Platform Committee 2026-09-22

Attending

• Mars Bale
• Lily Boyt
• Wanda Ward

Agenda

• Continue Discussions on Housing and Land Use
• Continue Discussions on Clean Air

The following were the working texts as of the last platform committee meeting

Housing and Land Management

Housing is a human right. This means that people should be secure in their homes free from the threat of eviction or excessive taxes. People should have access to all utilities required for life, including: Water, electricity, and high speed internet, services which millions of Americans currently lack. Housing must be affordable. High costs of housing clashing with basic needs must be resolved. Urban housing must be habitable and located in a location close to places of work, health-care facilities, schools, and other facilities. A cheap house in a food desert hours away from the nearest hospital should not be lauded as affordable or accessible. As a start for recognizing this right we propose the following:

• Establishing a right to decent housing with federal legislation.
• Ending no-cause evictions and holdover evictions.
• Establishing a federal right to council for tenants.
• Giving tenants and qualified housing nonprofits the right of first refusal when their unit is sold. (including mobile home courts)
• Prohibiting the algorithmic price fixing of rents.
• Disallow credit checks in renting.
• Fully funding the housing choice program.
• Allow ADUs and other non-traditional homes on all residential lots.
• Eliminate single family only zoning in our densest cities.
• Provide funding for a housing first model for homelessness at a federal level.

We must dramatically rethink America's 20th century experiment in low-density land use and return to human centered, livable cities. We have robbed generations of Americans of their childhoods by forcing everyone into a car including those unable to drive. We have polluted our cities by enshrining cars as the only reliable means of transportation. We have destroyed the formerly thriving passenger rail industry through a trillion dollar investment into the national highway system. We will:

• Make federal transportation funding contingent on municipalities eliminating or reducing minimum parking requirements.
• Eliminate or cover all urban freeways.
• Establish clear federal standard delineating streets, roads, and highways as separate classes of roads.
• Replace property taxes at all levels with revenue neutral land value taxes to promote productive development.
• Nationalize, electrify, and modernize railroad infrastructure while maintaining existing rail companies as private operators.
• Double track all railroad mainlines.
• Construct a nation wide high speed passenger rail system with expedited environmental review and minimal external contractors.

Clean Air

• cap and trade for CO2 with no offsets
• more money into infrastructure to mitigate the effects of catastrophic climate change
• clean energy wind, solar, hydro, nuclear.
• expand energy storage / battery capacity
• Provide grants to help with the reduction of carbon intensity of concrete and steel production.
• Increase EPA fine structures to a level that actually disincentivises behavior.
• Increasing federal funding for preventative measures for wildfires controlled burns.
• Noise pollution is bad actually

Discussion

• Ward Moved to formally reprimand Mitch for not adopting the exact text from platform.
• Boyt Seconded
• Passed 3-0

Consensus was if he wanted such a change, the correct method is to ask his state rep to amend the platform as such, or ask the Platform Committee to bring such an amendment to PNC.

Housing and Transit

Bale mentioned that age discrimination in housing is currently illegal, but enforcement is lackluster. It is more enforced in owner to owner sales or in more formal rental situations, but frequently other aspects are used as proxies for age. He proposed to further prohibit the ability of landlord to illegal discrimination that a detailed report shall be provided to an applicant for a rental,. mortgage, home loan application, etc. in the case of denial with a detailed reasoning.

Ward brought up that "Eliminate single family only zoning in our densest cities" is restrictive language even though it is increasing the freedoms of the owner. A more libertarian phrasing of "Restructure residential zoning categories to allow for all types of housing, including ADUs, to be built in areas zoned for residential" was proposed.

It was brought up as the plank covered Housing and Transit, that it should be called housing and transit.

The following were dropped from immediate consideration due to a lack of consensus.

• Make federal transportation funding contingent on municipalities eliminating or reducing minimum parking requirements.
• Eliminate or cover all urban freeways.

Clean Air

• no substantive discussion or alterations

Clean Water

Bale brought up that a stance against the current buildout of water-intensive datacenters powering generative AI might be warranted in the Clean Water Plank.

• Ward moved that the platform committee be against whimsy.
• Died for a lack of a second

• By a vote of 17-0 with only 3 people present, meeting was adjourned at 9:03PM CDT.

Next Meeting

• Continue discussions of Housing & Transit
• Continue discussions on Clean Air
• Healthcare?