Priorities

The Dekalb County Democratic Party Committee submitted the following list of priorities for our State Senate and House legislators to consider during the 2005 Session of the Georgia General Assembly:

Transportation

• Allocate sufficient state funding to continue installation of sidewalks and crosswalk signals along state highways in DeKalb with the highest pedestrian casualties, especially Buford Highway, Memorial Drive, and Glenwood and Candler Roads.
  

• Ensure that the Atlanta Regional Commission’s 2030 Regional Transportation Plan includes extension of MARTA’s East and West rail lines.

• Ensure that DeKalb receives 100% of the GRIP (Governor’s Road Improvement Program) and LARP (Local Assistance Road Program) funds due to the county.

• Allocate 1 cent of the state’s existing motor fuel sales tax to help fund MARTA operations.

• Recognize MARTA as the major component of regional transportation relative to findings of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, and fully support MARTA’s state appropriations requests to fund operations and infrastructure enhancements necessary to meet the increased GRTA load on the system.

• Implement and support programs to encourage the use of public transportation.

Healthcare

• Defend every woman’s right to reproductive privacy and choice without government interference.  Enhance equal access to reproductive health care and education for low income families and youth.   
  

• Oppose Peach Care caps for kids.

• Oppose any cuts in Medicaid and any attempts to force Medicaid patients into Managed Care HMOs. 

• Recognize Grady Hospital as a state resource and appropriate funding to support required staff and care levels.

• Protect access to healthcare by defending domestic partner insurance coverage.

• Appropriate funding levels for Medicaid and SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) programs that will obtain maximum matching Federal dollars.

• Allocate special funding to improve healthcare-access education to Georgia’s senior citizens, children, and families who are participants and/or potential users of entitlement programs such as PeachCare, Medicaid, and CHIPS (Consumer Health Information Program and Services).

• Oppose any cuts to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program.

• Oppose layoffs of Food Safety inspectors. 

Education

• Support class size reduction at all levels with student/pupil ratio goals being 1:15 for K-3, 1:18 for 4-5, and 1:20 for 6-12.

• Allocate funding for art, music, physical education, and foreign language programs and teachers at a ratio of 1:Full Time Equivalent (FTE) in all grade levels.

• Continue funding for Safe School initiatives.
  

• Fully fund paraprofessionals for grades 1-3.

• Establish fair and uniform guidelines for standardized tests.

• Continue funding for adequate Career Technology Programs on the secondary and the postsecondary levels.

• Oppose voucher-based weakening of public education.

• Continue funding to ensure that ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) programs are fully protected and students with limited English proficiency are provided support to enhance their ability to receive a high school diploma.

• Guarantee a daily duty free lunch period for all educators and remove all non-instructional duties from teachers.

• Allocate funds to provide all teachers with modern office space, telephones, technology, clerical assistance and teaching supplies.

• Allocate Hope Scholarship funds equitably across the state.

• Oppose any attempt to provide public funds to religious institutions.

Community Development

• Preserve strong consumer protections against predatory-lending.

• Close the loophole in the Georgia Code section 9-13-36 permitting delinquent tax title sales.

• Provide senior and disabled property tax relief to residents of DeKalb County.

• Support the legislative initiatives of organized labor on behalf of working families, especially a meaningful increase in Georgia’s state minimum wage.

Civic Reform

• Enforce compliance to existing state ethical standards by all state officials including full disclosure and divestment of inappropriate interests.

• Support reasoned homeland security measures while safeguarding civil liberties.

• Ensure continuous stringent auditing of electronic voting systems including the implementation of paper ballots.  Black Box Voting in Georgia must be eliminated!

• Extend Georgia’s voter registration deadlines.

• Extend Georgia’s Early Voting programs to include additional days and weekends.  Provide state funding to support the extension of these programs.

• Support legislation penalizing or censuring officials who change their party affiliation.

• Provide universal access to timely indigent legal aid.

• Oppose death tax on the estates of deceased Medicaid recipients.

• Enact legislation to remove audit and financial responsibility of state “pass through” grants from county government.

• Enact legislation authorizing judicial courts operating within DeKalb County to impose a $5 technology surcharge on all fines and fees exceeding $20.

Environment

• Atlanta Regional Commission long range planning should increase funding to MARTA as the backbone of the system, increase funding for the award winning Livable Centers program and other Smart Growth programs, increase funding for bike lanes and sidewalks, and focus on reduction of sprawl.

• Provide tax incentives for the purchase of alternative fuel automobiles (no ad valorem for first year).

• Provide property tax incentives for solar power home initiatives.

• Provide adequate funding for the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to enforce compliance with environmental laws.

• Develop and fund a state-wide recycling program.

• Oppose the selling of water permits on the open market.

• Fully maintain enforcement authority of the Department of Natural Resources Game and Fish rangers.

• Maintain stringent regulation of stream buffers and soil erosion.

• Oppose attempts by power companies to take citizens’ property to run high-voltage power lines through neighborhoods.

• Enact meaningful regulation of All Terrain Vehicles.

• Oppose proposed closing of Georgia state parks and historic sites.

• Base ad valorem motor vehicle tax on a vehicle’s emissions rather than a vehicle’s value.  Vehicles causing the most pollution should be taxed at a higher rate than more efficient vehicles.

Georgia Unity

• Enact statewide standards to eliminate racial profiling in law enforcement.

• Ensure continued progress toward a level playing field by protecting Affirmative Action.

• Support the Georgia Nondiscrimination Act, which will expand legal protections for minority groups and add sexual orientation as a protected class.

• Oppose any attempt to amend the state constitution in order to strip the civil rights of Georgia citizens.

• Amend the Georgia Constitution to distribute Georgia’s electoral votes for US President according to the number of votes the candidate receives.  Georgia has become a political backwater and our citizen’s are largely ignored by Presidential candidates.