Democratic Party

Republican Party. The party under its present name was established by Andrew Jackson during the 1820s, but it traces its origins to Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party in 1792. It is, along with Britain's Conservative Party, one of the two oldest political parties in the world. Currently, the Democratic Party is the minority party in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. Democrats control 20 state legislatures and 22 governorships. Since 1896 the Democrats have been the more liberal major party. The pro-working class, activist philosophy of Franklin D. Roosevelt has shaped much of the party's agenda since 1933; his New Deal Coalition controlled the national government into the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, championed by the northern Democratic Party, continues to inspire the party's ideas and principles. However, the bitter divisions (1968-72) over the Vietnam War remain visible in current debates about foreign policy.

Ideological Base

The Democratic Party's political views today have roots in the United States' progressive tradition. The Party's brand of progressivism is often called modern liberalism or, in an international context, social liberalism, to distinguish it from classical liberalism.

The Party advocates civil liberties, social freedoms, equal rights, equal opportunity, and a free enterprise system tempered by government intervention. The Party believes that government should play a role in alleviating poverty and social injustice, even if that means progressive taxation and a larger role for government to pay for social services.

The principles and values of any political party are difficult to define and don't generally apply to all members of the party. Some members disagree with one or more planks of their party's political platform. The party's platform represents the views of the majority of delegates to its national convention and usually is heavily influenced by the presidential nominee of that year.

Democratic Party stances

Budget

Democrats believe that large deficits impede economic growth, lead to market instabilities, and present the hard choice of cutting services or generating new revenues, usually through tax increases.

The Patriot Act

Democrats voted for the original Patriot Act legislation, but since then, with a few exceptions, party members have voiced concerns over the "invasion of privacy" and other civil liberty restrictions of the Act. The Democratic Party has been successful in changing portions of the Patriot Act that threatened individual rights, including the library provisions, which were dropped in 2006.

Same-Sex Marriage and Gay Rights

The Democratic Party is divided on the subject of same-sex marriage. Some members favor civil unions for same-sex couples, others favor legalized marriage, and others are opposed to same-sex marriage on religious grounds. Most agree, however, that discrimination against persons because of their sexual identity is wrong.

Reproductive rights and the Right to Privacy

The Democratic Party's stance on reproductive freedom and the right to choose can be summed up by this expression: "safe, legal, and rare."

Most Democrats support a woman's right to choose based on Roe V. Wade decided by the Supreme Court in 1973, upon the constitutional right to privacy. As a matter of the right to privacy and gender equality, many Democrats believe all women should have the ability to choose without governmental interference. They believe that each woman, conferring with her conscience, has the right to choose for herself whether abortion is morally correct. Many Democrats believe that poor women should have a right to federally funded abortions.

The party has been shifting to the center on this issue. Some party members believe in programs to make abortions less frequent as well as making sure the procedure is legal and available. The national platform in 2000 and 2004 called for abortion to be "safe, legal and rare"ЎЄnamely, keeping it legal by rejecting laws that allow governmental interference in any individual matter, and reducing the number of abortions by promoting both knowledge of reproduction and contraception, and incentives for adoption. Senator Clinton of New York said in early 2005 that the opposing sides should find "common ground" to prevent unwanted pregnancies and ultimately reduce abortions, which she called a "sad, even tragic choice to many, many women."[1]

Some Democrats explicitly oppose abortion on moral grounds.

Crime and gun control

Democrats often focus on methods of crime prevention, believing that preventive measures save taxpayers' money in policing and medical costs, and prevent crime and murder. They emphasize improved community policing and more on-duty police officers in order to help accomplish this goal. The Party's platform in 2000 and 2004 cited crackdowns on gangs and drug trafficking as preventive methods. The party's platforms have also addressed the issue of domestic violence, calling for strict penalties for offenders and protection for victims.

With a stated goal of reducing crime and homicide, the Democratic Party has introduced various gun control measures over the last hundred years. The most notable of these were the National Firearms Act of 1934 and 1939 Gun Control Act (signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt), the Gun Control Act of 1968 (introduced by Sen. Dodd and endorsed by Sen. Edward Kennedy), the Brady Bill of 1993 and Crime Control Act of 1994 (signed by President Bill Clinton). However, many Democrats, especially rural, Southern, and Western Democrats, favor fewer restrictions on firearm possession. In the national platform for 2004, the only statement explicitly favoring gun control was a plank calling for renewal of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

Discrimination

Democrats support Equal Opportunity for all Americans regardless of sex, age, race, sexual identity, religion, creed, or national origin.

The Democratic party mostly supports affirmative action as a way to redress past discrimination and ensure equitable employment regardless of ethnicity or gender, but opposes the use of quotas in hiring, leading some to call for new brand of affirmative action based on economic need, not