Sen. Bernie Sanders scored a partial victory with the Democratic Party which is ready to put breaking up Wall Street banks and a $15 minimum wage — among other items Sanders wants — into its party platform.
According to the Associated Press, a draft of the party’s platform will include those items, along with a push to abolish the death penalty. However, Sanders and his supporters did get rebuffed by backers of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on other key issues — including his push for a Medicare-for-all healthcare plan, a carbon tax and a fracking freeze.
Sanders backers were also on the losing end of a battle to change language concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which pushed to give Palestinians “an end to occupation and illegal settlements” and called for an international effort to rebuild Gaza.
Instead, the draft contains Clinton’s views and calls to work toward a “two-state solution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict,” one which guarantees Israel’s security with recognized borders “and provides the Palestinians with independence, sovereignty and dignity.”
“We lost some but we won some,” said James Zogby, a Sanders supporter on the committee. “We got some great stuff in the platform that has never been in there before.”
The Democratic National Convention’s full platform committee will discuss the draft in a meeting next month in Orlando, Fla. A vote will follow in Philadelphia in late July at the party’s convention.
While the party platforms are non-binding on the nominee of either party, they serve as a guide post for the parties to abide by moving forward.
This past week, Sanders admitted that he likely will not be taking home the Democratic nomination and that he will probably vote for Clinton in November against GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump. However, that isn’t keeping him off the campaign trail, as Sanders held events in New York on Thursday and Friday and plans to continue campaigning for progressive down-ballot candidates, including New York congressional candidate Eric Kingson and California state Senate candidate Jane Kim.
