Candidate Questions for Review

Note to organizers: Each question asks respondents to indicate whether they strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree. Space is provided to provide comments if they wish. If you’d like to submit the electronic version to a candidate for their response, email us at FLXjustice21 AT gmail DOT com.  

Introduction to Questionnaire

Finger Lakes Justice Partnership is a grassroots community activist and resilience organization based in Yates County and with active membership across the region.  We are an explicitly progressive collective, and as such, we are committed to supporting transparency in the democratic process at every level.  It is in that spirit that we are contacting you.

We respectfully request that you respond to this questionnaire carefully, thoughtfully, and authentically so that we can then report on how much or how little any given candidate aligns with our values on the important issues it highlights.

Those issues touch on topics being vigorously debated at every level of the government and throughout our country’s fractured public square.  We hope that every candidate who responds does so with the understanding that while some of these issues may seem remote to their constituents, many of the kinds of people affected by them live, work, and recreate in our communities, whether visibly or not.  Please note that even if the role you are seeking has no apparent direct impact on a given issue, we are still interested in your opinion on it.

The questionnaire is unapologetically progressive in its point of view, and represents a part of our effort to reclaim a portion of the public discourse for progressive thought and expression.  We believe that if groups like the NRA or the Moms for Liberty can rate and rank candidates for public office on the basis of their right-wing, reactionary, and destructive priorities, then progressives, too long smeared as somehow “out of touch” or “controversial,” must claim the right to publicly assess candidates based on our values of diversity, inclusion, and the common good.

Whatever your political affiliation or ideological position, the American people are hungering for leaders and representatives who lean into authenticity and directness.    A great deal of our current political discord can be traced back to the idea that it is “improper” to discuss opinions on certain issues openly. On the contrary, our democracy will be stronger if we all stand firmly behind our values.  To that end, please submit your responses to this questionnaire at your earliest convenience for analysis and public reporting; if you wish, you can choose to release your responses directly as well.Thank you.

Respectfully submitted,

The Finger Lakes Justice Partnership planning team

PLEASE NOTE: Responses to this questionnaire are NOT to be considered private. We intend to use them to share your current positions on these issues with voters and the general public.  Any additional comments you include may be quoted directly in future communications from FLXJP.  Formats we share your responses in may include, but may not be limited to, columns in local newspapers, social media posts, content in our newsletter and/or website, on signs, pamphlets, brochures, or other such print material, or in one-on-one communications.  We may use your responses in isolation from other candidates’ responses and/or in concert with them.  We will not misrepresent any of your responses.

The Questionnaire

Health.

1. It is important that our elected leaders recognize that access to affordable, quality healthcare is a human right to which every person in the US is entitled without government intrusion, and that the current structure of the insurance industry is unequal and unjust.
2. It is important that our elected leaders recognize that access to reproductive healthcare is a human right to which every person in the US is entitled without government intrusion.
3. It is important that our elected leaders work to address the danger – tragically obvious from the current measles outbreak – posed by disinformation-fueled vaccine skepticism, skepticism that directly threatens community wellness and undoes generations of sound public health policy.
4. It is important that our elected leaders act to ensure that transgender and nonbinary individuals have equal access to public accommodations such as bathrooms, the right to control over their own bodies, the right to safety through tailored anti-violence and victim support policies, and civil rights guaranteed at the federal level through a designated Justice Department liaison (all of which comprise the core provisions of the Transgender Bill of Rights resolution just reintroduced to Congress).

Intellectual freedom.

1. It is important that our elected leaders recognize the public’s constitutional right to free speech, to protest government policies, to practice those rights in public spaces, and to witness and record government actions to which they object, while rejecting current efforts to stifle and even criminalize speech and protest falsely deemed “extremist.”
2. It is important that our elected leaders ensure that diverse materials and ideas are included in school curricula and in school and public libraries so that children can become acquainted with the diversity in the world around them, as well as to provide all students the opportunity to see themselves and their families represented in media.
3. It is important that our elected leaders recognize that, when challenges are made to materials in school and public library collections, teachers and librarians have the professional expertise to choose appropriate curricula and books for their students and patrons, and that their policies and procedures should guide all decisions about how such matters are resolved.
4. It is important that our elected leaders recognize that the extreme religious right is making false claims about this country’s ties to Christianity and the first amendment separation clause, lies that are intended to elevate one religion above others and to allow for the policing of communities that are regarded as in violation of that religion’s tenets.

Equality & rights.

1. It is important that our elected leaders recognize the basic human rights of everyone in this country to bodily autonomy, reproductive freedom, access to healthcare (including gender affirming care), housing, education, and meaningful work.
2. It is important that our elected leaders be aware of the institutional bigotry embedded in our country’s laws, policies, institutions, and police actions from its founding, which has historically subordinated non-white communities including Native Americans, African Americans and immigrants, and that they work actively to dismantle it.
3. It is important that our elected leaders ensure residents and visitors safe and equitable access to all public and commercial attractions in our communities, no matter their physical ability or identity.
4. It is important that our elected leaders address the fact that the rising costs of housing, with the commensurate growth in the unhoused population, requires swift and decisive action from governments and agencies at all levels to lower prices and increase the availability of affordable places to live.
5. It is important that increasing costs of food and rates of hunger in our communities be addressed by serious investment and action on the part of local elected officials, alongside federal action and grassroots mutual aid.
6. It is important that our elected leaders resolve not to provide local cooperation with federal efforts to unjustly detain and deport immigrants (or those falsely perceived to be immigrants), through ICE or other similar agencies, in order to maintain the Finger Lakes as a safe, healthy, and prosperous community with trusting relationships between law enforcement and all residents.
7. It is important that our elected leaders decry hatred and bigotry in all its forms, including (but not limited to) racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and antisemitism, recognizing them – and not corrective efforts such as DEI programs or CRT studies – as the corrosive source of division and violence that mar our society.
8. It is imperative that our elected leaders disavow the “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen, disavow the false claim that there is widespread voter fraud in this country, and oppose any legislation that would unjustly disenfranchise Americans or impede their ability to cast their ballots.

Global issues.

1. It is important that our elected leaders affirm that peoples experiencing genocide, no matter where in the world it is taking place, deserve recognition and support, and that discussions of genocide not be discouraged, quashed, silenced, or met with unfair accusations of any kind of unrelated animus or bias.
2. It is important that our elected leaders recognize the tragic loss of international aid programs decimated by Elon Musk’s “DOGE” initiatives such as USAID and PEPFAR – not just in terms of damage done to the nation’s capacity for security-bolstering soft power, but especially in terms of the horrific and avoidable loss of innocent life their cessation caused – and that they use whatever means at their disposal to restore them as soon as possible.
3. It is important that our elected leaders understand that all people everywhere have the right to clean air, water, land, and a food supply free from toxins, and that individuals and corporations should be required to adhere to standards that ensure that.
4. It is important that our elected leaders recognize the importance of green spaces to quality of life, both in our communities and around the globe, and support restricting public lands from resource extraction by the government or corporations.
5. It is important that our elected leaders recognize the true threat to the prosperity of the working class is not immigrants, transgender people, the proponents of DEI-informed programs and education, or any other current scapegoat, but rather the billionaire class of the top 1% – an artificially sustained parasite class that rigs our political system, contributes disproportionately to dangerous climate change emissions, utilizes big data to keep us distracted and divided, and, as increasingly revealed through the release of the Epstein Files, traffics and traumatizes our children.

Identifying information.

Name:

Current elected office, if any:

Relevant past elected offices, if any:

Office sought in current election: