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Garfield County Democrats hold county assembly on March 17

John Colson
Post Independent Staff
Glenwood Springs, Colorado CO

NEW CASTLE, Colorado – The Garfield County Democratic Party will hold its county assembly Saturday, offering a chance for local Democrats to debate a platform covering local, state and national issues.

The platform planks touch on issues including local control of oil and gas development, immigration reform, and opposition to further armed conflict in other countries in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The assembly is set for 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday at Coal Ridge High School, 35947 Highway 6 between New Castle and Silt. Delegates to the assembly were selected during the party caucuses on March 6.



Also on the agenda will be the election of delegates to the state Democratic Party assembly, set for April 14 in Pueblo.

With no races on the Democratic side for president or the Third Congressional District, and no U.S. Senate seats up for election this year, Democrats can focus on platform issues.



The Garfield County party members will decide which platform concepts to send along for possible inclusion in the state party platform and, ultimately, the national party platform.

The draft state platform, available on the Colorado Democratic Party’s website, http://www.coloradodems.org, is a 24-page document with hundreds of proposed planks related to a broad range of topics.

Garfield County Democrats, at the March 6 caucuses, assembled a list of issues in play at the local, state and national levels.

Locally, the party favors local land use controls for oil and gas activities, initiatives to grow food locally, conversion of Garfield County to home rule (with five county commissioners instead of the current three), completion and formal adoption of the scuttled Health Impact Assessment for Battlement Mesa, and support for job creation in the renewable energy field.

At the state level, the Democrats support voter identification laws that allow for state-paid identification cards for those who don’t drive.

Other statewide issues include extension of commuter mass transit to connect major airports, more secure funding for rural schools, and opposition to governmental rulings affecting women, such as health care and insurance coverage.

Proposed federal platform planks include environmental sustainability, revising airport security to “respect human dignity,” tax reform that promotes economic equality, reinstatement of the Glass-Steagal Act to more closely regulate large banks, and overturning the Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which paved the way for corporations and unions to make unlimited financial contributions to election campaigns.

The Garfield County Republican Party will hold its county assembly on Saturday, March 24, at Rifle High School.

jcolson@postindependent.com


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