Louisiana Republican Party Platform 2004
Preamble
The Louisiana Republican Party
represents the values of the majority of the
citizens of Louisiana.
We believe in the power and freedom of
individuals. We oppose all efforts to replace that
power with undue governmental control.
Our nation was founded on faith in God,
family, country, and freedom. Efforts to modify
or replace these core values erode the
foundations of our society for future generations.
The United States is a democratic
republic governed by elected representatives.
These Representatives must honor the original
meaning of our Constitution, and must protect
the inalienable rights of the American people as
stated in the Bill of Rights.
The Republican Party is strong,
principled and conservative. It is the Party that
should lead the state of Louisiana. We want to
represent every facet of American society, not by
patronage but by principle, and not by dividing
interests but by serving the good of all.
Membership in the Republican Party of
Louisiana is open to all citizens residing in our
state who share the values and beliefs expressed
in this document. We recognize a duty to include
all who share these values and beliefs, making a
special effort to welcome and involve those from
groups not traditionally associated with our
Party.
Article I: Economic Policy
1. We believe the free enterprise system is
the most effective and the most just economic
system known. Economic freedom is essential to
human liberty. Denying economic freedom
diminishes individual human dignity as well as
the general welfare.
2. Government ought to provide an
unencumbered environment for individual
initiative and private enterprise that creates jobs
and raises personal income. Government
regulation and taxation reduce and redistribute
income; they do not create it. We therefore
support efforts to benefit all by removing the
burden of excessive taxation and needless
bureaucratic regulations that hamper economic
growth.
3. We urge Congress to make immediate
and permanent the tax changes implemented in
2001 and 2003, which temporarily removed the
marriage penalty and the death tax and increased
the child tax credit.
4. We pay taxes to local, state and federal
governments that exceed what is necessary.
Government spending should not increase more
than population growth and inflation combined.
A Taxpayer Protection Act, incorporating this
principle, would result in an overall reduction in
tax rates.
5. The best way to promote economic
growth is to reduce the overall tax burden on
Louisiana's businesses and individuals.
6. When economic times are hard,
government must reduce spending. Raising taxes
to provide preferential treatment for some over
others is wasteful and unfair.
Article II: Family
1. We believe our nation's strength lies with
the family. The family is where each new
generation gains its moral anchor. It is the first
school of good citizenship, the engine of
economic progress, and a haven of security and
understanding in an ever-changing world.
2. We believe homosexuality should not be
established as an acceptable "alternative"
lifestyle either in public education or in public
policy. We do not believe public schools should
be used to teach children that homosexuality is
normal, and we do not believe that taxpayers
should fund benefit plans for unmarried partners.
We oppose special treatment by law based on
nothing other than homosexual behavior or
identity. We oppose actions, such as "marriage"
or the adoption of children by same-sex couples.
We support the Defense of Marriage Act and
support constitutional amendments to both the
U.S. and the Louisiana Constitutions to ensure
that marriage is limited to the union of one man
and one woman. We support limiting the
jurisdiction of Federal courts over questions
under the Defense of Marriage Act. We
commend private organizations, such as the Boy
Scouts, which defend moral decency and
freedom according to their own well-established
traditions and beliefs.
Article 111: Individual Liberty
1. The Republican Party of Louisiana
embraces the vision for America established by
our nation's founders — the authors of the
Declaration of Independence, the U. S.
Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
2. Our forefathers gave individuals four
ways to protect themselves against the power of
the state: (1) the soapbox (freedom of speech);
(2) the ballot box (the right to vote); (3) the jury
box (trial by peers); and (4) the cartridge box
(right to bear arms). The Republican Party of
Louisiana stands against efforts to erode these
freedoms.
3. We urge both the Congress and the state
legislature to pass legislation ending the ever-
increasing, incessant, and calculated collection
and dissemination of personal information on
law-abiding citizens. We believe that cataloging
and cross-indexing personal information such as
fingerprints. Social Security numbers, and
financial credit by agencies of government and
businesses — completely unrelated to criminal
activity — is contrary and destructive to our
individual and collective freedom and privacy.
However, we support efforts to identify and to
track terrorists, including provisions of the U.S.
Patriot Act which treat terrorists no more
favorably than organized criminals.
4. The state must not control or interfere
with our freedom of religion and the voluntary
expression thereof. We oppose efforts to remove
the recognition of God from our schools and
from our Pledge of Allegiance. State colleges
and universities should not discriminate for or
against any religion; and should not promote any
religion through required reading assignments or
courses.
5. Individual liberty and redistribution of
wealth are not compatible. We oppose restricting
the former for the sake of the latter.
6 Government should treat all citizens
fairly and impartially and should assure equal
opportunity for all without regard to wealth, race,
religion, gender, or national origin. We oppose
all forms of invidious discrimination. We also
oppose efforts to include sexual orientation as a
category for preferential treatment status under
civil rights statutes at any level of government.
Government must vigorously enforce individual
civil rights as guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution and by the Louisiana Constitution.
7 We strongly support the Second
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that
guarantees the right of free and law-abiding
citizens to keep and bear arms. We oppose any
government effort to restrict the ownership, sale,
purchase and "lawful carry" of firearms by law-
abiding citizens.
Article IV: Sanctity of Life
1. The Republican Party of Louisiana
believes strongly in the sanctity of all human
life.
2. We believe unborn children have
constitutional rights to life and liberty, and we
therefore urge the Supreme Court to overturn its
decision in Roe v. Wade . We also support the
adoption of a constitutional amendment
establishing that human life begins at
conception. We also support limiting the
jurisdiction of Federal Courts over questions
regarding the right to life. We stand with the
overwhelming majority of Americans who
oppose efforts to mandate legalized abortion or
to fund local, national, or international
organizations that provide or promote abortion
services. Abortion is never an acceptable method
of birth control.
3. We oppose the heinous procedure known
as partial-birth abortion. We applaud President
Bush and the majority of the Congress who
passed into law the federal Partial Birth Abortion
Ban. Furthermore, we urge members of the
Republican Party of Louisiana to support
financially, or with in-kind contributions, only
those candidates or nominees who support
measures to end partial-birth abortions.
4. We support and strongly encourage
positive alternatives to abortion, such as
adoption. We believe that biases against intact,
caring families should be eliminated from
adoption laws and tax codes. Adoption should be
encouraged through significant tax credits,
insurance reforms and legal reforms.
5. We oppose the erosion of parental rights
and responsibilities by agents of the state when it
comes to pregnant unmarried minors. Informed
consent and parental consent must be
prerequisite to any minor receiving evasive
medical treatment including abortion. We
strongly support the adherence to federal
guidelines that prevent the use of federal funds to
counsel for abortion.
6. We support all developments in
biomedical research and technology that enhance
and protect human life. But we oppose any new
development that does not treat all human life as
a precious gift of God, or that does not treat
every individual human life as a locus of unique
and irreplaceable dignity no matter how weak,
immature, or dependent.
7. We oppose all procedures in research and
medicine that involve the intentional destruction
of innocent human life. We also oppose the
cloning of whole human beings, the use of
human embryos in research for purposes other
than advancing their own health and safety, as
well as all forms of active euthanasia.
8. We urge the recruitment and support of
candidates who will work hard to protect all
innocent human life.
9. We support harsh criminal penalties for
women convicted of using illegal drugs while
they are pregnant, exposing their unborn to such
drugs. This has been proven to increase the rate
of birth defects.
Article V: State Government
1. The Republican Party of Louisiana
encourages our state legislature to be efficient,
effective, and responsive to the people as a part-
time citizen legislature.
2. Legislative session limits must be
accompanied by measures to ensure that policy
decisions are made by elected legislators and are
not made by un-elected state employees or
legislative staff.
3. Government should encourage citizens to
pursue happiness through honest, hard work and
should not be in the business of subverting the
rewards of honest labor. Therefore, we oppose
any expansion of legally sanctioned gambling.
4. The state lottery has capitalized on
broken dreams and personal irresponsibility, and
has placed the burden of taxation most heavily
on those who are least able to afford it. We
support repeal of the Louisiana Lottery.
5. We oppose passing un-funded mandates
at any level of government. We call on each
level of government to fully fund the programs
they establish or require of other levels of
government.
6. Elected officials should not appear in
"public service ads" funded in whole or in part
with state funds, unless that official has already
announced retirement from office.
7. All state funds should be used as
appropriated and subject to audit.
Article VI: Election Laws
1. The ballot box is the only true protection
citizens have against tyrannical abuse of power
by the state. The Democrat Party has used
insidious practices that deny the majority of
Louisiana citizens the honest representation they
deserve.
2. Voters should select government officials
and government officials should not select
voters. We therefore support reasonable,
compact, election districts and single-member
legislative districts that do not split parishes,
cities or towns unless absolutely necessary.
When the legislature does not follow state and/or
federal law when drawing districts, legal action
should be pursued.
3. The voters of Louisiana will make the
right choice at the ballot box when they have full
and timely information on candidates' campaign
finances. Prompt and accurate reporting is the
best campaign finance reform. We oppose
funding any election campaign with public
funds.
4. We support separate primary elections for
Republicans and Democrats.
5. We urge Congress to repeal the
Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, since
quite obviously abridges our freedom to speak
on core political subjects.
Article VII: Education
1. The Republican Party of Louisiana
believes strongly in the value of maintaining a
good system of education, including public,
private, religious and home schools. Good
education is impossible unless parents, not the
state, have control over where their children will
be educated.
2. Our current system of top-heavy,
bureaucratic, centrally planned public education
is failing to ensure the quality of education our
children need and deserve. Therefore, we support
measures that maintain the independence of
Louisiana schools from the federal government.
We support keeping all Louisiana education
dollars in Louisiana without going to maintain
unneeded bureaucrats at the national level.
3. Incremental change of this failing system,
augmented by higher taxes, higher spending, and
more regulation will not meet the needs of
Louisiana's future citizens.
4. Real education reform means local
control of curriculum, budget, textbook
selection, and personnel in the public schools.
We believe parents must have complete access to
all information concerning curriculum and
activities used in educating their children, and
we believe parents must have access to all
materials used for teacher development in the
public school system.
5. Real reform must also include defining
academic performance standards for both
students and teachers, cutting administrative
waste, and establishing part-time and alternative
teacher certification. Our students must have the
best possible teachers in the classroom. Teachers
should be paid, retained, and promoted based on
the quality of their work, not on the length of
their service; to that end, we support abolition of
teacher tenure.
6. Students are not served by the ideological
indoctrination inherent in outcome-based
education. All children should be able to read
and write at grade level and all high school
graduates should be proficient at the twelfth
grade level rather than at the eighth grade level
currently allowed by the state. We believe the
"No Child Left Behind" law has the correct goal
of requiring schools to educate all children to
grade level. Social promotion should be
eliminated because it hurts children by
promoting them before they are prepared for the
next grade.
7. All schools should encourage patriotism
and knowledge of the traditional values of
Western civilization upon which our republic is
based. We oppose using public dollars, to fund
liberal attempts at social engineering contrary to
the foundations on which our nation rests. We
support daily recitation of the Pledge of
Allegiance in our schools, and we believe every
classroom should display an American flag and a
copy of our national motto — "In God We
Trust."
8. Republicans oppose mandatory sex
education in public schools and believe sex
education should not be included in any public
school program without obtaining prior informed
written parental consent from parents or
guardians. Where sex education is included, we
support teaching abstinence until marriage as the
expected norm for acceptable sexual behavior.
National studies have shown that the majority of
Americans agree with this approach. The
practice of abstinence until marriage is the only
effective way to prevent teenage pregnancies,
absentee fathers, abortion, and sexually
transmitted diseases. It is also the most effective
way to create healthy relationships and healthy
self-esteem among young people.
9. We oppose the provision of school-based
social services, including school-based clinics
and mental health programs, which attempt to
bypass parental authority and responsibility.
10. Just as discourse on public policy relies
on moral principles based on spiritual
convictions, so also learning must rely on moral
principles supported by our deepest convictions.
We support the right of students to engage in
voluntary prayer in school and the right of others
to pray as well at public occasions such as
commencement exercises. We also strongly
support equal access to school facilities.
11. Louisiana has traditionally provided
affordable higher education to its citizens. But
taxpayers should not be required to fund higher
education for illegal immigrants.
12. We oppose the restriction of free speech
and free assembly by public educational
institutions on ideological or religious grounds.
Article VIII: Justice
1. One of the first duties of government is
maintaining law and order, thereby allowing
citizens freedom to pursue the blessings of life
and liberty.
2. Law-abiding citizens often live in fear of
crime in their neighborhoods and schools. By
better allocation of resources and tax dollars, the
crime rate can be reduced and the state can
ensure the rights of innocent people and victims,
as well as the legitimate rights of the accused.
We support the principle of victim's rights,
including restitution and notification.
3. The Republican Party of Louisiana
believes that capital punishment, when properly
applied, is a legitimate form of punishment for
the most severe and heinous crimes. When
applied, capital punishment should be swift and
unencumbered. We call for legislation to
drastically reduce the time between death
sentence and executions that lasts for years and
years making a mockery of the law.
4. We support military-style boot camps
and prisons with less attention to inmate comfort
and more direction toward security, labor, and
education. Prison labor should be used for
construction of the facilities when possible. All
inmates should be required to work and pay for
their incarceration, including reasonable payment
for health and dental care.
5. As more individuals have abandoned
responsibility for their children, the cost to
responsible citizens has increased. We support
efforts to force "dead-beat" parents to meet their
financial obligations.
6. We support measures to deny jurisdiction
to federal courts in the areas of marriage and the
right to life.
Article IX: Environment
1. We affirm our continuing commitment to
stewardship of our God-given natural heritage
that contributes so much to the quality of life in
Louisiana. Republicans believe we all have a
duty to protect air quality, water quality,
productive forests, and abundant wildlife.
2. In general, we believe that extending and
enforcing private property rights protects the
environment better than increasing government
regulation. To the extent government regulation
is needed, it should be flexible and not proceed
without first proving that the ecological benefits
of new regulations warrant the cost.
3. When government takes the economic
value of property by environmental regulatory
action, it should compensate landowners in
proportion to their loss.
4. Environmental policy should be based on
sound science, not trendy pseudo-science. We
should be more concerned with results than
intentions.
5. The coastal wetlands, waters and barrier
shorelines of Louisiana are vital to the
communities, cultures, economies, and natural
heritage of this state and this nation - they are
truly America's Wetland. This great treasure is
disappearing at a rate of nearly 24 square miles
each year. We recognize that without prompt
and effective action America's Wetland and the
communities and way of life that are part of it
will cease to exist, as we know them. The State
of Louisiana with its Federal and local partners is
in the process of developing a comprehensive
plan and program to stem the collapse of
America's Wetland and restore it to a state of
sustainable ecologic, cultural, and economic
vibrancy. It will take the commitment and
leadership of national, state, and local elected
officials to shape and implement that plan and
program. The Republican Party has a long
history of leadership in the areas of conservation,
environmental stewardship and the promotion of
community values and economic progress. We
propose that the Louisiana Republican Party
make the restoration and stewardship of coastal
Louisiana which will result in a coast that is
ecologically, culturally and economically vibrant
and sustainable a goal.
Article X: National Policy
1. We support our President in all phases of
the War on Terror, including preventing rogue
nations from having or obtaining weapons of
mass destruction. We support our troops as they
fight our enemies. Americans owe our continued
freedom and security to the deeds of these brave
men and women.
2. The most important responsibility of the
federal government assigned in the U.S.
Constitution is "to provide a common defense"
for the states and the nation. Our borders must be
made more secure. The federal government
should actively enforce its immigration laws
3. America's defense must be our top
priority. The Republican Party of Louisiana
opposes any attempts to weaken our national
defense.
4. We oppose any foreign effort to influence
our elections process and our ability to govern
ourselves.
5. American participation in the United
Nations, or any other international body, must
never sacrifice the constitutional sovereignty of
the United States. Therefore, we oppose
relinquishing U.S. freedom and independence to
any organization or agency claiming authority to
impose and enforce global regulations or
standards upon the United States of America.
The United States will never require a
permission slip from the United Nations.
6. The Republican Party of Louisiana
recognizes the need for legally binding treaties
between nations, but we only support treaties
that preserve American freedom and
independence and are consistent with serving the
common good of our people. Therefore, we
strongly support efforts by President George W.
Bush to revise or withdraw from any treaty that
compromises our constitutional sovereignty, that
undermines national defense, or that hinders
American companies from competing
internationally on a free-market basis.
7. As Republicans, we support non-defense
spending cuts as the right means to balance the
federal budget and tax rate reductions as the right
way to stimulate the economy.
8. Individuals should work in return for
public assistance. Advances in technology now
make it possible to administer gradual removal
of welfare benefits so that one can gain more
from working in the private sector than staying
in a workfare program. Our nation needs to
change from a welfare state to an opportunity
society.
9. We share President George W. Bush's
commitment to keep faith with both the past and
the future by saving Social Security. We oppose
annual raids on Social Security trust funds, and
we support protecting these funds by balancing
the federal budget apart from Social Security
reserves, which should be entirely dedicated
toward meeting future obligations. We support
innovative solutions offered by President George
W. Bush that will strengthen Social Security by
offering today's workers more choice and
control over their own retirement security, but in
ways that do not harm anyone already on Social
Security or anyone who is now close to being
eligible for Social Security benefits.
10. We believe all Americans need access to
high-quality healthcare at affordable prices with
a range of options from which they can choose
what is best for their own needs. Government
should do nothing to harm the quality of
healthcare in the private sector. Therefore, we
support efforts to enhance available healthcare
by balancing public policy with private-sector
enterprise and personal responsibility. We do not
believe free healthcare should be provided to
illegal immigrants except for emergency
services.
11. Government actions on healthcare must
always complement and never supplant the
private sector and always support and never
hinder individual and family responsibilities. We
support medical savings accounts as a good
innovation because they combine personal
responsibility with access to affordable
healthcare.
12. The only honest and correct approach to
the interpretation of our constitution
and laws require keeping faith with their original
intent. We call on Congress, the President, and
the courts to abide by the Ninth and Tenth
Amendment's constraints on federal power, and
to oppose and reverse federal encroachments
upon all powers and rights the Constitution of
the United States has reserved to the states, or to
the people.
13. We support the deportation of illegal
immigrants.
3. May we always enjoy the heritage and
bounties with which we are now so richly
blessed in the state of Louisiana.
Conclusion
1. We are proud to be citizens of the United
States of America — a nation that has become
the greatest in history because it is a nation built
on the promise of freedom and opportunity for
all. We pledge eternal vigilance in guarding the
freedoms and opportunities now enjoyed by
every citizen.
2. We open our arms to every citizen who
shares the beliefs and values stated in this
platform. We invite all Louisiana citizens to join
the ranks of the Republican Party of Louisiana, a
mighty force for the conservative values and
vision that make us a nation that is good and
great. We believe the values of the Republican
Party embody the American Dream that brought
our forefathers to this land and that draws people
from all over the world to our shores today, and
that is the vision that makes the United States of
America the best and brightest nation on earth.
