Dear Candidate:

The Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) – a growing national interfaith movement of religious, spiritual, and secular people who want an America rooted in love, compassion, generosity, and ecological sensitivity – invites you to respond to a questionnaire on issues important to NSP members. This same invitation is being sent to your opponents in this race.

A public service of NSP, which neither supports nor opposes any political party or candidate, this questionnaire will be used for educational purposes only, providing voters with the information they need to vote responsibly. We will share your response with our members and make it as broadly available to the public as possible through churches, synagogues, mosques, community centers, colleges and universities, and media. Local chapters of the NSP have been invited to add other questions that apply to the specifics of your intended role in government. The NSP will not endorse candidates, but it will distribute this information widely, including information about which candidates did or did not respond.

The first 100 words of your response to each question will be reprinted verbatim. We may choose to summarize the rest. Use additional paper as needed and mail your response by October 1, to the address below, or e-mail to nichola@tikkun.org (or add here the local chapter or group coordinating this effort in your area).

1. War in Iraq: Do you believe the U.S. should have a timetable for bringing the troops home from Iraq, and that full withdrawal/redeployment occur within calendar year 2007?
( ) Yes ( ) No Why, or why not?


2. New Bottom Line: The NSP is calling for a new bottom line in America, by which organizations, corporations, social and governmental practices, and legislation would be judged rational, efficient, and productive not only to the extent that they maximize money and power (the old bottom line), but also to the extent that they increase our capacities to be loving and caring, kind and generous, ethically and ecologically sensitive, able to see others as embodiments of the sacred and able to respond to the universe with gratitude, awe, and wonder. Would you work to implement this “New Bottom Line”?
( ) Yes ( ) No How would you implement it?


3. Strong Families: Do you agree that strong families will be supported if we reward institutions and social practices that promote love and caring in our work places, economic policies, government and corporate practices, and our educational system?
( ) Yes ( ) No How would you promote such institutions and practices?



4. Health Care: Do you support the call for a federal government-sponsored single-payer national health care program?
( ) Yes ( ) No Why, or why not?


5. Education: Would you support legislation aimed at restructuring educational priorities, so that in addition to teaching basic academic skills, schools gave high attention to teaching students to be socially, ethically, and ecologically responsible, caring toward others, kind, generous, loving, non-violent in their behavior and their speech, and responsive to and grateful for and in awe of the grandeur of the universe?
( ) Yes ( ) No Why, or why not?


6. Global Poverty: Would you support a plan to allocate 5% of our gross domestic product (GDP) each year for the next twenty years to ending global as well as domestic poverty and inadequate health care and education?
( ) Yes ( ) No Why, or why not?


7. Social Responsibility Amendment: Do you support legislation that would require every large corporation (income over $50 million/year) to get a new charter every ten years, with the charter being granted only to those corporations that could prove a satisfactory history of social responsibility to a jury of ordinary citizens?
( ) Yes ( ) No Why, or why not? To what practices would you want such a jury to give particular attention?

8. Social Responsibility Impact Legislation: Would you support the SRI—legislation that would require than any corporation applying for public funds in excess of $100,000 to file a Social Responsibility Impact report describing the steps they’ve taken to increase social responsibility in the way that they treat their employees, the choice of products they produce or services they provide, and their impact on the ethical and ecological climate of the communities where their products are advertised or bought. In awarding the contract, the government office would take into account their history of social responsibility as presented by them and also as described in SRI reports filed by their employees and by community organizations in the communities affected by their activities.
( ) Yes ( ) No Why, or why not?


9. Modeling Personal Responsibility: Do you support the NSP’s call for elected officials and their staffs to give a few hours during each work week to hands-on service to the needy, for example in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter?
( ) Yes ( ) No Why, or why not?

10. Hunger for Meaning: The Network of Spiritual Progressives holds that people have meaning needs that are as important to them, if not more so, than their economic needs. In what ways would you give priority to the need for meaning and what role might government play in this process? What higher meaning and purpose would be given higher priority if you had power to influence the shape of our economic life beyond the goals of accumulation of wealth and material goods?

11. Global Warming: What specific policies do you support to save our planet from ecological degradation and to dramatically reduce and reverse global warming?


12. Values in the Public Sphere: What values do you think should be encouraged by our government, schools, and social policy? How would you exemplify those values as an elected official? Or do you believe that the introduction of any values are a slippery slope toward undermining the first amendment separation clause? Explain your views on the separation of church and state and the role of values in the public sphere.

Please return a copy of your answers on this and subsequent sheets of paper which you may add. Your opponents in this race are also being sent this questionnaire. Send to our local NSP chapter which has identified your race as one in which these questions should be asked at….. and to our national office: nichola@tikkun.org by email or NSP Questionnaire c/o NSP, 2342 Shattuck Ave, Suite 1200, Berkeley, Ca. 94704