The Proposed 2025 Mass Dems Platform Is a Milquetoast Mess…As Are the Defenses of It
Deeply disappointed to see Massachusetts Democratic Party Steve Kerrigan and 2025 Massachusetts Democratic Platform chair Martina Jackson send a lie-ridden email out to delegates misrepresenting the 2025 platform. They should be embarrassed to have sent it.
That they sent it is an indication that they know that delegates are mad at the milquetoast, eviscerated platform.
CONTEXT: WHAT THE 2025 PLATFORM TOOK OUT OF THE 2021 PLATFORM
As a reminder, the 2025 platform removed full sections from the 2021 platform: Children and Families; Racial Justice, Equal Rights, and Equal Opportunities for All; Ethics and Transparency; Immigration; Public Safety and Criminal Legal Reform; Reproductive Health, Freedom, and Justice; Veterans; and Voting & Democracy. To the extent any of these sections remain elsewhere (e.g., the preamble), they are given a paragraph or a bullet point, often of vague hand-waving.
The party platform often grows by accretion. If the committee wanted to shorten it, they could have decided to drop the whole platform and reduce it to a preamble. They did not do that. By keeping issue sections, they chose to highlight their omissions, rendering them as intentional and making them inflammatory.
The platform collapses “Economic Justice & Growth” and “Labor & Workforce” into a new section of “Economic Opportunity.” Combining those sections is a valid way to eliminate redundancies, but the framing is a noteworthy change — and not one for the better. The dropping of “justice” language also appears in the dropping of “Environmental Justice” from the climate & environment section.
Despite eliminating so many sections, the new platform also adds two sections: Community Safety (which is perfectly fine text but a sorry remnant of what was in the Public Safety & Criminal Legal Reform” and “Racial Justice” sections) and a Science & Research section (which should clearly be in either Education or Economic Opportunity, or both, and does not merit its own section more than the issues deleted).
The platform also drops policy commitments that have been in the platform for decades (single payer health care, progressive taxation), policy commitments that were won in 2017 (e.g., disentangling state and local law enforcement from ICE, combating worker misclassification, ending militarization of police, guaranteeing free public higher education, same day registration & ranked choice voting, various planks to make the State House more transparent and accessible), and policy commitments that were won in 2021 (e.g., comprehensive, LGBTQ-inclusive sex education, protecting trans rights, higher teacher pay, diverse & inclusive curricula, meeting the state’s Climate Roadmap goals, net zero buildings, full-spectrum pregnancy care, rent control, a moratorium on prison construction).
All of the platform additions in past years were debated either in committee or on the floor and included because of that.
In 2021, when I was a part of the platform committee, we were given a well-organized spreadsheet indexing the testimony at the platform hearings, and we started with a marked-up version of the 2017 platform based on the testimony heard from those hearings. We debated additions, subtractions, and edits, and we took contested votes (some that I won, some that I lost). There were additional changes made in the convention itself.
The 2021 platform is not perfect. Any document that has many writers will suffer from inconsistencies (the 2025 draft is worse in this regard), but it was the most or at least one of the most progressive in the country.
A MARK-UP OF THE EMAIL SENT TODAY
KERRIGAN AND JACKSON: “As Democrats, we know that Massachusetts values are Democratic values: fairness, opportunity, and inclusion. At a time when democracy itself is under attack, our 2025 Party Platform reaffirms our commitment to protecting rights, strengthening trust in governmen,t and building a Commonwealth that is fairer, healthier, and more prosperous for everyone.”
COMMENT: As noted above, it drops many of the commitments to rights, fairness, health, and prosperity. They also need an editor, because “governmen,t.”
KERRIGAN AND JACKSON: “This platform was not an edit of the 2021 document. It was written from the ground up to reflect today’s challenges and opportunities.”
COMMENT: The party platform could read as a statement of what Democrats in the Legislature have done over the past four years and what they want to do in the next four. That would be valid. I might not like the document as much, but it would make sense. That is not what the platform is or has been. The platform, in recent years, has always treated the party platform of the prior four years as a baseline out of a respect for the work activists have put into the platform for decades and because of long-standing commitments.
They apparently do not believe fighting for democracy reform, trans rights, and immigrants’ rights to be among “today’s challenges and opportunities.” Every omission is a choice.
KERRIGAN AND JACKSON: “The process began early in the year with nine listening sessions held for all Congressional Districts and was capped off with five Platform Hearings and multiple Platform Meetings that included more than 1,000 Democrats from every corner of the Commonwealth, including grassroots activists, union members, healthcare providers, educators, civil rights leaders, members of the LGBTQ+ community, immigration activists, local leaders and young people, shared their voices in hearings and testimony.”
COMMENT: In 2017, these platform hearings were in person. In 2021, due to COVID, they were all virtual. There was zero excuse to keep them all virtual this year and not offer the community-building of an in-person event.
Moreover, as I noted before, the 2021 platform process showed in committee what was being included on the basis of testimony. Having attended a platform hearing, I can say with full confidence that none of the deletions represent the will of a groundswell of party activists. People overwhelmingly want the party leaders to follow the platform: not by gutting the platform, but by leaders being bolder.
KERRIGAN AND JACKSON: “Platform Committee subcommittees worked deliberately and independently, issue by issue, to draft planks rooted in justice, equity, and dignity.”
COMMENT: Again, they do not speak to the decision to drop sections from the platform. A siloized process is actually a bad process, not a good one. Having been on the committee four years ago, I also know that a lot of people never show up.
KERRIGAN AND JACKSON: We want to address some concerns you may hear:
“The platform is watered down.” In fact, it is sharper and more forward-looking. Every section was built from scratch to reflect current realities and bold ideas.
COMMENT: There are almost no bold ideas in the platform. It is a milquetoast document that is arguably to the right of the national party platform, a travesty for one of the most liberal states. It is shorter (22 pages as opposed to 29, but still unreadably long), but is not “sharper.” The prose is worse. The health care section has paragraph-long bullet points that no one will read, and probably no one but the author ever did.
It is embarrassing, again, to hack out commitments to LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, and democracy and have the chutzpah to say you “reflect current realities.”
KERRIGAN AND JACKSON: “It leaves out key issues.” Housing is affirmed as a human right, tenant protections are strengthened, and racial justice is a cross-cutting principle embedded throughout. The platform explicitly supports LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive freedom, gender-affirming care, and civil rights for citizens, residents, and immigrants alike. These commitments are woven throughout the document, because they should be in everything we do.
COMMENT: It reduced references to LGBTQ from 13 to 1. The word “racial justice” appears only once. No tenant protection is named. Immigrants’ rights are reduced from a robust section with concrete commitments to a hand-waving paragraph of vague values statements. See all my commentary above. Saying that this did not leave out issues is a sign of obtuseness, illiteracy, or dishonesty. I don’t know which is most charitable.
KERRIGAN AND JACKSON: “The process wasn’t inclusive enough.” This was one of the most inclusive processes our Party has ever conducted, ensuring the platform reflects the full spectrum of Democratic voices in Massachusetts. The 2025 Platform Committee was the most diverse in modern times — demographically, geographically, and ideologically.
COMMENT: This line provides no evidence of this fact, and as I noted above, they did not do as good as a job of the 2021 committee at including feedback from hearings.
KERRIGAN AND JACKSON: “We should just keep the 2021 Platform.” The 2025 Platform is a platform for and by the people, not tied to the past, but charting a future on climate action, healthcare equity, racial justice, and protecting democracy. In addition, this Platform is meant to endure for the next four years.
COMMENT: The 2025 platform rolls back commitments to climate action, healthcare equity, racial justice, and protecting democracy found in the 2021 platform. The only ways in which the 2021 platform feel rooted in a *particular* time are the mentions of the killing of George Floyd and the insurrection on January 6th, and I would say both are pretty damn relevant still. The only stuff that is truly “new” in framing in 2025 is a preamble that misdiagnoses the loss of the 2024 election.
CONCLUSION
That Steve Kerrigan and Martina Jackson feel the need to send an email defending the platform to party activists is a sign that the platform is not a document worth praising or worth saving. If it were, it would stand on its own.
