Noticing a notable capital shift in Democrats’ campaign platform
HuffPost has this notable new piece noting a notable new shift in one party’s platform on a notable old punishment. The piece headlined “Democrats Scrub Death Penalty Opposition From Campaign Platform: For the first time in more than a decade, the Democratic Party platform includes no mention of abolishing the death penalty.” Here are excerpts from a piece covering a lot of interesting ground:
In 2016, the Democratic Party became the country’s first major political party to formally call for abolishing the death penalty. The party’s platform that year, released in the aftermath of a high-profile botched execution, called the punishment “cruel and unusual,” “arbitrary and unjust,” expensive to taxpayers and ineffective in deterring crime. The document also nodded to the people exonerated from death row as evidence of the risk that the government will kill innocent people.
During the 2020 campaign, the Democratic platform reiterated support for abolishing the death penalty. When Joe Biden entered office the following year, he became the first president to publicly oppose capital punishment — a dramatic shift from his time in the Senate, when he once bragged that the sweeping crime bill he was pushing did “everything but hang people for jaywalking.”
However, as his term winds down, Biden has little to show for the party’s promise to abolish capital punishment. On Monday, the Democrats approved their 2024 platform, which includes no mention of the death penalty. This year’s platform marks the first time since 2004 the platform has not mentioned the death penalty (the 2008 and 2012 platforms called for making the punishment less arbitrary)…. The Democratic National Committee did not respond to an email asking if the party still supports abolishing the death penalty….
Meanwhile, Republicans are gearing up for another execution spree if Trump wins reelection. Project 2025, an 887-page document outlining plans for a second Trump presidency released by a coalition of conservative groups, suggests that Trump execute every remaining prisoner on death row. The document also envisions pursuing the death penalty in cases involving violence and sexual abuse of children. In a footnote, the document notes that this would require convincing the Supreme Court to overrule its previous findings on when the death penalty is appropriate, but that “the [Justice] department should place a priority on doing so.” Trump reportedly plans to announce his support for expanding the death penalty to non-homicide crimes….
In addition to dropping any mention of the death penalty, this year’s Democratic platform noticeably backs away from several criminal justice reforms the party embraced in 2020, when the police killing of George Floyd prompted nationwide protests against police brutality. The criminal justice section of the 2020 platform opens by declaring that the system is “failing” to keep people safe and deliver justice. It contrasts the promise of America as the “land of the free” with the reality that the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world and calls for “dramatically” reducing the number of people held in prisons and jails.
The 2020 platform includes support for several specific policies that are either absent from the 2024 platform or have been considerably toned down, including: ending life-without-parole sentences for people under 21, banning police from using chokeholds, decriminalizing cannabis, eliminating cash bail and repealing mandatory minimum sentences.
This year’s platform makes no mention of mass incarceration. Instead, it describes the need to “fund the police” and touts DOJ funding for more police officers. The platform claims Biden “took action to enhance public trust” by signing a “historic” executive order directing federal law enforcement agencies to ban chokeholds “unless deadly force is authorized” — a move described by civil rights groups as only a first step on police reform.
Prior related post: