Democratic delegates will vote on the platform ahead of the convention next month where Joe Biden is set to be formally named the party’s nominee.
Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesDemocrats rejected efforts to amend the party’s platform to show support for Medicare for All and legalizing marijuana, as they moved the document closer to adoption by delegates to next month’s convention.
The document, approved Monday by the party’s platform committee, aligns closely with presumptive nominee Joe Biden’s campaign proposals. The next step is for the platform to be voted on by nearly 4,000 Democratic delegates, which they will do by mail ahead of the convention where Mr. Biden is set to be formally named the party’s nominee.
The party platform is largely symbolic, as Democratic candidates don’t have to endorse its contents. Still, it is an official marker of the party’s priorities and policy goals.
The committee meeting Monday was held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic and avoided some of the more heated discussions that have occurred during in-person platform talks in the past. However, some areas of disagreement were on display.
Delegates overwhelmingly opposed an amendment in support of the Medicare for All system pushed by allies of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Platform committee members also shot down other attempts to move the party’s position closer to endorsing single-payer health care, such as by expanding Medicare to children and people over age 55.
Opponents of the Medicare for All-related amendments pointed out that the platform borrowed heavily from recommendations drafted by task forces made of representatives selected by Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders. The document says Democrats support a public insurance option, but it also says the party welcomes advocates of Medicare for All, a mention that wasn’t in the 2016 platform.
“This language that we supported in the Biden-Sanders unity task force was agreed by all members. It’s a part of the strongest health care language in the Democratic Party’s history,” said Chris Jennings, an Obama and Clinton administration official who served on the Biden-Sanders health care task force this year.
The 2020 platform also goes further than the 2016 edition by outlining opposition to Israeli settlement expansion in territory Palestinians claim as a future state. But delegates rejected efforts Monday to expand that section to say “no United States aid may be used to facilitate annexation or violate Palestinian rights.”
Democrats on the platform committee also rejected an effort to legalize marijuana. The party platform calls for decriminalizing marijuana and legalizing medical marijuana.
Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, asked Democrats Monday what side of history they wanted to be on regarding race and policing. Ms. Cullors wasn’t speaking in connection to a specific amendment, but she and other activists are pushing for funding to be shifted from police departments to organizations that support marginalized communities. Neither Mr. Biden nor the party platform supports defunding police departments.
“Can any of you here truly stand up and say ‘my party is the party of the principles?’” Ms. Cullors asked. “The Democratic Party of today will be remembered as the party of complicity. The party that refused to sacrifice its own creature comforts and material securities to ensure it walked the walk.”
While many of the delegates who were attempting to pull the party platform to the left are supporters of Mr. Sanders, the Vermont senator has made clear he backs Mr. Biden.
“There is no more important issue than coming together, all of us, to defeat Donald Trump and to elect Joe Biden as our next president,” Mr. Sanders said on a call last week with delegates who support him. “Now I understand, we do not agree with Joe Biden on all of the issues. Believe me, I know that. I ran against Joe Biden. But at this moment, what we need to do is engage in coalition politics with the goal of defeating Trump.”
Some delegates who support Medicare for All aren’t satisfied. As of Monday afternoon, more than 600 delegates had signed onto a pledge to vote against the party platform if it doesn’t support a Medicare for All system, according to Judith Whitmer, the chair of the Nevada delegation and an organizer of the effort. The pledge was first reported by Politico.
Ms. Whitmer said she didn’t expect there to be a majority of delegates to support the pledge and stop the platform from being adopted.
“I will be honest with you, it’s not that we expect we are going to be able to stop the DNC from doing what they want to do,” she said. “We want to make a statement about how important this issue is to the majority of national delegates and to the people that we represent.”
Write to Eliza Collins at eliza.collins@wsj.com.
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