2002].

SECTION 6: HOPE FOR RURAL AND AGRICULTURAL
COMMUNITIES- Regulatory and Tax Relief-Living the American Dream

Washington’s economy and health of many our rural communities is based on farming, fishing, mining, and the timber industry. Natural resource industries are the economic foundation of our economy. By ensuring economic opportunity for America’s farmers and family farms of all sizes we must secure our domestic supply of food sources and strengthen the rural economy.

To make our products competitive in the free market and make our farms viable and sustainable, we must:

* Establish a strong and secure domestic food supply that is not dependent on foreign products.
* Competitively price our agricultural products.
* Improve efficiencies in our ports and on our transportation routes.
* Create tax policies that recognize fluctuations in farm income and assist farmers in surviving low-income years.
* Require imported food to meet all U.S. standards.
* Require country of origin labeling for the benefit of American consumers.
* Protect individual (including corporate) water rights and value using water resources in food production.
*Support completion of the Columbia Basin Project.

SECTION 7: FAMILY-Families, the cornerstone of free society

The traditional family unit is the cornerstone of our society and it is the primary responsibility of parents to guide and discipline their children. We understand that a primary responsibility of government is to uphold and respect traditional institutions, such as marriage between a man and a woman and family, which are its foundation. Our commitment to protecting the life of innocents from conception through the infirmities of age must be nurtured in both our culture and our laws.

We support:

* The parental rights and responsibility to direct the upbringing of their children, and to provide care, discipline, and moral training.
* The protection of innocent human life born or pre-born through natural death.
* Existing Washington State Law that defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman.
* An amendment to the United States Constitution defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman.

SECTION 8: EDUCATION-The key to equal opportunity begins in the classrooom

The primary authority and responsibility for educating children resides with parents.

The Federal Government, based on the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution may not determine expenditures and curriculum. School boards should be free to determine priorities, focusing on basic academics, teaching of the constitution and civics, history, opportunities for vocational training. and the promotion of traditional American values.

We support:

* Providing the highest quality education through offering a broad selection of choices, whether public, private, charter or home school.
* Appropriate funding of public schools, and tax credits and vouchers for other choices.
* The right of parents to direct the education of their children.
* Education reform through full implementation of No Child Left Behind, giving parents more choices, stronger accountability of schools, proven teaching methods and more local freedom.
* Teaching English as our official and primary language, concentrated English instruction for non-English speaking students and regular instruction in English for all other subjects which will ensure successful job skills in a diverse, but overwhelmingly English speaking population.
* Sex education programs that promote abstinence before marriage.
* A policy that public schools not promote or identify homosexuality as a healthy, morally acceptable, or alternative lifestyle.
* Teaching the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Washington in our schools.
* Graduation requirements with an emphasis on rigorous academic skills in English, literacy, mathematics and sciences.

SECTION 9: CRIME AND JUSTICE-swift punishment for criminals

The primary role of government is to protect its citizens’ freedoms and their property from both foreign and domestic crime. Crime threatens our ability as individuals to exercise our right of self-government, but we accept the risks inherent in a free society. The rule of law is protected by policies that punish, reduce and deter crime.

We support:

* Constitutional protections, which safeguard our individual liberty, due process, and equal protection under the law.
* The efforts of law enforcement officers and firefighters who serve and protect our communities.
* Zero tolerance for sexual exploitation of minors.
* The role of the judiciary is to uphold the law in a manner faithful to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in accordance with legislative intent and established domestic legal precedent as the only legitimate standard.
* The right of individuals to provide for the defense of themselves, their families, and their communities within the bounds of Common Law and the U.S. Constitution. The death penalty where appropriate and oppose early release of convicted felons for budgetary reasons.
* Legislation requiring limitation on the number of appeals and period of time with bonds posted by the appealing party.

SECTION 10: HEALTH CARE- Access and affordability for all

Health care is a personal issue, and individuals can make better decisions about their own care than government. Republicans believe in free market solutions that reduce health care costs by offering more and better choices by consumers.

We support:

* Personal/private tax-exempt medical savings accounts.
* Increasing competition among health care providers to promote accountability to patients.
* The reduction of regulation in order to reduce the cost of health care and prescription drugs.
* All prescription drugs purchases and health insurance premiums being fully tax-deductible.
* Research of adult and placenta stem cells and oppose human cloning.
* Making malpractice liability reform an urgent priority, which will lower the cost of healthcare for all of us.
* Requiring parental consent for minors who seek medical procedures, treatments, or pharmaceuticals.
* Calling upon the Federal and State Legislators and the Governor to immediately work toward national parity in the way that Medicare reimbursements are made to healthcare providers.
* The belief that government regulations and funding will not improve the quality of affordability of health care; therefore, oppose a universal government-run health care system.

SECTION 11: PERSONAL LIBERTY- A Bill of Rights for
All Washingtonians

We have a moral obligation, a minimum debt owed, as free Americans, to defend and preserve our freedoms: Free Speech, Freedom of Assembly, Defense of Life, The Right to Vote, Private Property Rights, The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and protect
competitive free enterprise. Government exists by the consent of the governed. Smaller and more effective government will restore civic responsibility and individual freedom.

Ours is a nation created not by force, but by unifying ideals. People came here to be free to worship God as they choose without State restriction. For ours to remain one nation, where the source of our rights derive from God, not the state, we have the duty and obligation to teach our children the profound meaning behind the simple statement of allegiance to our flag and the ideals our nation was founded upon and to which so many have sacrificed their lives.

We re-affirm the Proper Role of Government is to protect our inalienable rights, including:

* Proof of United States citizenship for voting eligibility protects our right to vote.
* Protecting the integrity of the vote of our overseas military personnel.
* Campaign finance law that in no way prohibits free expression.
* The initiative process provided for by the Washington State Constitution.
* Compensating property owners when government actions reduce the value their land secures our right to own property.
* Parents rights to choose their children’s schools, be it public, charter, private, or home, with tax credits or vouchers protects our right to equal opportunity.
* Protecting individuals’ first amendment right of religious expression in our public schools does not conflict with the Establishment Clause.
* All people are entitled to be treated equally by government. The use of quotas or preferences to favor one person or group over another violates that principle, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the laws of the State of Washington.

We believe the right to keep and bear arms as stated in the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Section 24 of the Washington State Constitution guarantees an individual right, and as such, we support Right to Carry laws. We support protection of the American firearms industry against frivolous and harassing lawsuits that blame them for the actions of criminals, and we call for increased enforcement of existing laws against criminals, not more laws aimed at law-abiding citizens.

We encourage personal responsibility in exercising these rights.

SECTION 12: The Pledge of Allegiance

We strongly support and wish to promote and protect the continued use of the phrase, “one nation under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance.