We have a great panel. We are a big group to talk about running from donald trump and running for people. Will bring up a couple different issues. I will keep question short and i will serve as timekeeper. We will try to keep answers quick. I last brought questions. How do outside Democratic Party platforms and manifestoes and lots of policy platforms, Climate Change and lots of different issues, how those impact how people are running as candidates. We hope to get a lot of different perspective. Everyone here will get a chance to comment on the role of these outside platforms. [inaudible] they are based out of canada but moving into the u. S. They want to use the intersection of race and politics to redefine it. Without further ado, a quick intro, i wont read everybodys bio, word for word because youre all fascinating people and we just be here telling everybody how cool you are. Ill give a quick introduction and then we should have about 20 minutes for q a at the end. If youre writing down notes, hold on and we will have space at the end to aspen. Whos on the panel with us today, starting not all the way to my right but Anthony Rogers right was selected as one of 50 people youll be talking about in 2016. Over the past ten years hes worked on policy analysis, organizing and advocacy of serving as an analyst for various consulting firms. He specializes in landuse and he is currently the coordinator of the leap. He earned his bachelors degree from many impressive places. I thought were going to say there. To his right is Keith Ellison who doesnt need much introduction. Since taking office in 2007, the Fifth District has become of one of the most vibrant. They are ethnically diverse district in minnesota with the rich history and tradition that constitutes the city of minneapolis and surrounding suburbs. To anthonys left, danielle is known as the free range mom because she fought back when Police Detained her children from walking back from a park without the accompaniment of an adult. She is currently running for the democratic primary for a county counsel atlarge seat in maryland. Shes a climate scientist and shes the mother of two Public School children and caring for an aging parent. Alexandria were foreign affairs. She served as the entrepreneur in residence is also founded the book avenue press, a method on parent literacy and education. [applause] to her right is paula jean. She is a native of West Virginia. Today, old generation of folks are struggling to find reliable jobs that are not on the table. Its time for us in itself. She is challenging. Joe mansion. My late arriving friend, i had to scribble down the little bios and handwrite it. Back to my right, k dante, what is your last. He has 12 years of experience in Community Organizing and Leadership Development as an organizer strategy to of. [inaudible] [applause] religiously buried there except to say hes a frequent contributor to msnbc, the guardian, every magazine and has been future we want, ideas. Almost always at the end, Marcus Burrell has ten years of organizing experience and his former outreach director for Bernie Sanders. He is the Campaign Manager and organizer for alexander and travon martin, a lifetime member of the ncaa p and the first mayor of jacksonville florida, and an organizer for political justice. She is a recent graduate of tennessee university, a delegate for Climate Change initiative. She is a current organizer for the aclu and former Campaign Director for get out to vote Hillary Clinton campaign. Impressive folks, one and all. Thank you for being here my first question we will start with representative alice and work her way down the line. Described your favorite in the democratic partner or how they are running your office right now . Or so vile i think all of these platforms are very good. We should encourage people to coalesce around common shared values, progressive values. When i was a Bernie Sanders supporter gets me to serve on the drafting committee and i was happy to do so. We didnt get everything done. I can tell you this, Bill Mckibben who is such an exxon leader on climate issues, he walked away from it thinking there was a lot more recruited done and should have done and so if we dont have other groups doing platforms besides just the Democratic National committee than how was the Democratic NationalCommittee Going to look at how this policy might play out . It might actually inspire and inform us for when they get together on another platform and say hey that was actually great idea lets look at it so the budget out theres a good thing but there a lot of things that are good about it. Let me tell you nowadays we take it as a given that most of us have a 15dollar minimal wage but then it was people in the streets demanding it. We got it on that platform. Also ending the death penalty. The Democratic Party is on record as ending the death penalty. Thats good. [applause] we also are on for demilitarizing the police and requiring body cameras. Also ending racial profiling expanding security and enacting a tax. Modernizing glasssteagall and moving our country to 100 clean energy by 2050 and universal health care which we believe a singlepayer and also and we have a very, so we had a big fight over the transpacific partnership. Many of you might remember the debate. The president was ford and many of us were both and nobody wanted to take a position 180 degrees against the president s position so we basically put together a number of things that we demanded in a new trade platform and did everything except to say and tpp. We put Everything Else in there including the resolution process and some of the stuff on the patents and a lot of things we wanted to get in there and its in the platform now. I look forward to, i think its a good idea for us to keep on doing platforms. Im part of something called the progressive caucus in congress and we put together our caucus in that type of platform and i would say we have found that we have gotten out their strong and then the Democratic Party budget , proposed budget has adopted things that we had in our budget as time went on like the transactions tax for example and carbon tax and stuff like that so we helped move them in a forward direction and we are proud that we did and we are proud that they agreed the idea. We think teamwork makes dream work, right . Let me just say we are in a unique moment in history when you have seen since 2008 we have seen over 1000 seats being lost to democrats, 950 legislative seats. And yet simultaneously americas provably looking to the left. Look at the minimum wage increases past, Marijuana Legalization and you keep going. Marriage equality legalization. We have done all these things where we are moving to the left whereas our politicians are moving in the other direction. We have got to get our politics lined up with their value system in this country and that means all of us have a lot of work to do in building strong platforms that have broad buyin is part of it. Thank you representative. I was in orlando and you have probably seen me on cnn if you go back for a few things i did make it into the democratic platform and its very important especially that we are focusing in on Climate Change. This nation in some states in particular black and brown communities especially in particular we are not taking it seriously quite frankly. We have to be clear first of all when we say 100 clean energy that doesnt mean fracking, first and foremost that has to be clear. [applause] and we fought hard to get a platform in orlando for a national fracking band like ernie had on his platform when he was running for president. That in work out of many do things like that you are sending a mixed signal to the people because its like we have to act on climate but a bridge fuel when its a gangplank and it doesnt work out. Secondly i does want to be brief another thing i think we missed out on was dignity. It was right after there is a black lives matter unity specifically and it was right after that vote we needed to get something passed. We dont need to stop just chill out and we couldnt get that pass. You cant claim dignity for black lives and forget about something in your life. He just doesnt add up so thats what these people platforms are really doing and i think it just in general platforms where people help people so the words are important in the process of how we get to those words might be more important. [applause] i think we need to take a step back and talk about what these platforms are for because they are literally people sitting in a room arguing over something and putting it on a piece of paper in filing a summer is just a waste of time but the plot warms in my mind are not for candidates to sign a piece of paper but for citizens to hold candidates and politicians accountable. [applause] saying this is what you said you were going to do or what you are telling you need to do and we are going to hold their feet to the fire until you do it. For example the 15 dollar minimum wage got into the democratic platform my account executive in my camry Montgomery County became the first of them to increase the wage to 15. Hes a democrat so if we dont say this is really what it means to be a democrat and theres a cost when you go against what democrats have agreed on then those platforms arent going to be meaningful and thats one of the reasons we need peoples platforms whether its like you said our evolutions platform or the peoples action platform. When is a group of citizens saying this is what we expect from you and politicians can deliver or there are going to be problems. [applause] peace everyone, how is everyone doing . So we cant be remiss to say when we talk about movements in the talk about platforms just a couple of days ago we celebrated the anniversary of the death of Michael Brown and this year we celebrated the fifth Year Anniversary of the death of which is the reason my organization exists. So the reason we are having this conversation about race is because black people have been in the streets nonstop since that day. Since trayvon and all the other death they continue to be impacted. I also think when we talk about agendas its not in response to the reaction of whats happening in the moment but also its about building a whole new that doesnt exist yet and for black people the road that we imagine has not actually existed so in order for us to be able to fill the vision about lax determination and Building Political power we need to think along some of those lines of what is knotted and possible and whats not in the realm of what is pragmatic right now but to get us to a place for what can be possible. I also do this exercise that when we talk about whats possible we also have to get grounded in what society has told us. If are ruined closes their eyes for a second and take about what makes them feel safe. Where are you . Who are you with me . What does it feel like . What does it tastes like . What does it sound like . Raise your hand guindon persons come to your mind. Raise your hand at Detention Centers come into your mind. Raise your hand if come into your mind. So if i did this exercise right the things that came into your mind for probably her family, having health care, having a job, having food. All those things that actually make us feel safe. What would society tell us that all those things prisons and Detention Centers can keep people safe in this country . For black people for a lot of our communities its about really imagining whats actually going to keep us not surviving but to a place of surviving, living in a place of abundance rather than sparsity. This is the black lives platform produced in the wake of the death of Michael Brown with this in mind. How do we actually build a world that doesnt even exist . How do we actually able to build people who can organize towards this vision over the longterm so i think this platform on ending the war on black people preparation divest invest Community Control and political power. These are fundamental tenants that i think a lot of organizations are really pushing for and have influenced our conversation at the local state and National Level and bias having a conversation right now but push that. [applause] p in regards the democratic platform i think its very very important behold our democratic incumbents responsible for the platform. Or things are going to happen like they did with Bernie Sanders and what has happened recently in West Virginia. One of the biggest putting colberts in West Virginia are democratic governor was a republican two months prior to him running for office. Did he run for office as a democrat and did he come out of the trump rally as a republican . Than we have incumbents like joe manchin. When the West VirginiaDemocratic Party adopted a platform in june of 2016 that was one of the most Progressive Democratic platforms in the nation and our incumbents are not standing behind that so that tells me do we need to hold the dnc responsible and we need to hold our state Democratic Party responsible and we need to make sure that we have officials in those parties that are standing behind the platforms that we were promised. [applause] i think that there are a lot of people, you know the heart of the question on whether Party Platform is its literally the definition of what it means to be a democrat and i think a lot of us learned that not enough people know what that is. And what i am very proud about when it comes to things like the peoples platform and summer for progress is it allows me as a progressive to rise above and beyond to a Gold Standard which includes standing up for black lives, for medicare for all for Renewable Energy economy not in 50 years, 10 years and there may be a lot of people in this country that are afraid to say those things and are free to draw a line in the sand but have have the only reason this country is becoming more progressive is because of the activists in this room pushing and allowing people in getting people on these issues. While i applaud the Democratic Party for seeing the light a little bit on some of these issues i think its a too our leadership. Its because of our leadership and these platforms allow us to continue to lead instead of just trying to find whats pulling well. Its a really important distinction and it also allows people like paula gene and myself to also add a second standard which is we dont take corporate funds. We dont take dark money. [applause] sydney i have three things. First the first thing is if you have a platform that doesnt have black lives matter in it, you dont have a platform. [applause] if you dont have the basics for what it is to be a democrat or to be a good person, a good human. Number two platforms dont come from the top down. Platforms come from the bottom up, right . So if you are a pc and your pc committee doesnt have their own platform to tell your county they need to adopt this platforms of the county can tell your state to adopt this platform so your state can tell if you are backing congressman ellison and fighting from the bottom up you dont have that platform. [applause] the last thing is whats the use of the platform if you dont tell nobody about it. [laughter] so heres the thing. You could have a beautiful platform but not necessarily have the means or the wherewithal or the guts to tell everybody about your platform. [applause] so we need our campaign, we neither clinical figures and we need our folks that push out energy to get our platform to the people. If you live in mississippi knoxville georgia knoxville tennessee places in the south and the midwest and they have no idea what youre talking about because you dont have the means to do and you spend all your money on, instead of talking to folks about your platform then you still dont have a platform. My question is do we really have a platform. Platforms are about work. [applause] as we talk more about platforms they keep on thinking about the fact that im an advocate for hpc. I realize in my experience on hbcus a lot of my friends dont vote and if we are talking about platforms where people reaching out to minority serving institutions . Why are universities and organizations in general reaching out and trying to tell people about the importance of their boys . Why are we empowering the students . The next generation is going to continue to vote. Why arent we empowering them to vote . I get frustrated when i think about the fact that outside organizations literally tried to stay in the 25 and up range because they assume we are the ones who are going to vote but if you want people to understand the importance of democracy you have to come down to the schools and you have to talk to the students because honestly my generation, we are set up and right now a lot of us have this new man in office and we dont vote. I have a lot of friends who are like i dont think its real. Hes going to win anyway and they decided for the rest of their lives they are not going to vote. So we are going to increase platforms we need to reach out to the stud