Fully fund the VA, expand job training, and partner with businesses to get veterans hired. No one who served our country should struggle to get care or housing in Placer County

Bring broadband to rural communities. Expand job training and trade schools to prepare local workers for careers in energy, healthcare, and tech.

Promote conservation without burdensome regulation. Invest in wildfire prevention and forest management to protect our communities and natural resources.

Support a single-payer healthcare system so no Placer County family goes without care. Lower healthcare costs through competition and price transparency. Expand rural clinics and telehealth to give families better access.

Every child deserves a strong public education that teaches real skills, real history, and real science, without political interference. Let parents guide values, but let teachers teach the truth. Let the children learn.

Keep the government out of private family decisions. Support access to reproductive healthcare, including contraception and maternal care, so families can make informed choices based on their values.

Beware the Religious Extremists, Masquerading in Christian Clothing

Freedom from religious persecution was of such importance to the creators of our country that they enshrined the 1st Amendment to our Constitution to afford each of us total individual rights to religious choice. Americans deeply cherish this uniquely democratic right. On 9/11, when religious terrorists attacked our country, we all came together to recover and to repair our nation. We denounced these atrocious acts as unrepresentative of any religious doctrines, and recognized these were purely acts of violence and hate, trying to hide under the cover of religion.

Today, in Placer County, we are under attack again by religious extremists. These attacks are much more insidious! Now, they live among us, hiding under the clothing of Christian believers. Instead of planes, they have hijacked our public school boards. There is nothing Christian about the things they say and do. Their actions are rooted in racism, homophobia, misogyny, and patriarchy. They are intent on destroying the public school systems, piece by piece, until there is no money left in the coffers and no teachers or staff left, except those that will adhere to their doctrine of hate.  Their goal is to force all children to grow up in the very restrictive environment they envision for a compliant population.

This is not American. Nor is it Christian. This is fascism. It is imperative that we see it for what it is, an attack on the freedoms we hold most dear; we must exorcise this demonic despotism from our school boards. Demand that the leadership protect your children’s rights to a thorough and accurate education in a safe learning environment, free from religious extremism as our Constitution requires. Elect school board leaders who will put the needs of your children foremost, free from religious indoctrination.

by
Nick Bennett
PCDP Central Committee Member/Roseville Junction Democratic Club Chair

As a former infantry paratrooper in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, I have a well-founded respect for firearms. During basic training, our M4s were kept locked in the middle of our barracks room at night, only a dozen or so feet from where we slept, so that we could quickly take them out for training during the day. When I jumped from C-130s, my weapon was strapped to my side in a protective padding, which I then had to lower off of my body with my other equipment so that I could safely hit the ground. As I patrolled on foot in the middle of the night through the villages and farmland of Anbar Province in Iraq, I carried my four-man fire team’s M249 light machine gun. The smell of fireworks reminds me of the shooting ranges, as does the faint ringing that remains in my ear.

The power to take a life with the squeeze of a finger is an immense responsibility that should never be taken lightly. Firearms have an important role for protection, but far too often it seems like they are treated as toys and people who should not have them do. As a society, we should not be afraid to have an open discussion about what it means to be a responsible gun owner and user. We must not accept that there is nothing that we can do to prevent school shootings and the easy access to firearms by criminals. We are all affected by the misuse of firearms. The grief and fear that we experience are not the price of freedom but the intransigence to modernize what it means to keep and bear arms in today's society. Responsible gun ownership must not only mean safely protecting one’s self, but ensuring that one’s community is safe from gun violence as well.