VP candidate for Humane Party (2016)
Running mate with nominee: Clifton Lee Roberts (b. 1967)
Popular vote: 103 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
The Humane Party was founded in 2009 with a mission to champion their concept of animal rights and protection. They ran their first Presidential ticket of Clifton Roberts and Breeze Harper in the 2016 election. The Humane Party's platform for that election year read as follows--
2016-7 Humane Party Platform
The Humane Party has adopted the following simple set of resolutions as the Humane Party's 2016-2017 platform. We have:
RESOLVED that appropriate legislation be enacted and appropriate governmental action taken so as to:
-require balanced federal, state, and territorial budgets, subject to narrowly tailored exceptions.
-replace the electoral college system with democratic election of the U.S. President through ratification of the Democracy for America Amendment ("Democracy Amendment").
-ensure equality under federal, state, and territorial law, such equality including but not limited to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and marriage equality, through, inter alia, ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment II ("ERA2").
-end non-emergency-based use of toxic, hazardous, and economically untenable fuels and energy production methods, such fuels and methods including but not limited to "fossil" fuels and nuclear fission, such legislation and action including but not limited to:
1. replacing such fuels and methods with alternatives that serve the nation’s immediate and long-term economic and national security interests; and, to the degree possible,
2. remedying, both independently from and in concert with the international community, the harms heretofore caused by such fuels and methods.
-defend the nation's air, land, and water resources against further contamination and depletion, such defense including but not limited to:
1. prevention of anthropogenic effects on air quality, soil quality, and water quality beyond those inherent to humans as organisms;
2. establishment of zero-landfill waste management systems in all U.S. jurisdictions;
3. preservation of the remaining ecosystems of which the nation is a part, including development and pursuit of international agreement to the Non-Militarization of Animals Treaty ("NMAT");
4. protection of the remaining species who inhabit such ecosystems, including, until the Abolition Amendment has rendered such measures moot, emancipating and granting legal personhood to all animals on public lands, through passing of the Live Animal National Defense Act ("LAND Act"); and, to the degree possible,
5. revitalization of such ecosystems and remediation of such anthropogenic effects.
-cultivate the nation's excellence in education, scholarship, and personal and professional development, such legislation and action including but not limited to:
1. fostering humane education; and,
2. until the Abolition Amendment has rendered such measures moot, denying public funding and privileged tax status to any institution that engages in vivisection or any other form of killing, exploitation, or abuse of animals through, inter alia, passing of the Humane Education Advances Research, Technology, and Science Act ("HEARTS Act").
-enhance national security, such legislation and action including but not limited to:
1. implementing the fiscal, energy, ethical, and environmental policies detailed herein;
2. modernizing the U.S. approach to national security so as to achieve both greater security and lower costs;
3. maximizing the value received by taxpayers from defense expenditures by replacing animal-based products with plant-based products in all national security contexts; and
4. eliminating systems and practices that create profit motives to engage in war or to encourage other nations to engage in war.
-modernize intellectual property and freedom-of-information laws, such legislation and action including but not limited to:
1. harmonization of copyright and trademark law with patent law such that private causes of action for infringement remain but criminal penalties that include possibility of incarceration are eliminated;
2. guaranteeing of free, immediate, and unrestricted public access to all information produced by or in collaboration with any governmental entity or any tax-exempt entity, including but not limited to any private academic institution that benefits from tax exemption, except upon a clear and convincing demonstration by the party in possession of such information that such access would present an immediate and articulable threat to national security;
3. eliminating
1. copyright eligibility for any audible or visible recording of purposeful, knowing, or reckless violence by a human against another animal; and
2. trademark eligibility for any good or service involving such violence through passing of the Violence Is Not Entertainment Act ("VINE Act"); and
4. protection of whistleblowers who expose illegal governmental practices against governmental retaliation.
-end inhumane and fiscally unsound criminal investigation, trial, sentencing, and incarceration systems and practices, such legislation and action including but not limited to:
1. repeal of so-called "Three Strikes" laws and other inhumane mandatory sentencing laws;
2. repeal of the so-called "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act" (AETA), "Ag-Gag" laws, and other attempts to suppress speech, expressive conduct, and political dissent;
3. elimination of the death penalty;
4. maximizing the value received by taxpayers from criminal justice expenditures by replacing animal-based products with plant-based products in all criminal justice contexts; and
5. elimination of systems and practices that create profit motives to incarcerate people or keep them incarcerated.
-end inhumane, scientifically indefensible, and economically unsound exploitation of other species by humans, such legislation and action including but not limited to, until the Abolition Amendment has rendered such measures moot:
1. elimination of both domestic trade in and import/export of sentient beings, regardless of species through, inter alia, passage of the Borders Act;
2. elimination of torture, mutilation, and slaughter of such beings;
3. elimination of both domestic and foreign trade in products resulting from or obtained by way of such exploitation, such products including dead body parts of animals and live animal secretions; and
4. elimination of services that include or are provided by way of such exploitation, such services including experiments performed on live animals and entertainment events that include live animals through, inter alia, ratification of the American Primate Emancipation Amendment ("APE Amendment").
-abolish the property status of ("emancipate") other animals by either:
1. explicitly recognizing all other animals as fully protected individuals under the 13th Amendment prohibition of slavery; or
2. ratifying a new Constitutional amendment emancipating all other animals, namely, the Abolition Amendment.
-grant legal standing and personhood to all other animals, such that an animal’s liberty can be procured by way of a habeas corpus proceeding and his or her rights can be enforced through a duly authorized legal guardian.
-end inhumane, scientifically indefensible, and economically unsound practices with respect to genetically modified organisms ("GMO"), such legislation and action including but not limited to:
1. banning genetic modification of animals;
2. banning all GMO from the food supply, including anything that may be consumed by humans or other animals, whether wild or domestic, whether intentionally or accidentally;
3. destroying all GMO crops and seeds that have already been released into contact with the natural environment; and
4. imposing strict liability on all parties whose conduct causes any GMO contact with the natural environment.
-allow humans, in appropriate cases of terminal, incurable and chronically painful illnesses, to exercise a right to die, including but not limited to a right to physician-assisted suicide.
-recognize, through passing of the Genocide Recognition and Reparations Act,
1. the European invasion of the land masses now under U.S. jurisdiction as comprising a series of unprovoked acts of war and genocide; and
2. the transatlantic human slave trade and the institution of human slavery itself as comprising a series of unprovoked acts of war and genocide; such legislation and action including but not limited to:
1. removal of the names and likenesses of chief perpetrators and enablers of these wrongs from all places of honor, such places including but not limited to U.S. currency and landmarks; and
2. establishment of, on behalf of the true and rightful descendants of victims of these wrongs, an agency tasked with designing and implementing a comprehensive system for remedying, to the extent possible, these wrongs; wherein:
the remedies so provided shall be provided exclusively by the U.S. federal government and preempt all other remedies within the U.S.; and
the U.S. federal government shall subrogate to all claims adjudicated pursuant to this section and be empowered to seek contribution from those nations who participated in or profited from these wrongs.
In regards to the nature and conduct of the Humane Party organization itself, we have further RESOLVED to continue to:
-accept only those officers and board members and endorse only those candidates for public office who have committed to:
lead their lives in accord with humane values, such values requiring, inter alia, adherence to what is popularly called a "vegan" and "cruelty-free" lifestyle;
pursue and achieve those political and legal solutions that accord with such values, such solutions including, inter alia, abolishing the property status of all other animals; and
oppose and defeat all proposed courses of action that would, if followed, conflict with such values.
-strive to embody and practice such values, both as individuals and as an organization.
-imbue our organizational procedures, protocols, practices, and publications with such values.
-treat all sentient beings as literal constituents while developing a formal representation structure through which these constituents’ political interests can be fully represented through permanent voting power wielded by and through their duly determined legal guardians.
-reject financial contributions from corporations, regardless of what campaign finance laws may hereafter permit, and regardless of the business or nature of a given corporation.
-encourage and empower vegan, abolitionist insurgencies within the other U.S. political parties through, inter alia, committing to withdraw our own candidate from a race for public office in favor of another qualified party's qualified vegan, abolitionist candidate for that office according to the TIpping-Point Provision.
-encourage leaders of other political parties to commit their parties to abolition.
-encourage the founding and cultivation of vegan, abolitionist political parties and the election of vegan, abolitionist candidates in other countries.
-develop legislation, such as the ERA2 and the Abolition Amendment, that can be independently embraced and promoted by anyone who wishes to serve the best interests of the country, regardless of his or her political party affiliation.
-celebrate American Abolition Day (Abolition Day) on December 6 of each year, in both
1. commemoration of the end of human slavery in the United States and
2. anticipation of the end of all slavery throughout the United States and throughout the world.
SO WE HAVE RESOLVED on February 27, 2016, and this draft WE HAVE RATIFIED on April 9, 2016, with the intent for publication on Humane Party Platform Day, April 22, 2016.
Clifton Roberts, a Silicon Valley executive and long-time vegan, filed with the FEC on Nov. 12, 2015 for President as the first Presidential nominee of the Humane Party. In 2016, his running-mate Breeze Harper was selected.
Harper, who had been labeled a "critical race, decolonial, and black feminist theorist," was also a vegan. Hers was an intersectional view, and Harper's emphasis on broader social justice issues created some kickback from some of the Party's single-issue advocates. One anti-Harper petition declared--
The Humane Party gives people another choice in the political spectrum, and gives people who wish to see laws created for the benefit of non human animals be top priority. The vice presidential candidate has many videos and work that highlights her focus only on color politics, racism, and this in no way represents most of the United States, where people get along, outside of the academic bubble in which the candidate choice, A. Breeze Harper, lives. The Humane Party should be inclusive to all people in the United States, and not cause divisions, nor demonize any particular race or gender. The vice president should never speak down to particular groups of people, but should instead, unite everyone in the goal of making the United States a place where all people can live harmoniously together, and with the animals. The goal of the Humane Party should be to prioritize laws that will represent animals, and to make giving animals the rights to their own bodies. People don't want to hear anymore about the divisions of colors in the US. Vegans care about all people getting along, but mostly about giving animals more rights than objects, only to serve humanity. Thank you.
Throughout American political history, third parties have struggled with single-issue focus advocates vs. Big Picture activists with the Prohibition Party being a classic example. The Humane Party was no exception.
Registered as write-ins, The ticket earned 88 votes in New York and 15 in Minnesota.
Election history: none
Other occupations: author, speaker, consultant, workshop facilitator, Critical Diversity Solutions
Notes:
From what I gather, both candidates were California residents, which would have posed a potential Constitutional problem in the event of their victory.
