(The Center Square) – Nearly three weeks after the Washington State Democratic Party adopted a controversial party platform that supports reparations and made anti-Israel statements, Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad told The Center Square they are excited to be leading the nation with their platform.
“Proud that it appears to be that we’re the first state in the country to take up making sure reparations were a part of our platform,” Conrad said. “It was very much driven by our black caucus and members of the Democrats for diversity and inclusion group. I feel like all credit goes to them.”
More than 1,000 participating delegates at the Spokane conference voted unanimously to approve the party platform, which includes the study and implementation of reparations.
“I think that folks recognize that, you know, justice needs to be served and we need to address the long term effects of slavery in this country and we need to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to uplift the descendants of the African American community, not just in Washington State, but in the entire country,” she said.
In recent years, Washington lawmakers have provided funding to study and implement reparations programs.
In 2025, lawmakers earmarked $300,000 in the state budget for a study to explore the “history and impact of slavery” in the U.S. and focus on the geography of the Washington and Oregon territories.
The study is considering possible cash payments, policy reforms, state-level investments and recommendations to reform state law.
Truclusion of DuPont was selected as the contractor for the study. They began work in January of this year and as of the end of June, they provided a progress report to the Washington Department of Commerce, stating they had completed four monthly informational sessions, launched two community surveys, began collecting research data and developed a community engagement work plan.
The next community informational meeting is July 10 at noon. The Reparations Study is expected to be completed on June 30, 2027.
Washington Democrats also adopted an anti-Israel position in their new party platform, including language blaming the Jewish state for rising antisemitism, which has not gone over well with Jewish members of their own party.
Those platform additions were reportedly made without consulting members of the Democratic Jewish Caucus.
Senator Jesse Salomon, co-chair of the caucus, told Jerusalem News Syndicate “As co-chair of the Jewish legislative caucus, I heard nothing about this from the state party. It is very disappointing that they would speak for us without including us.”
Conrad told The Center Square they have heard those concerns.
“We never want any members of our community to feel that anything that’s in our platform is something that causes them harm or pain or anything like that. So certainly, we take the concern seriously.”
She said there were opportunities and deadlines for members to provide feedback going into the convention.
“We did on our side everything that we could to try to include our Jewish caucus members to include the perspectives of Jewish community members and making sure that we had a platform that didn’t harm them,” said Conrad. “But truly it was driven by our delegates….and it passed basically unanimously.”
Washington Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh of Aberdeen told The Center Square, Washington Democrats are in desperate trouble with this platform.
“They’ve been hijacked by radical, irrational leftists. There’s no other way to say it. They are communists and they’re pushing a Vladimir, Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Saul Alinski agenda,” said Walsh.
“It’s one of the ironies that they demand reparations to people but at the same time they want to open the borders to open immigration. It is inherently and internally inconsistent,” he added.
As to the anti-Semitic platform policies, Walsh says it’s more evidence the Democratic party has been hijacked by radicals.
“Blaming Israel for the violence in the Middle East. Saying they brought it on themselves when they were attacked by terrorists. It’s crazy stuff and a testament to how the party has been commandeered by communists.”